6 Factors to Consider When Choosing a Webinar Platform
With the growing recognition of virtual technologies, businesses now have the advantage to accelerate their operations and processes. Small to medium enterprises or even big companies are now embracing the new way of reaching out to their target and potential market. With the discoveries of the webinar platform such as GoTo Webinar, Stealth Seminar, Digital Samba and Adobe Connect, businesses can now conduct virtual conferences, pre-recorded or live presentations and virtual events without spending a lot of money. Webinars have become a necessity for businesses. Many successful webinar stories and how they greatly affect their business are going viral and reaching the global market.
To connect and engage your audience with high-quality content and high-quality audio and video presentation, you need to choose the best webinar software that suits what you’re looking for. However, because of the continuous innovation and different webinar software keeps on appearing in the digital market, choosing the best webinar software became harder than you think. So to help you with your crises, read the whole article and fuel your knowledge more.
What is a Webinar Software?
Webinar tools are the perfect way to connect with your audience and make your webinars more engaging. They can help you create high-quality audio, video, and presentation materials that will keep your audience engaged. Plus, they provide an easy way to manage your events. Whether you’re looking for the best webinar platform to host your events or need help creating quality materials, these tools will help you get the most out of your webinars. Webinar software are becoming extremely advanced, dynamic, and fun.
4 Benefits of Webinar Software
When choosing a webinar tool, it is essential to consider the benefits. You cannot just jump into buying a webinar software platform without knowing the basics and how it can help your business. Below are some of the benefits that you can get from acquiring webinar software.
Grow an Audience from a Global Pool of Participants
Webinar tool can help to grow an audience from a global pool of participants by providing a platform for participants to connect and discuss topics of interest. Webinar software can also make it easy for attendees or participants to find and join upcoming events, and provide a way to share participant insights after the event. By actively promoting webinars as an effective way to reach a global audience, organizers can build a strong community of participants who are interested in learning more.
Conduct Polls and Surveys in Real-Time
One great benefit of webinar software is the ability to conduct polls, surveys, and q&a in real-time. This allows organizers to get feedback from participants on a range of topics right as the discussion is taking place. This helps to ensure that everyone has a voice and that the information being presented by the presenter is valuable and relevant. Plus, it can help to tailor the content of future webinars based on feedback received during past events. Even during an online meeting, webinar tools can be used to gather important insights.
Hold Live Sessions with Participants Around the World
Webinars are a great format for holding live sessions or online events with participants because they offer the same level of interactivity and engagement that is found in traditional face-to-face meetings. This is great for delivering training or coaching in a format that is conducive to interactive learning. Participants can participate from anywhere in the world, and there is no need for them to travel. Plus, by holding live sessions, organizers can create a more dynamic and interactive experience for their participants.
Offer Instant Playback of Past Sessions
One great benefit of webinar tools is the ability to instantly replay past sessions. This allows participants to review key points and take the best possible notes in order to better understand what was being discussed. This can be especially beneficial for training or coaching programs, as it makes it easy for participants to revisit important information and ensure that they are taking the most valuable notes. It also eliminates the possibility of someone dropping out at the last minute, which can often happen when meeting in person. By providing instant playback, organizers can minimize the impact that disruptions have on the overall conversation and learning
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Webinar Tool
You cannot just buy whatever you see without knowing what that tools can do to your business. Different tools have different functionality, so if you want to run a smooth webinar then always be wise in everything that you do, especially if it’s the betterment of your business. Below are some of the factors you might need to consider before choosing the best webinar software platform.
Ease of Use
You want to make sure that the software is easy to use and navigate so that participants will have no trouble participating and learning from the session. Additionally, you want the software to be compatible with any device – whether that’s a computer, phone, or tablet – so everyone can access the content. Make sure that the webinar tools that you’re eyeing to utilize have an app version so people who only have phones can still attend the webinar.
Features
The features of a webinar platform will vary depending on the type of business that you’re in or the demand webinars from your participants. However, some basic features you might want to include are video and audio streaming, online registration and participation, chat functionality, whiteboard, notes and slides management, timestamps, and recording ability. It’s important to find tools that have all of these essential features so participants can comfortably attend your webinars and learn from them. There are live or video demos available that you can find in any browser so you will be guided on all the features of the platform you want to use.
Cost
You need to consider the affordability of the tool you will be getting especially if you have limited resources. It is important to find a platform that has a wide range of pricing options so you can accommodate different needs and budgets. Some of the best webinar platforms offer a free trial so you can see how well they work before committing to using them.
