Advice for vendors giving Webinars

This week, I have either led or participated in at least 12 conference calls with online presentations, aka Webinars. Let's face it, no matter how elegant, all forms of virtual meetings pale in comparison to real face time. But given the effect of our dire economy on many companies' travel budgets, time spent on conference calls and Webinars probably will grow for lots of product manager types.

After many hours every week spent on speakerphone, desktop sharing and compressed PowerPoint slides, I feel compelled to share advice for Webinar hosts, especially vendors trying to sell their wares and services in virtual meetings:

• Learn your conference system's commands to mute all other lines except the host. Sure, you can start a call reminding participants (a) to put their own phone on mute, (b) not to put the conference on hold, (c) not to take calls on other lines while on the conference, and (d) not to dial in from a mobile phone while driving in a convertible. Inevitably, however, one participant brings the whole conversation to its knees with hold music or wind noise, especially on calls with more than a handful of participants.
• Upload presentation decks well in advance, make sure the slides look good, and make sure you know how to run the presentation. If you are going to share a desktop, test that feature. If you are going to run a software demonstration via shared desktop, a few minutes before the Webinar, ensure the computer you will use has good-performing access to the demo application.
• If your conference does include an online presentation or desktop sharing, include the instructions well in advance of the call time. Otherwise, people will arrive on time, then lose 5-10 minutes while instructions to log into the Webinar are passed around and the host waits for participants to log in.
• If the Webinar runs entirely online, meaning participants use their computer for the audio instead of a telephone conference line, remind them to use headsets instead of speakers unless they want to transmit feedback resembling the bleeding-ear whine from Marshall stacks at a 1970s Aerosmith concert.
• To set realistic expectations, ask participants to dial and/or log in on the hour or half-hour, but advise them in the invitation that the conference itself will begin a few minutes after the appointed time to ensure everyone came aboard successfully.
• I don't care how well they know the product, never make your technology developers or systems engineers lead a sales call.
• Some conferencing and Webinar systems permit customers to offer toll-free dial-in numbers to participants. To save money, I see more companies these days going to regular toll/long-distance numbers for conferences. If you want to win new business, you might consider asking the participants in advance if that's OK -- and you might be surprised at how many of them use voice-over-IP systems with flat-rate plans, meaning long distance doesn't cost extra. Those folks won't care whether it's a toll-free number.
• Most crucial: Understand human nature. A Webinar will not engage participants as deeply as face-to-face meetings. Attention spans naturally run shorter, too. A one-hour software demo pushes your luck. A two-hour demo equals virtual meeting death. Admit it: when you participate on a Webinar, you multitask. For all you know, I'm on a Webinar as I write this.

Any other Webinar-saving tips from the front lines?