Webinar Software supports businesses as well as individual users to host and share collaborative live and documented, official or instructive video demonstrations to existing or possible customers. Webinars can most basically be referred to as virtual communications amongst a host and the audience. An audience can vary in size right from a small employee group to a large-scale event. On the other hand, the host and their sources remain singular. Best Webinar Software allows users to host online events which could be meant for trainings, sales presentations, executive conferences, as well as product introductions and many other purposes. The software allows users to engage with a larger number of target audiences by providing the best quality video and audio. Webinar Solutions can also help users in creating presentations that blend perfectly with a company’s brand plans and it also offers more customization options. This helps in increasing audience engagement and also makes a webinar more remarkable. While webinar solutions are similar to the video and audio conferencing software, the main difference is the focus on connecting an audience to one host.

Best Webinar Software in 2020

1. Zoho Meeting
2. Adobe Connect
3. ON24
4. GoToWebinar
5. Zoom Video Webinar
6. BlueJeans Events
7. BigMarker
8. Cisco Webex Events
9. Livestorm
10. RingCentral Meetings

Zoho Meeting - Zoho Meeting software is the easiest and most practical online webinar solution that increases business collaboration by allowing users to share their screens or applications, audio, and also video conferencing. It offers individuals as well as organizations, with a quick and simple way to host and conduct protected and cost-effective online meetings. Users can also host product launches, provide demos, conduct sales presentations and education webinars, and online meetings, right from their browser….Read more

Adobe Connect – It is a secure, scalable and feature loaded webinar solution that helps the most regulated sectors in running task critical operations online with the help of its Multi-layered Security method. Users can design their own immersive experiences with modified pods, images and layouts to adapt and brand their virtual meeting rooms….Read more

ON24 - ON24 Software enables businesses to engage with their audiences by providing them with interactive, data-rich webinars that allow people to associate and interact on a more human level and make informed business decisions. By implementing the ON24 Engagement Platform, marketers will be able to create Live, On Demand and Custom-made Engagements, gain actionable insights and integrate the same across their whole operations….Read more

GoToWebinar – GoToWebinar Tool helps users in managing and arranging events and provides them with attractive webinar templates. It allows businesses to promote their webinars by providing them with custom webinar invites, personalized registration pages, and automated email alerts. Users can also record and reuse their events to rope in more audience. GoToWebinar’s popular CRM integration also helps in transferring the attendee data….Read more

Zoom Video Webinar – With Zoom software, users can modify and trademark their emails and registration forms. The software provides flexible registrations and several integration options for the user’s CRM systems. It also allows businesses to enlarge their impact with on-demand or repetitive webinars with recording and auto-generated transcripts….Read more

BlueJeans Events - BlueJeans Events software combines the collective features of a meetings platform with the scalability of a broadcast. It helps businesses in transforming their corporate culture by providing them with a self-service streaming webinar platform. It allows participants to enter intrusion-free events without any requirements for downloads from any device or any room….Read more

BigMarker - Businesses and educational organizations make the most use of BigMarker Webinar Solution to be able to host live, on-demand, and automated webinars. The software also helps users in conducting online presentations, trainings and events, making expressive conversations with leads, customers, and other participants. BigMarker also offers integration options, APIs, and white label services that help businesses to integrate prevailing interactive video experiences into their marketing, sales, and learning stacks. BigMarker is based out of Chicago, and it supports online events for a number of companies and organizations around the globe…Read more

Cisco WebEx Meetings – The software helps users to create highly engaging online events and reach more participants, across the country as well as around the globe. Users can communicate effortlessly and at reasonable cost with internal and external audiences and they can also depend on highly secure and scalable online events from the global Cisco WebEx platform….Read more

Livestorm - Livestorm Software is a webinar solution that allows organizations and individual users to conduct customer training sessions, product demos, online courses and communication conferences. The company not only offers a global webinar experience but also a comprehensive toolkit with personalized registration pages, branding competences, widgets, integrations, analytics and more. Livestorm webinar solution runs efficiently in any type of browser be it desktop or mobile….Read more

RingCentral Meetings - It is a Cloud Video Conferencing solution that combines HD video conferencing, mobility, with web meetings together as a free cloud service. The software provides users with the capability to host video conferences and web share, as a part of their complete business communications solution. Users can also have direct meetings in high definition quality and share their desktop or documents with the participants regardless of the time and location….Read more

Visionary leaders in this space are Zoho Meeting, Zoom Video Webinar, GoToWebinar, BigMarker, and ON24.

