Webinars are great platforms for businesses to drive sales generation. You can use webinars to engage your audiences, capture feedback, and educate them about your products.
Webinars can be easy to set up, depending on what tools you’re using.
You can have your webinars set up and running in a couple of seconds. Offer a great user experience for attendees to your live events, depending on the tool you’re using.
While there isn’t any one-size-fits-all tool, there are some tools that can help make life easier. I’ll be highlighting 10 of my best picks, and giving you details about them all.
Just before we get started, here are some factors to look out for when choosing a webinar tool to use.
Factors to Consider in Choosing Webinar Software
- Video Quality: You want to be sure that the webinar tool has the capability to stream HD videos. The video quality is important if you want to project a good image of your brand. Confirm if your chosen software enables you to stream high-quality HD video, and that applies to live and recorded videos
- Custom Background: You may want to customize the background of your event as it is streamed live. Using this feature can help brand your videos with your company logo and colors
- Cloud-based or Need to Download: Is the tool hosted on the cloud or do you need to download a plugin or app before using it? Cloud-based makes it very easy for anyone to join because there is no need to install any app or plugin
- Number of Presenters: Most webinar tools place a limit on the number of presenters per session. But you still need to consider how many presenters are allowed per session. Some events may require up to 4 presenters, and others may not. Finding out on the limits placed on presenters is vital
- Number of Viewers: Depending on the plan chosen, there are limits set on the number of viewers. You just need to find out if the limit is what you can deal with
- Ease of Use: This is important if you want to achieve a seamless broadcast for your events. From the point of event registration to broadcast, the process should be simple and straightforward
- Email Marketing: Is there any kind of support for email marketing? Don’t forget that webinars are great platforms to capture emails of your audience
- Integration with Third-Party Apps: Does the webinar tool allow you to integrate with other business or marketing tools? How many tools can you integrate with this webinar tool?
- Pricing Plans: If all the other factors are sorted out, you will have to find out if the pricing is affordable for your business.
10 Best Webinar Tools
1 – GoToWebinar
This is one of the oldest tools in the webinar space. It fits in nicely for professionals and big businesses that have large needs for their webinars.
The tool can contain up to 5,000 attendees per session, though this goes for the Enterprise plan. You can include surveys, create custom email invites, confirmations and reminders.
There are reporting tools that enable you to monitor events in real-time. This tool has support for HD videos, high-quality audio, and breakout rooms which can be used to divide your audience.
The plans are quite expensive with the most basic plan costing $900 a year. This tool is a bit confusing to use, especially as presenters and participants have to download different tools.
2 – GetResponse
This is an all-in-one marketing solution that comes with its own webinar tool. This tool makes it easier to schedule events for email subscribers, send reminders and share on social media.
It is a great lead generation tool that allows you to capture and send automated messages when someone registers. You can integrate YouTube to view videos, integrate whiteboard for notes, carry out surveys and reporting.
Other features include CRM support, RSS, blog to email support, and desktop sharing.
The pricing plans start at $49 per month, though this depends on other features on GetResponse.
See more details on GetResponse here
3 – WebinarJam
This is one of the best tools to use if your business is involved with selling of products.
The tool enables pop-up CTAs during live sessions, which can be used to prompt your audience into making purchases. Its live chat feature is ideal for those who want to communicate with their audience during live events.
The tool is designed to work on any browser, so you don’t need to install anything. There is support for HD video, up to 6 presenters, and easy-to-use presenter dashboard.
You can broadcast live on YouTube, live chat during sessions, send private messages, and send private messages between moderators. Other features are live polls, video share, highlighting of comments, and analytics dashboard.
WebinarJam is ideal for coaching, consulting, product promotion, and hosting of Q&As.
The basic plan starts at $144 a year ($41.58 per month) giving you up to 500 participants, 3 presenters and 24/7 customer support.
4 – EverWebinar
This webinar solution is one that is designed to make your recorded webinars evergreen.
It is an automated tool that broadcasts videos as if they are live streams. You can use any of your past webinars and this tool will make them look and feel fresh.
It is a tool that is used by big brands, influencers, bloggers, and marketers. If you’re planning on making passive income from webinars, this is the tool you need.
You can take a vacation or even be on your bed during the broadcast of your webinar. Or you can decide to participate by responding to live chats and comments.
Whatever you choose, this tool will provide you with all that is needed for a smooth broadcast. It can handle all engagements, simulate room count, email reminders, and live chats.
It can also fake the number of attendees, show your offers, and provide the “Ask a question” feature.
You can choose from any of live, hybrid, or automated webinars. For pricing, you have the options of paying either $499 a year or $199 in 3 installments.
There is also a free 14-day trial period to test the webinar tool.
5 – Zoom
This is one tool that has hit the spotlight within the past few months. Zoom is one of the best video conferencing tools used for meetings and training purposes.
It is most popular for the features that are offered for free. You can set up a meeting not beyond 40 minutes and 100 participants for free.
And it’s probably because Zoom is built for the bigger brands with the need for conference technology.
Zoom is a great tool with features for video conferencing, screen sharing, private and public group chats and MP4 recordings.
