Don’t get tongue tied before going live. Here are a few tips and templates to nail your next welcome speech for an engaging webinar.

A long-winded welcome address for a webinar encourages attendees to hit exit, leaving you feeling uneasy and under confident as attendance rates drop off.

But a strong webinar welcome speech can save the day. In fact, it contributes significantly to your virtual event’s success by hooking the audience in with compelling storytelling and setting expectations from the get-go.

A succinct, engaging webinar welcome speech can not only engage attendees but also keep them glued to the end.

But what makes a good welcome speech for a webinar?

• It’s short
• It doesn’t feel too scripted
• It makes people stay by setting expectations and sharing why they should stick through to the end

As we dig into this guide, we’ll break down how to build a webinar welcome speech and walk you through the essential parts. This way, you won’t miss anything.

Just remember: no matter how great your script, don’t read it line for line.

It’s all about practice and delivery. Make sure you strike a conversational tone for your welcome introduction. Doing so engages attendees by making them feel comfortable, engaged, and eager to join the conversation.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

5 things you need to hit during your welcome speech [Template included]

Before writing a welcome address for a webinar, you’ll need to divide your intro into a few important sections.
We’ve broken down the steps below to help guide your through the process.

1. Start with a greeting and thank attendees for their time

“Hello and welcome” is a popular greeting that’s succinct and warm enough to peak everyone’s interest. You can try experimenting with a few other greetings, but just remember to keep it short and simple.

Then, thank attendees for their time straight away – don’t wait until the end. Make sure they feel valued by sharing some appreciation. Something simple can strike the right tone: “Thank you for taking the time to join us today.”

 2. Touch on the topic

After thanking your audience, briefly reiterate the topic so you can tell them why the webinar is worth their time – more on this later.

Sharing a cheat sheet, workbook, or template at the end of the event? Now’s the time you share that as well. Nothing hooks people like free goodies. Try calling your free content or tool a “surprise” to trigger curiosity. You can learn more with the welcome speech for webinar sample below:

“We’ll cover X so you can learn … We’ve also got a free surprise for you at the end of the session so stay tuned to learn more about it.”

Example: “We’ll share 6 secret copywriting tips in this masterclass so you can write better, high-converting ads. By the end, you’ll leave feeling ridiculously confident about making money from ads. And with our free surprise at the end – stay tuned for that one – you can start today.”

Note that these three lines focus on the attendee with very little about the webinar host itself because that’s how you make the other person feel valued.

Pro tip: Use power words that stir emotion in your webinar welcome speech. Some examples of power words include “free,” “secret,” “high-converting,” “ridiculously,” and “surprise.”

What’s more, by calling your webinar a “masterclass” or “seminar,” you can boost your audience’s interest further since the word “presentation” sounds too formal and “webinar” is overused.

3. Handle housekeeping thoroughly but briefly

By sharing the topic, you help set some expectations. Now, you’ll have to share how people can participate by highlighting how people can engage with you. This is the time to mention polls and other features you’ve planned for audience engagement.

“To make sure we’re helping you as best as we can on [topic], we have a chatbox to source your questions. We’ll also have

Best to show, not tell at this point though. Some ways to do so:

• Tell exactly where they can find the chatbox (Example: “on the right of your screen is a …”)
• Show an annotated screenshot on the screen with the chatbox circled in red so people can spot it on their own screens.

At this point, spell out how people can engage and when you’d be responding to them:

“Feel free to drop questions on the topic or share your struggles and experiences. We’ll answer your questions by the end of each guest session/the moderator will collect the most upvoted questions so we can answer them for you at the end of the presentation.”

And, go on to extend help: “If you’ve any questions at this point, feel free to drop them in the chatbox below)”.

Pro tip: This is also an important time to share whether the webinar recording will be available later. If you also plan to share the presentation deck or any other materials, be sure to communicate that as well so attendees know how to access and use them.

