Members-only webinars: how to run a closed webinar for your club or community

Some webinars are meant for as many people as possible. Others are valuable precisely because not everyone gets in. A pre-season session with the coach, an open conversation with your association's board, a professional talk for members of a guild. In each case the broadcast is part of what members get for being members.

A members-only webinar works a little differently from an open one. You don't need to persuade people to sign up, because they're already yours. What you need is for them to know the session exists, to get in without trouble, and for non-members to stay outside without feeling a door was slammed on them.

Why close the session at all

There are several good reasons, and usually more than one applies:

• The content is part of the membership. If people pay dues, a closed session is something concrete you can point to as a benefit.
• People speak more freely. In a room of members, they ask questions they would never ask in front of the whole internet.
• Some information isn't for publication: plans for next season, internal figures, decisions not yet announced.
• It builds the community. Members who see that they have sessions of their own feel they belong to something.

If none of these apply to your session, an open webinar with registration may serve you better. The differences between formats are covered in webinar vs meeting.

Four ways to decide who gets in

Before you close anything, it helps to know the options. Many webinar tools offer several levels:

1. Open: anyone with the link can join. Simple, but a link posted in one group chat travels to others very quickly.
2. Registration: anyone can sign up and gets a personal link by email. You know who is coming, but you don't choose who.
3. Invited only: just the people you put on the list for this session. Good for a board meeting or a small group.
4. Members only: each person trying to join is checked against your standing member list. Good for a club or community whose list changes over time.

The difference between "invited" and "members" matters. An invite list is built for one session. A member list is built once, updated when someone joins or leaves, and used by every closed webinar after that.

The member list is the whole game

A closed webinar is only as good as the list it checks against. Most problems with these sessions don't happen during the broadcast. They happen because the list is out of date.

• Work from one source. If you have a membership system, a treasurer's spreadsheet and a sign-up form, pick one and keep the others in line with it.
• Make sure every member has an email address, and that it's the one they actually use. An old work address from a job they left won't help them get in.
• Update before each session. Members who joined this week are often the keenest to attend, and it would be a poor welcome to lock them out.
• Decide in advance what happens when a membership lapses. Remove the person right away, or keep them until the end of the month. What matters is that it's a decision, not an accident.

Tell members, and tell them how to get in

Members don't need convincing, but they do need to know. One post in a group isn't enough. Send an email about a week before with the date, time, topic and speaker, then a reminder on the day. If your members live in different time zones, give the time in each of the main ones.

The single most useful line in that email is which address to join with. A member who signed up with one email and tries to join with another will get stuck and assume the broadcast is broken. A plain sentence like "join with the email you used to become a member" prevents a lot of frustrated messages. Add the name of a real person to contact if something goes wrong.

For more on reminders and getting people to actually show up, see webinar attendance.

What to do about non-members

Someone will always get the link from a friend and try to join. That's fine. A person trying to get into your club's session is a person interested in your club.

• On your site or the session's page, say clearly that it's for members only, and link to how to join.
• If you also run open sessions, point them there. One open webinar and one closed webinar a month is a mix that often works well.
• Ask members not to forward the link, and say why. Most people respect a request that comes with a reason.

Content that suits a closed session

The rule of thumb: give members something they can't get anywhere else. A few ideas:

• An open Q&A with the coach, the director or the chair. No slides, just members' questions.
• A look behind the scenes: how the season is planned, how decisions get made, where the budget is going.
• A talk by a guest members would never meet without the club.
• An annual meeting or results presentation, with time for questions and a poll to vote on.
• A regular slot on the same day and time every month. The routine itself turns it into a habit.

Closed sessions are a good place to give the audience more room. Bring a member on screen to ask a question out loud, run a poll, take questions in order. These tools are covered in webinar engagement.

The recording: who is it for

After a closed session, pause before you send the recording around. If the content was for members, a recording link circulating freely undoes the point. Send it to the member list only, and if needed, download the file and put it somewhere that is also members-only. Some clubs build a library from these recordings, so a member who joins half a year later can catch up.

A checklist before you go live

1. The member list is current, with an email for every member.
2. The webinar is set to members only, not left open by mistake.
3. Members got a message with the date, time and which email to join with.
4. Someone on your team is available to help people who can't get in.
5. You tested joining with a member's email, and again with one that isn't on the list, to see both behave as expected.

That last step is the easiest to skip, and it's the one that saves the most trouble.

Try it without committing

On Kolcast you choose for each webinar how people get in: open, with registration, invited only, or members only, checked against your own member list. The room, the registration page and every email carry your club's logo and colors. You can see all the options on the webinars page, read the FAQ, and start with a free webinar, no credit card needed.