Are you wondering if you should join the ranks of webinar creators in 2019? Even though organizing a webinar is cheap, you still sustain a serious opportunity cost, as preparing a high-quality event can be pretty time-consuming. It’s only natural to want some guarantees.

The Future Of The Webinars And Online Events

At MyOwnConference, we believe webinars are the future, despite the insignificant decline in popularity among video marketers.

However, it’s also true that webinar creators need to understand the status quo and foresee possible future changes to stay afloat.

We’ve tried to make some predictions as to where the industry is going based on the current situation.

Webinar cost will continue to decrease

It’s true that technology prices have been dropping for quite a long time due to competition. You no longer need to pay huge chunks of money for a good mic, webcam and speakers.

But I want the best for my webinar! — you may say. No problem here! Pick the most advanced camera, mic, what have you, and wait a couple of months.

The price will drop, as the new version gets released, whether from the same company or from its competitor.

What is more, some webinar platforms, such as webinar platform MyOwnConference, offer free lifelong use and trials to attract more creators.

Of course, the number of attendees for such free plans is limited. However, this is a perfect opportunity if you seek to conduct small trainings and online events or ascertain if the platform is right for you.

Webinars Will Increase in Quality

According to Wyzowl, 90% of video marketers note an increased competition in comparison to 2018, as the number of businesses to employ video marketing rose from 63% in 2017 to 87% in 2019.

It’s interesting that the same percentage of people (87%) would like to see more video content from advertisers.

The market’s getting crowded, and people are becoming more discerning. That means the quality of videos and webinars has to keep up to grab attention.

More and more companies and individuals will be re-directing their resources to explore this promising medium of education and promotion.

Webinars are getting shorter

In the future webinar creators will need to fight with their audience’s shrinking attention spans by attempting to make their content more compact.

According to the Big Book of Webinar Stats, the average webinar viewing time dropped by 4 minutes from 2017 to 2018.

It’s been decreasing continuously over the years, which forces creators to adapt and hold shorter webinars with more time devoted to answering the audience’s questions.

Webinars will be held more frequently

Webinars are far from dead — au contraire, and they are likely to become even more frequent.

41% of marketers say video helps reduce the need for customer care. Companies like Wrike have already taken advantage of this tendency by creating a webinar series on their product.

As companies are forced to innovate at more accelerated speeds to stay competitive, there will be an increased need for webinars to keep users informed and updated.

Webinars are useful not only for customers but for students and employees as well. Webinars have already been valuable for medical students, teachers, and others.

Since globalization has become an integral part of today’s business world, there will be an increased demand for regular webinars to train employees and inform customers worldwide.

Here is more information: Weekly Webinar: Why Companies Organize Webinars So Often.

More webinars will be evergreen and automated

According to BigMarker, 28% of registrants plan to watch a webinar after it airs.

More and more creators are thus giving their participants access to webinar recordings within 24 hours after the event airs.

However, many realize that webinar recordings have a huge lead generation potential and set them to be on-demand for future prospects.

Why bother creating a new webinar every week, if you can simply record and post one perfect webinar to drive conversions and sales continuously?

Why bother making a separate video for Facebook or Instagram promotion, if you can just use an excerpt from one of your best webinars?

Many companies have spotted this tendency and included automated webinars into their plans.

Learn more about automated webinars with MyOwnConference.

Check out this article exploring the pros and cons of automated and live webinars.

More people will stream webinars via YouTube and Facebook

It is true that neither YouTube nor Facebook is immune to failure.

But taking into account YouTube’s 1 billion views per day and Facebook’s ever-growing number of users, it’s safe to assume that those platforms will remain popular in the foreseeable future.

It’s no wonder that more companies will want to stream their webinars to YouTube and Facebook audience.

Many webinar services make it possible for you to combine the best of both worlds: get the platform functionality along with the possibility to stream on YouTube.

Learn more about the pros and cons of a webinar service vs. YouTube Live.

Webinars will become less presentation-centric and more speaker-oriented

32% of attendees are most engaged by interesting and energetic personalities, and only 15% care about slide shows.

This trend can be observed in all spheres, not just webinars. People look up to influencers much more than to traditional ads.

If you want to be successful at webinar creation, you will need to become that influencer. You will need to show passion for your product, service, ideas. That passion will transcend through the screen and will keep your attendees glued to their chairs.

Conclusion

Given the above information, it would be disingenuous to call webinars dead. Only the future will tell if our predictions are true, but, for the moment, the future of the webinar industry looks good. It is expected that:

• The quality of webinars will increase, and their length will decrease
• Webinars will be held more frequently both for customers and employees
• More webinars will become evergreen and automated
• More companies will seek to stream and post their webinars on YouTube
• Webinar hosts will focus more on the quality of the speaker than content

Hopefully, this information will help you create webinars that work best for you and your audience.