It is ideal for teaching, meetings, training, and business purposes.
Paid features on Zoom include admin controls, cloud storage recording, and subdomain for your events.
Attendees can use the screen share feature, free access to desktop and mobile app, and event recording. Zoom works on all platforms and devices, useful for question and answer sessions, and supports multiple presenters.
Zoom offers a free plan that has a limit of 100 attendees and a maximum of 40 minutes per session.
For the paid plan, it starts at $14.99 a month that allows for 100 attendees, though with unlimited time duration.
6 – Demio
Demio is a smart automation tool used for webinars.
It has a well-designed tracking feature used to retarget and track your audience. You can also include conversion pixels on registration pages, on thank-you pages, or webinar rooms.
Demio also has in-built automation rules like sending recordings to those who join much later, helping to segment people based on the time they joined your webinar.
When it comes to ease of use, Demio scores a very high mark. Your first set up might take just a few minutes but after that, you can have your webinar running in 10 seconds.
Demio is a great choice for everyone, no matter your skill level. Beginners can get comfortable using the tool, even for the first time.
Demio is cloud-based and so you don’t need to install any app to use it. Any browsers, including desktop and mobile, can be used to access Demio webinars.
Demio also allows for file downloads and up to 15 event coordinators. The pricing for Demio starts at $49 per month, and it allows for just 50 participants. Other pricing plans are $99 for 50 attendees, and the $234 per month plan which allows for up to 500 attendees.
7 – Google Hangouts
This is a free online tool from Google which requires YouTube to work. You will need to have your own YouTube channel and Chrome browser before you can use Google Hangouts.
Hangouts support webinars of small sizes (maximum of 30 people). Or you could use the tool to broadcast to a wider audience through a YouTube stream.
Whatever options you decide, your webinar will be recorded during the broadcast.
It is after the event has ended that it becomes available on YouTube. By then, you as the author can decide to either make the video private or public.
Google Hangouts is a great business tool because it has features that make it effective for inviting members.
Also, different people can speak in an ongoing event. And Hangouts makes it quite easy to share a webinar after it has been completed.
While streaming is ongoing, you cannot make it private. And so Google Hangouts isn’t a good choice for paid events.
The videos from the stream are automatically recorded and uploaded online. But one great advantage of this tool is the ability to reach a large audience through YouTube.
8 – Zoho
Zoho Meeting is a web-based conferencing tool that comes with webinar features.
Zoho Meeting is an easy-to-use tool for Businesses of all sizes, which is best used for team collaboration and webinars.
It works with your browser, with features such as screen sharing, live chat, polling, and Q&As.
Zoho Meeting has a free version and a paid version which starts at $10 per month.
9 – ClickMeeting
This is a browser-based tool that provides basic functions for webinars. The tool comes with a step-by-step guide to help you set up webinars with ease.
The dashboard contains detailed info about all your webinar activities. You will be able to view all your webinars, both past and scheduled. Also, the dashboard displays a number of registered users for your upcoming events.
Creating a new live event is made easier; all you need to do is use the duplicate feature. There is a waiting time for participants who arrive early for an event.
During this wait, they will be given more details about the event. You can conduct polls, surveys, support for email notifications, and chat messages.
ClickMeeting offers a free 30-day trial after which you can opt for a paid plan starting from $25 per month.
10 – LiveWebinar
This is a cloud-based platform that aids communication between people and businesses. It’s a tool that gives you total freedom on how you choose to conduct your live meetings.
Its features include breakout rooms, polls, whiteboards, screen sharing, and live broadcasts to social media.
It is a highly secure platform that protects privacy of its users. It also allows you to customize fully to fit in with your brand.
There is a free 14-day trial period after which users can upgrade to any of the paid plans. Paid plans start from $14 per month (Pro plan) to $119 (Business plan), and Custom plan.
Conclusion
Webinars, if well leveraged, can offer immense benefits to your brand. You can explore them to obtain email contacts, educate your prospects, and generate sales leads.
However, the tools to use for your webinars are also very important. You want to be sure that you’re using a tool that fits in nicely with your business needs.
This post contains my best 10 picks of webinar tools for 2020. I’m sure you have found at least one of those tools that your business can explore.
Some of these tools have free trial periods for you to test them out. And you can start right away with any of those ones that pique your interest.
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Thanks for sharing this Sierra. Hosting Webinars has become a very important aspect of our business world given the situation of the world today. And it is something I am very much interested in moving forward in my business.
I have attended a meeting on Zoom and really liked its layout and how it works, I am also familiar with google Hangout but haven’t tried it yet.
I am just so glad that you have made my work easier by sharing what I need to look out for when choosing a webinar tool and also listing the 10 best ones available.
Now I can look into this list and discover which one would work best for me.
This has been a massive help, thanks again for sharing.
Hey Queen, Much excited to know this tutorial comes handy for someone like you! Oh, yes, your business may require that you hold Webinars periodically to improve your brand awareness and boost monthly revenue. And one of the best webinar tools I would ever recommend is Webinarjam. Thanks for your comment, drop by anytime!