What are the unwritten rules to a successful webinar?

One formula: TIMING... is everything. You need to choose the right webinar platform at the right time and make sure that the right eyes will see and hear what you have to say. You have to plan ahead, know when the perfect time and date will be. For example, you don't want to schedule a webinar during the holidays when people are off their computers. Are you planning to do it over lunch time? Or, after hours when everyone's free from work? In the end, you need to have a compelling reason why people should free up their time to attend your event - and it has nothing to do with the number of speakers nor the length of time the webinar will play.

BTW- I've seen a lot of sites using EventBrite for inviting people to attend a webinar. I think it's free if you're hosting a free event.

Mr Anderson hit the nail on the head. With a quality plan for your webinar you will be able to engage your target market with the right content. Understanding what your customers want/ expect form you is hugely important in putting together your content.
http://www.siliconcloud.com/facebook-for-lead-generation/
Here is an example of one of the webinars which we posted for our clients.

A great webinar first engages and educates the audience by defining how the proposed offering can meet a business need and then secondly demonstrates how well the offering delivers the solution.

In simple terms, my Top 5 Tips would be:

1) Be an engaging host.
2) Formulate content to match the precise needs of your audience.
3) Interact with your audience.
4) Q&A and interactions should consume more time than slides.
5) Reference (and thank) individual viewers/commenters by name.

Hope that helps.

Carl, I've presented or moderated more than 60 Webinars in the last few years and continue to learn what makes a great Webinar. But a couple of points:

1. The most important part of a Webinar is the title. The title is what attracts people to it (I've learned through survey feedback that many people don't read the full description); and is what focuses your thinking for the actual content and slides. Don't let a corp comm person write it - if you are the presenter, take ownership. Cutesy titles are iffy - don't make people guess what the Webinar is about.

2. As Dennis says, be an engaging host. I think whether you have 1, 2 or 3 people present is less important than do they have a story to tell and are they engaging. A client that is boring, even though they have a good case study - will likely hinder not help your Webinar. Have energy, be fun, be real. Don't script your content - just know your content, content you can tell stories about. Voice and pace is huge on Webinars - if you have a monotone voice and speak without varying your pace - focus on writing white papers and don't present on Webinars - as that style is painful for attendees.

3. You won't please everyone. Focus your content on the intermediate level folks (unless it is A Beginners...or 10 Steps for Experts..), but have something for beginners and the more advanced in your audience. Have some takeaways for people at all levels. But better to overshoot than undershoot an audience.

4. Try to create your slides without any bullets, or limit bullets to just a few slides. Focus each slide when possible on a single concept. Make them visual, fun, striking and easy to read. If you are speaking to images, screenshots of Web pages - blow up the parts of the pages you want to speak to. Outline in red areas of focus, use big arrows, circle content, etc. If you have to say once in your Webinar, "sorry, I know that is hard to read" - you've failed in your slide design. They are your slides, make it so every slides is easy to read.

5. Don't take half your slides to get to the meat of your presentation. Most Webinar attendees are looking for tips, case studies, examples - ideas they can put to work in their jobs. Trends are great, but tell them what they should do about the trends.

6. Prepare for technical issues, weird things happening - something often goes wrong.

7. Email is usually your #1 best way to drive attendees, but on average about 40%+/- will show up. So keep in mind that you'll want to maximize your efforts by follow-up emails with links to the recorded version of the Webinar and the slides/PDF. Post the presentation on SlideShare, blog about the presentation and Webinar, Tweet about it, etc...

I could go on and on, there are so many aspects that go into a great Webinar. In 2009 I wrote a 2-part blog outlining 17 Webinar tips - here is Part 1: http://www.silverpop.com/blogs/email-marketing/webinar-tips-17-tips-learned.html

Hi Carl,

In addition to the strong advice provided in the answers thus far, I'd recommend that you check out this book:

"The Exceptional Presenter Goes Virtual" by Timothy Koegel.

http://amzn.to/sV1Qtv

Good luck,
Jim Watson
http://bit.ly/rmOYIf

From a presenter's perspective from someone who has done a lot of webinars, what listeners value is a presenter who follows five simple rules:

Be real
Be relevant
Be relational
Be resourceful
Be remembered