Capacity
Some platforms offer limited capacity, so you’ll need to choose a platform that has the capacity for the number of participants that you want to have. You don’t want to have to split your audience up into smaller groups because the platform doesn’t have enough space for them all. Also, some platforms allow you to add additional remote venues if necessary.
Security
Many platforms offer features like chat encryption, which helps to ensure that your conversations are private and secure. Some offer features like email and password protection so that only authorized participants can access the content of your webinars. Whatever the security feature that the tool has, the bottom line is to have a safe and secure platform.
Customization Factors
Finally, you want your participants to feel like they are attending a virtual event instead of just watching a slide presentation onscreen. Many platforms offer better customization to make a good look and feel of your webinars. You can change the colors, fonts, and backgrounds of your presentation which will make it more professional, engaging, and appealing. And improving the presentation of your webinars will also lead to a more successful event.
Recommended Webinar Tools
Because the world is continuously evolving and different webinar tools keep on appearing in the digital market, choosing the best platform for your webinars became hard. But don’t worry, we got you. Below are some of the recommended tools you might want to consider using.
Youtube Live
While not really a webinar solution, it is a free live streaming platform with live chat messaging. You can host free live public webinars with it. You are also able to embed the video player and use it to live stream private and paid webinars. You can also use tools like Flutin to run automated webinars. With a proper video and audio setup, you can use Youtube Live as a hybrid webinar tool.
Facebook Live
A live streaming platform similar to Youtube Live with similar features like live chat messaging, except with live transcriptions for your onstream webinars. You can host on an online event with Facebook Live. A powerful feature that you may put Facebook Live as a public webinar platform is the ability to retarget viewers who watch your webinar as well as the recordings with Facebook and Instagram ads after the webinar is done.
Zoom Meetings
Zoom Meetings is free webinar software that helps you to create professional-grade presentations. With Zoom events, you can add sound, music, and graphics to your webinars as well as screen sharing, making them more engaging and appealing to your audience. You can also add interactive elements such as polls and chat rooms. Breakout rooms allow you to split your attendees into groups or you can even have a 1-to-1 session with a webinar attendee. Additionally, Zoom video webinar offers a wide range of features such as email support, live transcriptions, exporting videos, and more. With Zoom webinar you can even increase your reach by live streaming your webinar or hosted a zoom live event through Facebook or other third-party software.
JetWebinar
Unlike the ones mentioned above, Jetwebinar is a true webinar hosting platform that makes it easy to create high-quality, interactive webinars. With JetWebinar, you can create custom presentations with ease, customize the look and feel of your presentation, and measure results in real-time. Additionally, JetWebinar offers a wide range of features such as screen sharing, automatic recording, email reminders, live transcriptions, and more. The main feature of JetWebinar is the ability to run pre recorded webinar or evergreen webinar. These automated webinars help you to educate or sell even when you are not there to conduct it. Their plan also allows you to run unlimited webinars which is great for running free webinar for lead generation. However, it can also collect payment for a paid webinar. As a webinar host, you can also pre-program chat messages to simulate an automated webinar like a live webinar. Depending on the plan you have, your webinar room can hold up to 500 or even a million attendees. You can also collect questions in the questions tab and run a QA session towards the end of your webinar. Combined with your basic live webinar feature, you can run a webinar recording then convert it into an automated webinar, it is definitely one of the more powerful webinar marketing solution.
GrooveWebinars
A webinar hosting platform highly similar to Jetwebinar, but with much better user interface. As a webinar attendee, you would very much prefer the look and feel of GrooveWebinars than Jetwebinar. You can run automated webinars with pre-programmed chat messages. The only feature lacking with GrooveWebinars at the moment is the lack of integrations. Without at least webhooks integration, you can’t connect your marketing automation solutions with GrooveWebinars. However, GrooveWebinars is highly promising, as the founder of GrooveWebinars, Mike Filsaime previously founded WebinarJam and EverWebinar.
Skype
A video conferencing software that now comes installed with Windows, but unfortunately lost a lot of market share to Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not the best solution for hosting webinars, but if you’re looking for a free video conferencing solution to run small webinars, Skype can work fine.
Final Thought
Webinars are powerful, it does not only attract the target market but also inspire people with the story and other content being shared with the public. Plus, webinars give businesses an opportunity to accelerate and connect with people coming from different parts of the world. Businesses may enjoy all of the aforementioned benefits of a webinar on a regular basis if they use the appropriate solution and conduct it well.
