I’m a huge Ravens fan and I like all things Ravens.  Of course I have season tickets, and I also wear purple on Fridays, have Ravens license plates, listen to talk radio about the Ravens to and from work, have Ravens collars for my dogs, bought a string of purple lights for the porch for playoff season…need I go on?

I’m also passionate about helping companies find unique ways to engage their customers and prospects through digital media. It’s rewarding to assist our clients with a campaign and then to see the positive impact it had at the end of the month.

Two weeks ago these two worlds came together for me when I saw a tweet from the Ravens about their Ravens Week of Winning (WOW) promotion.  WOW, as I found out, was a very well thought-out digital media engagement promotion.

Background on the Ravens’ Digital Marketing Efforts

Before getting into this particular promotion, I have to say that the Ravens excel at interacting with fans on many different channels.  They are on Facebook and Twitter, they have a mobile app, provide an SMS feed, have several eNewsletters from which you may choose, and keep their website fresh with a wealth of information.  I knew about all of these channels, but found that I used some, like Facebook and Twitter, more than the others.

About the WOW Promotion

The WOW campaign pulled people like me, who primarily followed the Ravens in one or two places, into all of the Ravens’ marketing channels.  Each day the Ravens would send out a special code fans could use to enter a drawing.  The Ravens used a different digital media channel each day to reveal the code.  On Monday the code was sent in an SMS message; on Tuesday it was in a tweet; Wednesday, on Facebook; Thursday in an eNewsletter; and on Friday in a blog post or news story on their website.

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The best laid plans don’t always work 100% of the time, but most of the time, they can prevent major problems.  I was recently tasked with coordinating all aspects of a webinar.  I’ve attended plenty of webinars in the past and I’ve coordinated numerous live events, but this was the first time I was responsible for blending the two.

Where to start?

My first step was to go online to see what advice I could find. HubSpot has a great series of posts on running a webinar.

• Part 1: How to Setup and Promote Your First Webinar
• Part 2: Day of the Webinar
• Part 3: After the Webinar

We decided to host the webinar using GoToWebinar, so that site was my next stop.  They have a Support Center with articles, a user guide and videos.  I learned to use the software and walked away with more tips and best practices.

Planning and Preparation

The next step was to take the learning from above, get organized, and prepare our team.  I scheduled a test run with the entire team in the room that we would be using prior to the real webinar.  As I learned from my research, for my test I wanted all of the computers, phones, and materials we would need.  We had in attendance the speakers, the organizer (me), a social media monitor and a mock attendee.  We set everything up the way it would occur on webinar day with the exception of running through the entire presentation.  We even practiced recording the test.

The Big Day

The day arrived and we were all set to go.  We signed on the webinar a few minutes before the start time, and kicked off the presentation a few minutes after the start time….just as suggested.  As our speakers presented the material, our mock attendee waited to alert us if there was any trouble on the line and our twitter feed hummed with activity.  The official presentation ended within the time limit, and we received many wonderful questions from an active, engaged audience. We ended on time and all we had to do was send out our thank you emails with the link to our recording.  We did it!

Lessons Learned

We planned, practiced and successfully hosted our first webinar, but there were a few glitches that we learned from:

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