The Webinar Blog recently completed a small survey of 50 organisations, mostly from the USA, on the effectiveness of webinars. Asked whether they formally measure webinar effectiveness, 32% of respondents answered ‘always’, 16% ‘frequently’ and 26% ‘occasionally’. So whay isn’t effectiveness measured in every case? Of those who do not measure, 46% said it was too hard to establish measurable criteria, 36% said the results cannot be clearly linked to the webinar and 30% said that nobody has asked for it!
Of those who do measure, 40% found that webinar benefits definitely outweigh the costs and 30% felt they probably did. The remaining 30% did not know, which is strange given that they do the measuring. Those who did no formal measurement were asked for their gut feel about whether benefits outweighted costs. Of these 43% said ‘definitely’ and 45% said ‘probably’.
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I’m not surprised that half the organizations offering webinars rarely if ever measure their effectiveness. If you considered the face-to-face training that fails to measure, or measures only with smile sheets in the last hour of the session, I think you’d find similar numbers.
As for as the cost comparison goes, often it’s an apples-to-cucumbers situation, like direct salary while in the webinar versus travel and living to attend instructor-led training.
I suspect that many webinars are essentially streamed lectures, with maybe a dash of polling thrown in for interactivity: Todd from Engineering explains the new division structure; Lucille from Benefits teaches you about the stock-option plan.
To measure effectiveness, you have to think about what effectiveness means. If it means more than “nice webinar, great graphics,” you have to think about meaningful outcomes. Or admit to yourself that “talked to staff about the new division” is all the accomplishment you care about.