How to Plan & Host a Successful Webinar Training Session

When you need to train teams across different locations, time zones, and schedules, getting everyone together seems impossible. Webinar training sessions let you demonstrate workflows and educate people wherever they are, combining engagement with convenience.

In this guide, I'll walk you through everything you need to get started with training webinars. We'll cover when to host them and how to set them up using Livestorm. You'll learn how to create training that your team will actually engage with and learn from.

Key takeaways:

• Webinar training sessions combine the engagement of live instruction with the convenience of online delivery, making them great for training distributed teams or customer groups.
• Successful webinar training requires clear learning goals, engaging content, visual components, and interactive elements to maintain participant attention.
• Always record your training sessions to extend their value beyond the live event, allowing people to access the content at their convenience avoiding the need to repeat the same event.

What is a webinar training session?

A webinar training session is an online event designed to teach specific skills or standard operating procedures (SOPs), often to an audience of employees, customers, or students.

Unlike webinars that focus on thought leadership or brand awareness, training webinars prioritize education and skill development. They often include interactive components like Q&A sessions, polls, and workshops.

This type of training is particularly helpful for virtual and hybrid teams or for groups of people distributed across a large geographic area. With a webinar presentation, you can train everyone at once, regardless of their location. You can also share consistent messaging and ensure that everyone receives the same training and information.

This way, all participants receive the same quality training, no matter where they work. Plus, your organization can eliminate the cost of bringing large groups together in person.

When should you host a webinar training session?

Training webinars are ideal for educating groups of people on certain topics or skills. Here are a few of the best use cases.

Onboarding new employees

A training webinar program is ideal for onboarding new employees. Use these virtual training sessions to:

• Show new employees how to perform SOPs and navigate workflows
• Teach new hires how to use essential software platforms
• Introduce new team members to your company culture

Plan multiple hourlong sessions to walk new hires through everything they need to know. Require new employees to complete these sessions before they begin working independently.

Instead of scheduling individual employee training sessions, consider a weekly or monthly training program. This way, your HR team can work more efficiently and new employees can train together.

Educating customers on product features

When customers get more value from your product, they'll be more likely to renew their subscription or tell colleagues about your company. Help them maximize their value with customer training sessions.

Schedule monthly training sessions geared toward different knowledge levels. For example, you might offer a beginner training webinar to onboard new customers and an advanced session for more experienced users.

Host special training sessions when you release new features or versions. This way, you help customers adopt the new capabilities quickly — which can help your development team improve the product.

For example, Juro uses Livestorm to host live sessions for customers. In these sessions, customers learn how to navigate the contract automation platform and have a chance to ask questions and get real-time answers.

Handling compliance training

Employees don't have to be brand new to benefit from a webinar training session. Businesses that have regulatory requirements can use webinars to maintain compliance.

For example, you can schedule annual training webinars to refresh employees' knowledge on:

Data privacy and cybersecurity
Workplace safety
Industry regulations, such as the DORA Act

Record the sessions so you can add them to your training database and reference them when employees have questions.

Leading certification programs

When you want to help employees upskill, use webinars for online training. Record multi-session training programs to guide employees toward internal or external certifications.

Turn complex topics into separate modules that allow employees to learn at their own pace. For example, help new sales development representatives (SDRs) earn a sales certification with webinars on topics like prospecting, discovery calls, and product demos.

How to set up a webinar training session

Creating a successful training program requires careful planning. Follow these steps to learn how to create webinars that engage and educate your audience.

1. Define training goals

Before you take any other steps, get clear on what you want participants to achieve. When you define goals up front, you can take the next steps more confidently.

Set specific, measurable goals that align with larger business objectives. Here are a few examples:

• New employees will understand how to use essential systems and perform SOPs before they complete their first day of work.
• All employees will learn new regulatory requirements before they go into effect on X date.
• SDRs will understand how to prospect, run discovery calls, and lead product demos within one month of starting the program.

2. Choose the right format

Let the goals you set guide the format you use. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Live webinars are ideal for interactive sessions where attendees can ask presenters questions or hosts can quiz participants on the material they've learned. They're also a good choice for time-sensitive training that you don't plan to repurpose for other audiences.
• On-demand webinars work best for training sessions with standardized content that you plan to offer again and again. They're good for topics that don't require much interaction — but you should always give attendees an option to ask async questions.
• Hybrid webinars are great for longer programs that involve multiple training sessions. They can include some pre-recorded evergreen content and some live sessions where hosts can ask attendees to participate in quizzes and polls.

3. Select the right webinar platform

There are plenty of webinar software platforms to choose from. But not all have the features you want or support the audience size you need to host.

Start by checking capacity limits. Does the virtual training platform allow for the number of participants you need to invite?

Then, review the feature list. Look for two-way engagement features like polls, Q&A sessions, and quizzes. If you plan to divide participants into smaller sessions, look for breakout rooms.

Make sure the platform has built-in recording features. With Livestorm, you can easily save every employee training session so you can offer the recorded webinar on demand.

4. Design engaging training content

Use your learning objectives to guide your content and break it into logical sections or modules that attendees can easily absorb.

To plan your content more efficiently, use Livestorm's webinar outline tool. Input the topic and a description, and then modify the tone of voice and audience knowledge level.

Then, take the template and expand on the material. Add specific SOPs, real-world examples, and proprietary information. Plan to include interactive moments at set intervals to keep your audience engaged.

Don't forget to include visual elements like infographics, statistics, and workflows. Design slides so your audience can follow along with the learning material. Avoid making them overly text-heavy and focus on visuals instead.

5. Encourage audience participation

During live sessions, encourage attendees to participate at the right moment. With Livestorm, audience members can join in by:

• Asking questions, which hosts can answer during a Q&A session
• Upvoting the best questions to ensure that the trainer focuses on the right topics
• Reacting with emojis to express understanding or interest in a topic
• Responding to polls and quizzes to demonstrate key points they've learned

These moments of interactivity might make your live events last a little longer. But the more that people engage with your training content, the better they can stay focused and retain what they've learned.

6. Record and repurpose the training

It's a good idea to record every training session you offer so you can offer them on demand or keep an audit trail. You can set Livestorm to record webinars automatically, making it easy to share them later.

Then, repurpose training sessions by sending new participants links to your recorded sessions. Or create concise clips from longer sessions as reminders about the key points in the training.

7. Measure the impact of the training session

Once the session ends, review the webinar analytics to assess the impact. With Livestorm, tracking performance is easy. On your dashboard, you can see attendance rates, engagement rates, watch time, and more.

Depending on the goals you set, you may need to monitor additional metrics. For example, quiz new SDRs on their knowledge of the sales process to make sure they successfully absorbed the learning materials.

Then, use the insights to improve your materials and take your digital training sessions to the next level. Aim to tailor the content and format to your audience so you can offer the best webinar training experience.

Livestorm for webinar training sessions

The most successful webinar training programs combine engaging content with reliable technology. Livestorm is your webinar platform for:

• Hosting employee onboarding sessions with just a few or over 1,000 participants
• Creating breakout rooms for hands-on practice and small group discussions
• Recording sessions automatically for on-demand access and future reference
• Using polls and Q&A features to maintain engagement throughout your training

Want to put our webinar platform to the test? Sign up for a free Livestorm account and organize your next training session in minutes.