Are you ready to organize a webinar for your MBA programme?

All the universities and business schools offering MBA programmes in the planet have one main purpose: teach a series of content and skills to people who are interested in learning and progressing in their professional career. So what are students to them? Everything. That’s why recruiting new students is so important for all the educational institutions worldwide. However not all the universities and business schools know how to use all the tools available on the Internet for this purpose.

That’s where the webinars come into action. In this area, a webinar is an online information session where potential students and universities meet in a common channel to discuss. Usually there are two or three hosts of the university that broadcast to a select group of students through their computers via the Internet. But there are lots of things to take in consideration when preparing a webinar for an MBA programme:

• The audience. It is important to define a concrete target to whom you focus the programme. It can be an age range (for example from 23 to 45 years), their professional background (e.g. three years of professional experience), their previous studies (e.g. a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration) or their nationality. Often a business school earns more reputation if it has students of different nationalities between their alumni.

• Differentiation. There are so many hundreds of MBA programmes taught around the world that it is important to highlight and emphasize why students should choose your MBA programme in your specific school. Does your programme have something better than the other ones? Do you offer any service that the other schools don’t? Think about why would potential students choose to register in your MBA programme and not another one and take advantage of that differentiation.

• Prepared speakers. You have to make sure that the people who are going to give the speech and answer the questions know every little detail of the programme and the university or school. Usually there are two or three speakers: the director of the programme, an admission officer and a student of the programme. This way the students will be able to ask about the programme, the registration process and the experience that they will have once they start the course. If the speakers are not sure and secure about their answers, they will give a bad impression and students may get a bad idea of the school or the programme.

• A correct slideshow. Everything during the webinar communicates, and a bad structured slideshow and speech can make potential students lose interest in the presentation. You have to think that everything represents the whole school. Ask yourself these questions: Is the design in accordance with the principles and values of your institution? Are the words that you are using appropriate to the reputation of your school? Make sure that there’s not unnecessary or obvious information that can be easily found on your webpage, try to explain what students can’t usually find on the Internet and want to know.

• Timing. Think about the time to do the webinar. If it is mostly for international students be conscious of the different time zones and, if necessary, make two different webinars to two different regions of the planet (e.g. one for North and South America and one for Europe, Asia and Oceania). In general, the best days of the week for an event are on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 11.00am and 16.30pm.

Do you think you are you ready to organize your MBA programme webinar and recruit international students now? Feel free to ask any questions you may have below or join one of our online coffee breaks!