A Planning Checklist for Your Free Virtual Event

So you have booked your date and selected your topic for your free virtual event. Now what?

Well, if you are conducting a virtual event in order to do some list building, then you will want to be sure that you prepare yourself for your event so that the people who attend it get the most value for their investment.

Investment? But they aren't paying anything to attend! While that is true, what they are investing is either a) their time to listen to you (if they are already on your mailing list) or b) if they have just joined your mailing list because of your free event. Both of these investments are invaluable to you!

So, in order to honor that, it is important to prepare yourself to deliver the best possible experience for those people who choose to spend their time with you. There is no shortage of free events out there these days, and you want your audience to know your value, and to grow to like, trust, and work with you.

Here are a few tips for you:

Script your event - even if you are speaking about something that you know inside and out, it is important when you are doing a presentation, to have a script at the ready. First of all, it will ensure that you stay on track and don't go off on a tangent (it happens!). Second, it will ensure that you don't forget something essential. Third, it will help focus you if you are also including questions & answers from your guests. A script doesn't have to be a word for word document of your presentation ... a few bullet points will even suffice, depending on how well you know your topic.

Time yourself - if you are presenting something for the first time, you should be sure to practice, and when you do, time yourself. You want to be sure that you spend the right amount of time on each area, and that you won't run out of time before you cover everything you want to cover. One easy way to time yourself is to break your talk down into several chunks, and then write your time reminders beside them on your script so that you watch the time as you present.

Do some research - it is important to be able to know what's current and trending these days with anything you speak about. Even if you have been doing what you are talking about for years, it's important to be sure you can direct people to studies or information that is current. It helps increase your credibility, and it keeps you at the front of your pack for expertise.

Provide resources - always send your guests away with something valuable at the end of your event. It would be ideal if you have your own resource to give away (a report, an audio, something), but you can also give a link to someone else's resource if you don't have your own. They key is to direct your guests to something that emphasizes what you talked about in your presentation. You can find resources through your research, or you can build your own.

Answer questions - whether you open up your event for questions and answers 'live', or whether you ask people to send in questions ahead of time so you can address them, be sure that you do offer to answer questions. Your guests will always have questions about your topic, and they want you to be the one to answer them. You are the expert, and you need to be sure to make that offer so that they can interact with you in one capacity or another.

A free event like a teleclass can be a great way to engage your audience, and even grow it by exposing your event to your social media contacts as well. By ensuring that you prepare yourself and provide good content and an entertaining presentation, you are developing that essential relationship with your audience that will be more apt to grow into a working relationship.