Dynamic Differentiators in this space is RingCentralMeetings.

Innovators in this space are Adobe Connect Webinar, BlueJeans Events, and Cisco WebEx Meetings.

Emerging Companies in this space is LiveStorm.

Why Use Webinar Management Software?

Best Webinar Software helps users in going live in a conference from one location while the user is physically present at a different location. It helps in communicating with the whole team, or a whole company, at once regardless of their multiple locations.

Video communication has progressed a lot from its early situations. It is now an essential, routinely-used tool for the purpose of professional or personal communication. But more than the regular web conferencing use cases, best webinar software usually enables a host to lead the content and in some cases it makes a moderator available to audiences whenever in a large numbers. Below are the areas where software is currently being used effectively:

Marketing

Best Webinar Software helps in bringing receptiveness to a business, enterprise, or even an idea. The whole point of using a webinar solution is uninterrupted distribution of information. This information itself can range from tremendously valued to casual yet stimulating. Organizations have made use of the software to present their employees or speakers in front of huge spectators in order to build preliminary interest in a particular product or a service.

Education

Webinars have always proven to be an important teaching solution. There are so many people who choose to learn visually. Best Webinar Software allows hosts to walk viewers through a clarification or an idea bit by bit. Hosts can share demos or videos inside the webinar solution in order to provide audiences with an understanding to what they’re speaking about. Visuals are attractive and often leave viewers with ideas to recollect or think about later.

Meetings

Though webinars have typically been used to show presentations to big audiences, they’re not forever accessible to the public. Best Webinar Software can also be used in a big enterprise to conduct important official meetings or organization-wide declarations. They can also be kept and archived for later use, offering valued resources for employees to self-help. Webinar Solutions offer storage functionalities that are useful in many webinar use cases. They enable the presentation to be a continuing resource for awareness, education, or interior communication.

Drive Demand

Perhaps one of the main business benefits of using webinars is that it provides an opportunity to drive customer interest. By presenting concepts or products in an ardent, amusing format, businesses, non-profits, and other monetarily dependent organizations can get face to face with possible buyers. This face time is important, as customers very often feel more connected to a company whose thoughts they understand or settle with. Best Webinar Software can help important speakers and customers in being on the same page and grow a joint understanding that could possibly lead to a loyal customer relationship.

Audience Engagement

Webinars generally excite people and knowing more about a presentation or an online session adds more importance to the subject matter. It makes spectators feel as though they’re joining in something significant, thrilling, or interesting. Due to this, webinar spectators are more probable to be engaged. Hosts can also take benefit of this with other meeting driving strategies such as surveys and live spectator communication. This is guaranteed to increase viewer interest, as well as deliver more stand-out moments and vivid takeaways for spectators. Surveys and votes make spectators feel more involved and can help ideas sink in further.

Establish Identifications

Conducting a webinar on a topic, one is well-informed in can help in establishing them as a thought leader in a certain space. Webinars help persons or businesses to attribute their face or a brand to a certain topic or space, reinforcing their knowledge in a shareable video later.

Which different types of webinars make use of Webinar Solutions?

A webinar is usually defined as a live online-based session and video conference that leverages the internet and a software application to offer present interaction between the host or the presenter and the spectators, which are often located in separate locations.

