How to Choose the Right Topic for Your Webinar

Once you decide to offer a high-value webinar to your audience, the first big step is to choose a topic. You can probably already think of some great topic ideas, but how do you choose the right one that will offer value and drive participants to take action? 

Talk to Your Salespeople 

One way to get feedback on your ideas is to talk with salespeople in your organization or others who work for you. What products are they pushing now? Which items do they hope will be big sellers in the coming months? If you can align your topic with these products, it’ll directly result in sales. 

Survey Your Industry 

Search for topics that are trending in your industry right now. Look at trade publications and news articles. Listen in on conversations on social media or online forums. You may want to subscribe to newsletters or find some other sources of the most up-to-date information where you can find great ideas. Even better, try to predict topics that will be trending in the coming months. 

Audit Your Content 

Look back over your past content. Identify the topics that performed best and consider these or similar topics. Even something like a short blog post could be the starting point for a webinar if you can expand on the topic. Choosing a topic this way also helps you with content creation as you can repurpose old content into your webinar. 
 
Get Ideas from Industry Leaders 

Look at webinars and other content in your industry that leaders in your industry are creating. The goal here is not to copy their topic idea. Instead, looking at the this will show you what’s popular right now. You may be able to cover a similar topic but give it your own unique twist. Another way you can use this information is to create a webinar on a topic no one is covering yet. 

What’s Exciting to You? 

One great way to choose a topic is to choose whatever you’re most excited about right now. If you’re excited to talk about a topic, your passion will come through in your presentation and your expertise will make it valuable for your audience. Just make sure there’s interest from your audience in this topic before you move forward. 

Go Straight to Your Audience 

Probably the best way to get ideas is to ask your audience. Ask what they’d like to learn about in one of your webinars. Keep this line of communication open and you’ll always have great topics that they will love. Once you start regularly holding webinars, you can ask as part of the exit survey and get feedback directly. 
 
Whatever idea you settle on, whether from the market or your audience, test it out by asking some audience members if they’d be interested in it or not. Use this feedback to refine your topic or choose something more appropriate. The best case is to offer a webinar that’s within your area of expertise and relevant to your audience.  
 
About The Author    
   
Pat Simes  is a Business Strategist, blogger and Founder of Innovative Business Solutions and Innovate Academy. She currently resides in the Midwest and is committed to inspiring and empowering entrepreneurs to transform their vision to reality.