Can your webinar audience hear you?

They say there's a difference between hearing and listening  -- how many of us have ever been asked: "I know you are hearing me, but are you LISTENING to me?" This article is about the fundamentals of ensuring that your participants can HEAR your presentation. If you want tips for how to encourage your audience to actively LISTEN, look for my next post.

Have any of these happened to you (or are you nervous that they might)?

• I sent out the wrong dial-in phone number!
• The dial-in number changed!
• My audience is not used to listening to broadcast audio (sound over the web).

ReadyTalk offers several suggestions for mitigating audio confusion and allowing you to focus on the presentation:

1. Use your Conference Center: Even if you are sending invitations through ReadyTalk, you can "upload your confirmed attendees" and use ReadyTalk to automatically send a reminder email with the audio information (either dial-in or Broadcast Audio)

2. Build a Welcome Slide: Login 30 minutes early, start the web meeting and push a slide with the audio information  (dial-in number or broadcast audio information) along with the title of the webinar and even the official start time. You can also include a Twitter hashtag or a pre-webinar thought-provoking question. This way, when people join the webinar, they will immediately see the dial-in details.

If your call is dial-in only, include the phone number in the footer of the entire slide deck so any late arrivals can get dialed in immediately.

You're busy -- we understand -- and we want your webinar to be stress-free. So take a few minutes in preparation to consider your audience and help set them up for success through reminders and explicit communication.

Are there other tips that you find helpful for ensuring participants can hear your presentation?