Maximize your webinar impact: How to create post-webinar survey questions

Success in webinar marketing relies not only on the quality of the content but also on how well it resonates with its audience. Knowing this, organizers often struggle to determine whether their webinars are effectively engaging participants. Are they truly providing value for their target audience, or do adjustments need to be made? This is where post-webinar survey questions become a valuable tool for organizers in providing them with a direct line of communication with attendees. By asking the right questions, organizers can gain insights into attendee satisfaction, preferences, and areas for improvement, thereby enhancing future webinars and strengthening brand connections.

 

 

What are post-webinar survey questions?

Post-webinar survey questions are sent to participants to gather important feedback about their experience.  Each survey is created by the event organizers specifically for that event and could consist of multiple-choice options, a rating scale (e.g., one through ten), open-ended responses, or a combination of the three. These questions primarily focus on the topic, speakers, multimedia, and technical elements of the event, but could address any aspect of the webinar. The survey aims to gather an unbiased assessment of the webinar’s effectiveness – What participants appreciated, what they think could be improved, and any other constructive feedback they may have to share.

 

 

Importance of post-webinar surveys

Post-webinar surveys allow organizers to fine-tune content to best meet the needs and tastes of their target audience. By knowing what participants liked and disliked about a particular webinar, it is possible to make informed changes, thereby continuously improving and refining each successive webinar.

 

The answers also provide insight into how engaged the viewers were with the content, offering real-world data on how well interactive elements like live polls and Q&A sessions worked to hold the audience’s interest.  By identifying which elements worked and which did not, organizers can incorporate the most successful engagement tactics. Additionally, if there are any technical issues that are interfering with the presentation, such as bad sound or lighting, or difficulty connecting, the surveys will make the issues apparent so that they can be quickly corrected.

 

Beyond serving as tools for constantly improving webinar content, surveys have several other major benefits.  Responses can be used to highlight promising sales leads when attendees express an interest in the company and what it can offer. Positive responses to survey questions can also be used as social proof in the form of testimonials to promote future webinars.

 

Examples of questions after a webinar:

• How relevant was the topic to your needs and interests?
• What was your main takeaway from the webinar?
• How would you rate the speaker’s knowledge of the topic?
• How would you rate the speaker’s presentation skills?
• To what extent did the webinar meet your expectations?

 

 

What are the most effective post-webinar survey questions?

To be effective, post-webinar questions need to be specific and direct.  They should be crafted to avoid ambiguity. Overly general questions or ones that are too open to interpretation are unlikely to provide useful information relevant to future webinars.

 

The questions should also encourage meaningful responses. Although it’s a good practice to always collect respondents’ info for future communications, the survey answers themselves should be made anonymous and participants informed of this so that they feel like they can be honest.  The point of the surveys is to get authentic insights, so respondents should feel free to be as truthful and candid as possible.

 

 

FAQ:

 

How soon after a webinar should I send out a survey?

The survey should go out to attendees soon enough after the webinar ends that they can still recall specifics, but not immediately after.  This way, they have a chance to process the material before being asked for their opinions on it.  Generally, this timeframe ranges from a few hours to a few days.  Any longer than that and the audience is likely to forget a lot of what was presented.  Notably, the survey should also not be sent out before or during the webinar, as this may cause them to overlook it.

 

How many questions should a post-webinar survey include?

The number of questions included in the survey depends on the scope of the event and the types of insights organizers are seeking to obtain. That said, SurveyMonkey at one time released some of their own data on survey lengths, which showed that the median length of their paid surveys is ten questions, and that specifically for events, the median is seven questions. Ultimately, the survey needs to be long enough to be comprehensive, yet not so long that it seems like it will take a lot of time and effort to complete.  It is safe to assume that the longer the survey, the lower the response rate.

 

How can I increase the response rate for my post-webinar surveys?

There is no expectation that all, or even a majority, of those who attend the webinar will complete the survey.  With that in mind, there are ways to improve the response rate.  As previously mentioned, the length of the survey is a factor that will lead people to either complete a survey or ignore it.  Generally, they should feel like it will be easy to complete and not take very long.  Also, the tone of the survey can have a real impact on whether people complete it.  It should be professional and appreciative, both for attending and for providing feedback.  It should also make it clear that the responses will be taken seriously and carefully reviewed so that attendees don’t think the survey is merely a formality and therefore a waste of their time.

 

 

Offer an incentive for completing the survey

Offering an incentive, or reward, for completing the survey can be a powerful motivator to attendees to provide their feedback.  The incentive does not have to be extravagant.  In fact, if the incentive is too valuable, it could lead to overly positive responses or those that are quickly filled in with little consideration, leading to inaccurate data.  Common incentives include discounts, access to exclusive content, or entrance into a raffle. Still, there is always room for originality when it comes to the incentive as long as it improves the response rate and results in accurate feedback.

 

 

Analyzing survey responses for insights

The best way to analyze survey data is to start with quantitative responses such as rating scales or multiple-choice questions that range from negative to positive answers.  It is easy to obtain an average “score” for these types of questions.  These averages can be used to determine what is working and what is not.  For example, if a question asking how well a participant’s expectations were met receives an average answer of 6 out of 10, that is indicative of room for improvement in this area.  If changes are made and the same question receives an 8 out of 10 on a later webinar, organizers can see that they are improving on that issue.

 

Open-ended questions take longer to analyze.  Organizers need to review each response, looking for patterns.  A comment that comes up rarely does not necessarily need to be prioritized, but if survey after survey mentions the same things, that is a clear sign that organizers must take this feedback seriously – good or bad.

 

In addition to improving future webinars, this analysis also yields actionable market data. Surveys can reveal the topics that are of most interest to their attendees as well as their views on specific products or services that were discussed.  Analyzing these results allows businesses to make informed decisions in key areas such as marketing, product development, and customer success.

 

 

Meet Kaltura Webinars

The Kaltura Webinars all-in-one hosting platform transforms each webinar into an elevated, branded event, starting with a unique site and landing page to manage registration and promotions. A newly introduced AI assistant aids in keeping up the engagement in real-time, along with a comprehensive suite of engagement tools such as emoji reactions, confetti bursts, and live polls, captivates the audience throughout. Plus, webinars are automatically recorded and uploaded to the original URL, ensuring the content continues to deliver value long after the live event.

 

 

Advanced cross-webinar analytics provide information that can be combined with post-webinar survey data to identify trends and improve strategies. Finally, Kaltura offers expert technical support every step of the way to make sure each webinar hosted on the platform runs smoothly from start to finish.

 

 

Final thoughts

Post-webinar surveys are a simple yet powerful way for organizations to get direct feedback from the very people they are trying to reach with their content. Each survey is a new opportunity to form a deeper connection with the intended audience while simultaneously improving the quality of the content. This relationship between organizers and attendees results in a win-win situation where webinars become more effective for companies and more rewarding for audiences.