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Webinars that aren't a waste of everyone's afternoon
The webinar format gets blamed for low attendance and low conversion. The format isn't the problem. The webinar is.
Most webinars are a 45-minute slide presentation by someone who hasn't done a Q&A in years, followed by ten minutes of leading questions from the chat. Of course attendance is bad. Of course conversion is bad. The format isn't broken — the content is generic.
What works in 2025
- 30-minute max, ideally 20.
- Two people in conversation, not one on slides.
- A specific question worth showing up for — not "intro to X."
- Live Q&A as the main event, not the appendix.
The promise to the attendee
If you can't tell them, in one sentence, what they'll know at 8pm that they don't at 7:30 — and have that be specific enough to be interesting — don't do the webinar. Send a Loom instead.
A webinar should be the rare format that beats the recorded alternative. Anything less is a meeting in disguise.