Oh dear, I was lazy and I got caught at it. The shame…!

So what happened?

I recently did a webinar. Shortly after the webinar, I got a very polite note from Roger Courville, of the 1080 group, wherein he very kindly and gently suggested that certain tactics that might work for a live presentation wouldn’t work so well for a webinar presentation.

Roger is completely correct, of course. My bad – I was pressed for time, and didn’t spend the time to do the right thing.

This oversight will be addressed in future webinars – but at least I can draw a marketing lesson out of my mistake. Specifically: “Boring <> Good Marketing”. (For those of you not in math or engineering disciplines, “<>” is shorthand for “does not equal”, aka “is not”).

Why isn’t boring good marketing? Isn’t that counter to earlier comments about simplicity?

In fact, simple is not the opposite of amusing. But boring (unamusing) is the anthesis to good marketing, because it causes people to actively reject your message.

Consider what causes people to accept a message:

·        They’re paying attention to the presentation

·        They’re in a good mood / have positive associations with the preso

If your presentation is boring, the above aspects aren’t true. Your marketing will never have a chance to be successful.

In my case, I goofed. I used static slides. On a webinar, people are stuck watching whatever is on their computer screen and listening to a tinny voice out of a telephone. To make things interesting, as Roger points out, there must be drama – movement, and ideally controversy. Can you do interactive polls? Force your listener to become an active participant! Got a multi-part message? Use four quick slides, not one! Think in terms of flip charts, or burma-shave road signs… (how much less interesting would a burma-shave series have been if you saw the whole four lines, in non-rhyming form, on one sign?). Ideally, think in terms of game show or television production values – what are you doing on every slide, or every 30-40 seconds, to ensure that your audience remains engaged?

In short, good marketing is entertainment, and entertainment is at least eye-movement. Learn from my error – go re-examine your webinars today.

[ps: Please buy my book. http://buynow.stupidmarketing.com -- and tell your friends!]