This article is the result of a conversation with Mike Agron, who is an expert on webinar speakers as well as the principal and webinar executive producer of WebAttract.

1. Jessica Kleppang 2011
Why Should You Invite a Guest Speaker to Participate in Your Webinar?
To answer this question I had a conversation with Mike Agron, who is an expert on webinar
speakers as well as the principal and webinar executive producer of WebAttract. Beyond
helping me answer the question, he provided me with a better understanding of the value that a
guest speaker adds to a webinar.
We start with the Mike‟s basic proposition “that any successful event, live or virtual, puts the
needs of the audience as the #1 focus, i.e., beyond doing your homework to identify a
demographic that would find your webinar and its messaging to be relevant, the folks who
ultimately go to the registration landing page and sign up have an expectation that the webinar
will deliver on what‟s advertised, and usually that means something of value, not a sales pitch.”
From this statement I conclude that not only is it important to identify a speaker that the
audience wants to hear from, but it is also important to have a speaker who delivers exactly
what they say they will.
The fact is that the speaker is who attracts the audience for your webinar. The speaker is the
main event or “the meat” as Mike would say. Recruiting a subject matter expert (SME) as a
speaker is an effective strategy for increasing audience numbers. “Usually,” according to Mike,
“information is best communicated by someone who has „been there and accomplished
something of value‟ that the attendee would want to give up their valuable time to „hear‟, if not
they‟ll either bail or be disappointed with the experience, which can damage the brand of the
webinar speakers and messaging.”
By choosing a SME as a speaker you are showing your potential audience that you are plugged
into the community. According to Mike, “Subject Matter Experts range from noted Industry
Analysts to unknowns who are enthusiastic to tell their „story‟ on how they solved a complex
business, marketing, technical, or operational challenge.” He goes on to say that into “their
credibility is enhanced by being able to share with the audience, in an engaging and
conversational tone, a profile of themselves/company, use case around the challenge, options to
solving this, solution(s) implemented, results around business value to solve this such as
increased productivity, faster time to market, less cost and risk, and what were the “lessons
learned” that another person would find of interest and value, and how do you get started?”
Having a SME will not only increase your audience base, it will also add credibility and
authenticity to your webinar. Your audience will see your outside source as having an unbiased
opinion of your product or company, a key factor in creating an authentic informational
webinar. “While a representative of the webinar sponsor could do this, and if that person has
credentials that are respected within the industry, that could work…..however it has so much
more credibility coming from a 3rd party client or partner, who has actually “been there and
done that” and can use their experiences to help others make an informed decision.”
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2. Jessica Kleppang 2011
The speaker must also be able to share something of value, “people will intuit very early on in
the presentation/discussion if the person speaking is credible and trustworthy to provide
something the attendee didn‟t know, or was thinking about, etc.” A good speaker is
“knowledgeable and understands the audience.” This person is enthusiastic, passionate, and
excited about the topic; they can articulate the deliverables and talk in real terms the audience
understands and relates to. So, for example, if your webinar is about how the marketing
automation will help with sales then the speaker should be able to inform the audience on
exactly how marketing automation will help with their sales including a real world example. In
essence, the SME should get to the point and tell the audience what they want to know.
In conclusion, there are many benefits to inviting a guest speaker for your webinar. These
benefits include an increase in audience members, credibility, and authenticity. As Mike nicely
put it “finding and inviting a knowledgeable „expert‟ not only stimulates interest and curiously
for the audience, it adds an order of magnitude of authenticity that transcends sounding like a
sales pitch.”
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