Best Webinar Software users will be able to move between camera built video and their desktop screens for demos and/or slideshows. There are ample number of webinar solutions that are currently available, and they all come equipped with varied features and capabilities. Many of the webinar solutions in the market enable users to set-up their platform according to the kind of webinar they are trying to conduct. The different types of best webinar software have been explained below:

Workshop Webinar

A workshop-type webinar generally makes use of the webinar solutions to share computer screens with the viewers and co-hosts or panellists, which is what most of the webinar solutions offer. Hosts will be able to offer their spectators with a thorough guide on whatsoever it is they’re trying to work on with the webinar members. That screen share feature also allows hosts to provide their spectators with the ability to follow their guidelines in a clear and straightforward fashion.

Educational Webinar

An educational type of webinar solution fundamentally resembles a lecture session. This type of webinar tool is actually the most common kind of webinar solution, due to the fact that it is much simpler to arrange and host. This type of webinar platform solution has been created to educate or share information to the audience regarding a particular subject, for instance. Best webinar software offers the most suitable tools and functionalities to allow hosts to present their knowledge and other information that they wish to share with their viewers. It also offers features that allow hosts to correctly display their proficiency and actually influence their audience in to buying their products and/or services.

Conference Webinar

Best Webinar Software solutions are not only appropriate for web-based sessions and presentations, but the features and functionalities offered by most of the webinar solutions also enable users to conduct meetings and conferences online without any interruption. A few of the webinar tools help businesses to conduct meetings within the organization via video conference calls and other suitable tools. With the help of meeting-style webinars, persons who are not directly joining in the meeting can simply sit in and watch.

Audience-driven Webinar

Webinars for audiences, or Q&A type presentations, boost interaction and companionship among the host and his or her audiences. Best Webinar Software that provision audience-driven functionality offer tools and capabilities that deliver the unique capability for viewers to ask queries and hosts to answer them. This type of webinar solution is comparatively simple and upfront when it comes to content, demanding only a small presentation for the addressees. Most of the software solutions in the market provide the tools and competences that help companies and businesspersons to establish this type of webinar and it is helpful to both sides, the host as well as the audience.

Panellist Discussion

A panellist discussion make use of best webinar software that is a web-based seminar solution and is prevalent amongst groups, business teams, and professional teams. Contrasting with the audience-driven webinars, panellist discussion is usually driven by a mediator with all the panellists simply presenting their thoughts and proficiency on a particular topic. Also, very similar to the audience driven webinars, panellist discussions are backed by most of the webinar solutions. A lot of the webinar management tools and applications essential for arranging a panellist discussion webinar are exactly similar to those of audience-driven seminars.

Who Uses Webinar Management Software?

Webinars are an exceptional tool that enables users to correctly distribute information while also communicating with an audience. This can be valuable in any number of circumstances to a plethora of various people. There are some occupations that have encompassed webinar tools into their standard collection of technology tools. There are webinar solutions that cater precisely to these use cases and as an outcome offer features outside of the norm. These specialists can include:

Marketing and Sales Reps

For those working in marketing or sales areas, webinars can prove to be an appropriate, and customizable solution that helps in pitching the brand or product to the customers. With all the features that a webinar solution offers, reps can leverage webinars to change their pitch and cater to the exact group they’re speaking to. This helps in making their presentation more appealing and pertinent to their audience, translating directly to more lead generation and brand awareness. Best webinar software that caters specifically to the needs of marketing and sales reps often provide branding options and integration with external digital asset management software to pull exclusive assets.

Educators

Webinars have become an indispensable tool in the online learning environment. Educators making use of learning management system (LMS) can post live webinars in order to simulate a physical classroom or they can even post previously recorded webinars so students can learn on their own time. Webinar tools envisioned precisely for educational purposes are often built straight into an LMS, integrating with additional quiz and note-taking features in the platform. However, there are separate educational webinar tools available that are proficient of integrating with other outside LMS if necessary.

What are the most important features of a Best Webinar Software?

High-Quality Audio & Video

Audio and video quality is of the highest importance to any web conferencing software. Users expect to feel like they are having a realistic direct conversation with other members, and the quality of a video is the main component of that. Any pause in video conferencing as well as blurred images and distorted audio totally hampers the user experience. Apart from the quality of the webcam or the microphone, the software itself can offer tools that help in refining the overall quality of the user experience. These features may include noise cancellation, auto-mute for listening participants, and settings modifications for users with lower bandwidths.

