Webinar Overview & Guidelines

Overview

ICMA’s webinar program is one of the organization’s primary training and professional development resources for both our members as well as the wider local government community. Covering a variety of relevant and timely topics, these webinars are intended to provide practical information and best practices that will help attendees perform their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Sponsored webinars offer a great value to both ICMA members and the sponsoring company: members get a complimentary professional development opportunity (that also confers ICMA continuing education credits), while the sponsoring company gets a lead generation opportunity along with a list of registrants and their contact information.

Webinar Basics

Sponsored webinars are typically 60 minutes in length, with 45-50 minutes devoted to the presentation and 10-15 minutes reserved for Q&A from attendees. While presenters are welcome to respond to questions throughout the presentation, we recommend doing Q&A at the end to avoid interrupting the flow of the presentation. The audience is primarily local government managers and their staff, though it varies depending on the topic.

While you are welcome to have whoever you like present, we strongly recommend including a local government practitioner, such as a city or county manager. Our audience greatly appreciates the perspective of fellow public sector employees, and will be more likely to register for events that feature them.

With regard to content, please keep in mind that the audience is here to learn practical, applicable information – while sponsors have free reign on what they choose to present, webinars that are overly promotional or seem like a sales pitch are typically poorly received. A good way to avoid these pitfalls is to focus the webinar on a report, white paper, or publication the sponsor has produced, or by exploring a case study showcasing collaboration between the sponsor and a client.

Technical Details

ICMA uses the SAP Litmos Learning Management System (LMS) to manage our webinar programs, with each live event broadcast via Zoom Webinars. The webinar should feature a PowerPoint presentation, and while you are encouraged to use your own organization’s branded template, the program manager can provide an ICMA-branded template if necessary. Please note that while Zoom Webinars allows presenters to appear on video, participant video is disabled; if you would like participant’s video to be enabled, please notify the program manager before the registration page is created so the event can be set up as a Zoom Meeting instead (the differences between the two formats can be found here). Zoom Webinars features a polling function that you are welcome to use, though you will need to provide the poll questions and answers to the program manager in advance of live event.

Process

The first step of the process is the creation of the webinar registration page, which requires an abstract from the sponsor that gives a description of what the webinar will cover and what attendees will take away from it (examples of this can be found by looking at other webinars in the online classroom). Once the description is ready, the webinar date can be determined – we strongly recommend scheduling it at least 8 weeks after registration opens, to give our Outreach team enough time to properly market it. We will also need additional information about the presenters, including their email addresses, bios, and headshots for marketing purposes.

Once the registration page is live and the speaker info has been gathered, you’re all set until the PowerPoint presentation is due – we appreciate having this one week in advance of the webinar date. Even if your webinar is based around an interview or conversation between speakers, we still recommend putting together a few slides to help
participants follow along. If your webinar features any polls, please be sure to include slides with the poll questions and responses. The program manager will provide registration updates upon request leading up to the webinar.

After the conclusion of the webinar, the program manager will provide the following:

• A full list of registrants
• A webinar report with a list of live attendees and a chat log
• Results from the post-webinar survey completed by participants
• An MP4 recording of the webinar

We will also replace the webinar’s Zoom link in our LMS with the webinar recording within 48 hours of the live event’s conclusion. Please allow 3-4 business days for the program manager to collect the data and recording.

Marketing Deliverables

Please note: We require an eight-week lead time for all of these deliverables to be guaranteed.

• Creation of event page on icma.org/events.
• ICMA eNewsletter, Leadership Matters, calendar mention in member and nonmember versions.
• Social Media Promotion
  • LinkedIn with at least two mentions promoting the webinar
  • Facebook with at least two mentions promoting the webinar
  • Twitter with at least two mentions promoting the webinar
• Two targeted eblasts solely promoting the webinar.
  • Appropriate target audiences are selected based on topic.
• Potential (if the promotional calendar allows for it and timing aligns):
  • Mention in monthly Learning Opportunities eblast.
  • A spot in the professional development opportunities ad space on the icma.org homepage.
  • All sponsors are given a blog post to promote their webinar pre- or post-webinar. Content to be provided by the sponsor.

ICMA Blog Submission Guidelines

Your thoughts, your words, your peers.

Submit original content for publication on the ICMA Blog

Share your ideas with local government leaders to advance the profession. We’re seeking thought-provoking, informative, insightful, and actionable content on any of ICMA’s priority topics that can help others serve their communities better. Anyone can contribute: city/county managers, senior staff, department specialists, early-career professionals, students, and everyone in-between. All viewpoints are welcome.

Process

• Submit your idea or draft to your Account Executive.
• ICMA staff will review and respond with questions or next steps. Response time depends on the volume of submissions.
• Once a final version is agreed upon, ICMA will perform Chicago Manual of Style copy edits.
• ICMA will publish as a post on the ICMA Blog, promote on social media, and may include in its Leadership Matters newsletter.

Requirements

• Full name, title, and organization of the author(s), including any relationship with ICMA.
• Copyright-cleared, high-resolutions lead image 960×540 (or 16 to 9 ratio) attached as a separate file. (ICMA has stock images available as backup.) Optional: Additional high-resolution images included in the text for reference and as original files. Exact dimensions are flexible, but all must be the same width for display purposes.
• Links as needed: A webinar or event related to the topic, an ICMA committee landing page, external sources advertisers want to share with their peers, i.e., an RFP template or an equity program toolkit.

Word Count

In general, don’t worry about word count. Interesting and helpful content for local government professionals is what’s important. For reference, 800 to 1,000 is most common, with 500 as a minimum and 1,400 max. Longer posts, or in-depth ideas, can be broken into two parts or even a series of blogs. We can help!

Break the content into sections with section headers or bullet points so it is easier to read.

Two Key Elements

• An easy-to-remember takeaway for the reader.
• A compelling call-to-action to close, which is a marketing cliché for “So what?” or “What do you want the reader to do next?”

Best Content Styles

• Storytelling.
• Direct knowledge from an established authority.
• Best practices.
• Case studies.
• Practical tips on what has or hasn’t worked.
• New approaches communities are taking.
• Visuals. Beyond the mandatory lead image, compelling visuals that reinforce the story.

ICMA Strategic Partners and Sponsored Content

Any submissions from third-party organizations likely falls into the category of sponsored content. If there is an existing relationship between ICMA and the outside organization, content may be accepted for the ICMA Blog. In other cases, a paid sponsorship agreement is needed.

Even with a sponsorship, ICMA does not run overly promotional material on its blog. Submissions must be based in thought leadership and be helpful or of interest to our audience of ICMA members and local government leaders.

Sponsored content from external sources will link the organization’s home page at the top of the post and must have no more than one mention of a specific product/service at the end.