How to Create an Engaging On-Demand Webinar with OpenReel and Drift
In our latest on-demand webinar, agency VMG Studios uses OpenReel to expand its video offerings, we used OpenReel Capture to interview client VMG about how the agency has embraced remote production, integrated it into their workflow, and provided more value to and grown their clientbase by utilizing the tech. This on-demand webinar allows our audiences to watch on their own time, and a custom Drift chatbot replaces the traditional Q&A. By following a similar approach to your own webinars, you can engage with prospects, nurture leads, and easily communicate with clients, without working around different timezones or competing with daily meeting schedules.
Read through how we created this webinar and then view our innovative on-demand webinar checklist to easily create on-demand webinars of your own.
Plan your webinar shoot
We started by setting up a pre-production call with our internal host, our VMG host, our video Director, and the Marketing team reps who needed to be present. Like any other pre-pro conversation, this call focused on the flow of the interview, important talking points we wanted to discuss, filming equipment, including the two hosts’ external mics and filming equipment (OpenReel’s host had a DSLR, while VMG’s had an iPhone 12), and important day-of logistics. In regards to the logistics, to film, we had to work around three different time zones, but, since the final webinar would be on-demand, we thankfully didn’t have to worry about when we should air to get the most views.
Shoot the on-demand webinar
For the actual shoot, we blocked off an hour on everyone’s schedule and used our Remote Video Creation™ technology to film a Subject in Oklahoma and a Subject in outside Seattle. With our multicam feature, we were able to have them speak with each other like they would on a video conference call — but captured in 4K on iPhone and 1080p on DSLR respectively, and the audio was high-quality 48 kHz.
During the shoot, our Marketing team worked with the hosts to both encourage important talking points that arose organically and to redirect the conversation if the hosts had not covered an item that felt important for our audience to learn. We also redid shots where a host was nervous or felt they spoke unclearly and wanted to provide a more polished message to the audience. While this webinar did not require screen share, if our guest had wanted to show a video or a presentation about her agency’s practices, we could have also employed our multicam functionality and recorded her screen in 1080p using another device while she was still on the first camera talking.
Edit the on-demand webinar
Once we had this footage, the video was easily cut to ensure the final webinar covered each of the important points and that it did so in the smoothest and clearest way possible for an audience. Because we were able to re-do takes and ensure each crucial messaging point was covered, the footage could be edited to provide a better user experience and a clearer message.
During the post-production process, you can also cut social and shorts for your marketing and sales teams, all of which can be used to promote the webinar and drive registrations. Marking favorite moments will also make it easy to utilize these clips as b-roll for relevant brand videos at a later time.
The editing process will also be seamless and quick: OpenReel’s tech records locally for consistent pro audio and high-resolution video that won’t be impacted by internet connections, requiring your post-production team to spend 20% less time and energy creating a professional video than when working with webinars recorded on conferencing platforms.
Create an on-demand landing page
Before you set an on-demand webinar live, you need to create a conversion point to generate new leads. You will also need a second page for visitors to actually view the content. After some trial and error, we determined that a gated landing page on our website was the best organic way to distribute the webinar to prospects and within our social and third party channels. This page gives a short synopsis of the webinar, ensuring anyone who lands on the page knows exactly what they will learn if they watch. This page also has a call-to-action encouraging prospects to get access to the webinar.
As soon as registrants submit their information to watch the webinar, they are redirected to the ungated webinar landing page; they are also emailed a link to this page so they can watch again at their convenience. This page additionally features a chat bot (more on that in a moment!) and more detailed takeaways on the webinar so that registrants don’t need to take notes. We also provide this ungated link to our clients and partners as a helpful learning resource that is easily accessible.
Build a Drift chat bot
Before the on-demand webinar could launch, we created a custom chatbot with Drift that now lives on the webinar’s landing page; this was crucial for us because, even with superior audio and video quality through pre-recorded webinars, we did not want to pivot to this on-demand style if we could not interact with and answer crucial questions from attendees. The engaging chatbot replaces a traditional Q&A, but allows us to dynamically route the questioner to the appropriate person on our team and customize responses to commonly asked questions in real time.
From your own webinar outline and workflow, you will be able to determine the themes to create conditional branches that lead your attendees to blog posts or other learning material that may answer their questions or connect them with an online rep. This also allows you to have attendees schedule a time to chat if they are engaging after hours.
Make the most of your webinar
Remember: by converting your webinars to on-demand, you’re not simply providing higher quality video for a better learning experience. You’re also giving your entire team, from Sales to Account Management, Support to Marketing, a powerful resource to send to prospects and clients alike. Because this webinar isn’t restricted to a live date, you can run and rerun campaigns to this landing page whenever you want. This allows you to be strategic with your campaigns, automate manual processes at scale, and learn who the best target audience is by analyzing your conversions, as well as qualitative information from your Drift chatbot engagement.
On-demand webinars are a great way to share new updates with current clients, generate new leads, and add information to your website. If you want to learn how you can shoot 4K webinars with OpenReel, get a demo today.