4. Introduce your speakers

Ideally, it makes sense to tell people who they’re watching on their screens as you welcome them in the beginning.

But you don’t want to get into the details of your experience if you’re also the speaker. The reason? Attendees will forget about your expertise if you dig into housekeeping after introducing yourself. So you’ll need to reintroduce yourself and other guests (if there are any), which will stretch your webinar welcome speech.

So a good, natural move is to throw in your one-line introduction at the start and share more about your expertise later on. However, it depends on your role (moderator vs host vs speaker).

When sharing your experience as a speaker, add a pinch of storytelling to your introduction. But remember to keep it short. Try this 3-step storytelling formula:

• Hook attendees in by asking a question or sharing unexpected challenges
• Tug at the emotions by building on the struggle
• Close with how you solved the problem (including the results you delivered) or some quick, snappy insights that are memorable

You can also start with any of these lines to creatively introducing yourself.

Let’s now talk about how to introduce guests. Aim to keep it natural. Practice then rehearse it beforehand so you don’t have to read it from your script.

Share each guest’s name, background, and experience. Best to share guests’ expertise by sharing results they’ve driven.

Example: “Shane has written ads that have driven X in revenue for their clients.” This shows why a guest is the best person they can learn from on the topic.

Pro tip: Don’t take long with guest introductions and thanking sponsors – that can be a turn-off. Instead of orating the entire history, choose specifics from their experience that are relevant to the webinar topic.

5. Reiterate the value of the event and get started

Note that throughout the introduction, you’ve shared reasons for attendees to stay. The topic, guest list, and surprise – all do this job.

For the final element in the welcome address for the webinar: reiterate the topic for a quick refresh and also to capture the attention of those joining in late.

Again, keep it short and try not to repeat yourself even though you’ve discussed the topic. However, earlier, you discussed it briefly. At this point, talk about the agenda.

Start this final section with: “Our guests today will train you in X.”

Example: “Our guests today will train you in live streaming like a pro so the next time you run your live session, you’ll be a lot more confident and in the game.”

Then mention areas you’ll cover but keep them to three so attendees don’t forget what the session will include.

And that’s all. Dive into your webinar next.

Webinar welcome speech template

Now here’s the template in full. Remember to put your own spin on it by making personal and practicing before going live:

“Hello and welcome. I’m your host and speaker/moderator, [name]. Thank you for taking the time to join us today as we talk about [topic].

You’ll leave with

And, to make sure we’re helping you as best as we can on [topic], we have a chatbox to source your questions. We’ll also have

Feel free to drop questions on the topic or share your struggles and experiences. We’ll answer your questions by the end of each guest session/the moderator will collect the most upvoted questions so we can answer them for you at the end of the presentation.

Also, don’t worry about making notes immediately since we’ll send the session’s recording your way in [specify time].

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the pros who’ll talk about [introduce guests].

• Speaker 1 is… (2-3 lines at max)
• Speaker 2 is… (2-3 lines at max)

These guests will train you in [topic] so [benefit]. We’ll dive into:

• Agenda 1 (1 line)
• Agenda2 (1 line)
• Agenda 3 (1 line)

Let’s start with [get started]

And to wrap things up, let’s answer some final questions around webinar introductions:

How do you start a webinar speech?

Start your webinar welcome speech with a warm greeting and thank attendees for their time. Next, briefly introduce the topic and set expectations by sharing any freebies that you’ll give away, outlining how they can participate, and whether the recording will be available. Finally, introduce your guests before kicking off the event.

How do you write a webinar script?

Create a rough outline of all that you want to cover in your webinar. Areas to focus on include the webinar welcome speech, highlighting what guests will cover, and pointing out the action step (CTA) that you want attendees to take after watching the webinar.

How do you end a webinar speech?

End a webinar speech by sharing freebies (if any) and pointing out the action step that participants need to take. It’s also a good idea to tell attendees you’re looking forward to their success on the topic you’ve covered in the webinar.