During the pandemic, webinars were a very important resource — arguably an essential one — for many corporate activities: they made it possible to carry on with professional development, training and communication at a distance, and to keep building community, running team building and holding groups and organisations together remotely.
Now that in-person events are possible again, and back in full force, it is fair to ask what role webinars can still play in the life of organisations and, above all, in corporate events. Will they keep offering real advantages?
We think so, for six reasons.
1. Accessibility and flexibility
One feature of webinars that came into focus when the need was greatest, and has not gone away since, is that they let a potentially unlimited audience take part in single sessions and in entire corporate events, removing barriers of geography and time and cutting costs — speaker fees, travel and hospitality above all. People can connect from different parts of the world and widen their network of contacts almost without limit, without facing travel expenses or logistical restrictions. On top of that, the option to record webinars and make them available on demand gives flexibility to those who cannot attend in real time.
2. Time and cost savings
Organising in-person events takes significant time and resources, from logistics to travel planning. Webinars, by contrast, offer a faster and cheaper alternative. With no travel, accommodation or catering costs to account for, resources can be allocated more efficiently and the company budget put to better use.
3. Greater engagement online
Webinars can encourage more active engagement from the audience. We first wrote that they “encourage more active engagement”, then decided to be more measured: they can do it, but only if they are allowed to work at their best and if — for once — you start from the design of the experience you want to create around your event, not from the tools used to deliver it. Through interactive tools such as chat, polls and real-time questions, attendees can interact with the speakers and with each other, they can network and take home one of the outcomes they value most, as they tell us themselves and as every study on the subject confirms: a richer network of relationships. Virtual environments — and we are not talking about avatars or metaverses — often encourage people to put forward ideas, ask questions and share opinions even more openly than at in-person events.
4. Valuable content
Webinars allow people to focus fully on the content presented, because they cut down distractions and background noise; speakers can concentrate on their presentation and so deliver material of higher quality. As we said above, recorded webinars can also be reviewed later or shared with colleagues and staff who could not attend, which widens the audience reached.
5. Tracking and analysis
Anything online is measurable. Or at least it can be, if you want to measure it. Webinars are online, so they can be used to track and analyse a great deal of useful data, from attendance through to how attendees interact with the materials, with the trainers and with each other. With analytics tools the range of what can be measured — and then analysed — is potentially endless: you can collect data on sign-ups, engagement, audience response and satisfaction. All of it can be used to assess how effective the event was, improve future webinars and adapt your communication to what people actually need.
6. Environmental sustainability
Last, but one of the most important points today, which is why we kept it for the end. Webinars pollute, like every online activity, but they can be valuable allies in reducing the overall environmental impact of some events. Fewer physical journeys mean lower greenhouse gas emissions from travel and less consumption of resources such as fuel and paper; less physical space means lower associated costs, from lighting to heating and cooling, from catering to fit-out — to give just a few examples. This environmental dimension matters more and more to companies that want to adopt eco-friendly practices and show a commitment to social responsibility. Kept well clear of any form of “greenwashing”, these are also strong marketing and branding assets.
So, back to the question we started with, namely whether webinars are still being run today: not only is the answer yes, it comes with a solid set of reasons. There is no point going round in circles. Even though in-person events are possible again, webinars still play a significant role in the corporate events ecosystem. They offer new levels of accessibility, flexibility and savings in time and cost. They encourage active engagement and produce data that is useful for validation, measurement and planning. And in the end, who says we have to think in terms of alternatives — either in-person events or online ones, either classroom seminars or webinars — rather than a system where everything coexists and works together to make the final result richer?