Branding

Webinar platform solutions allow hosts to add official branding to their webinars. This helps them in attributing their company to the ideas or concepts or products being presented.

Easy-to-Use Interface

Ease of use is very important for online meetings to run without a glitch. Webinar participants need to be able to effortlessly and swiftly join meetings irrespective if they’re at work office or on the go. Apart from this, the hosts should find it easy to set up and manage meetings. A user friendly interface is essential since it simplifies collaboration amongst participants and ensures that they are involved.

Meeting Recording

The truth of online meetings is that there is always a likelihood of someone missing out on the meeting. This is where meeting recordings become very important. Meeting Recordings are not only helpful for participants who couldn’t attend the meeting, but they are also useful for attendees who can use these recordings as a reference. Preferably, users would have access to unrestricted recording, but several web conferencing solution restrict the quantity of meetings than can be recorded and stored based on the file size. Some providers may restrict the number of minutes that can be recorded, or even the available editing features.

Role-Based Access

Best Webinar Software allow hosts to control and provide access only to exact tools based on role. This confirms that viewer’s participation is always on the speaker’s terms, and the viewers’ attention is where the speaker needs it at a certain time.

Registration

Best Webinar Software allow audiences to register for webinar attendance inside the application. Built-in registration functionality helps the hosts to check for the attendance even without ever exiting the app. Some webinar solutions even let hosts to send security materials or routinely send emails to registered attendees.

Attendee Live Chat

Best Webinar Software enables attendees to interact with each another by providing them with chat in real time. A live attendee chat help the viewers to remain engaged, particularly if attendees are also not in a common location. Live chat functionality can also be used by a host to get questions from the audience flawlessly.

Polls and Surveys

Webinar solutions help audiences to join in polls and surveys conducted by the host. Polls and surveys provided to the audience in real offer the speaker specific talking points, enabling them to customize their message or presentation to those present.

Event Analytics

Best Webinar Software provides insights into the webinars which can directly indicate the success of a webinar at the launch and even later if it was posted after recording. These insights can provide hosts with an idea of what needs to be improved and things that they did well.

Attendee Reports

Webinar solutions combine attendee information for the purpose of analysis. This information can be used to deliver follow-up emails to the participants or also can be compiled into a list of leads that can be connected later. If the list comprises demographic information of the attendees, further evaluation can be done on the audience.

Social Media Integration

Webinar solutions integrate with social media sites which also helps in streaming across various social media sites. Simple social media integration can help in spreading important messages across numerous channels, facilitating easy viewing and extra channel reach. Streaming on social media sites are also normally easy to share, which could compare to more generated interest than initially expected.

Software Integration

Best Webinar Software integrates perfectly with external software to be able to offer even more features. Webinar solutions usually integrate with software according to the use case. Even a universal webinar solution integrates with more industry specific tools such as learning management systems (LMS), corporate LMS etc.

Screen Sharing

Best webinar tools helps users in broadcasting their computer screen or mobile device interface to the viewers. This functionality allows them to offer product demonstrations as well as trainings.

Presentation Streaming

A webinar tool helps in streaming presentations during a web conference. Contrasting to screen sharing, this functionality only shares PowerPoint files and not the whole desktop to the viewers.

Video Conferencing

This functionality helps users in streaming live videos of hosts and audiences through a webcam or with a mobile camera. It also provides users with a live video of all the members during a webinar.

Hand Raising

Webinar solutions also provide audiences with a "raise hand" feature which enables them to ask questions while a presentation is going on. Once the option is selected, the host is informed and they can transfer the audio and video controls to the participant who wants to ask a question.

Mobile App

This helps the participants to join the webinars from their smartphones by using Android or iOS app.

Host Controls

Host Controls allow webinar hosts to share presentation controls from one host to another.

Event-based Webinars

This helps organizers in hosting webinars for a bigger audience such as customers, students, and employees from across the globe. Also, it helps users manage attendee registrations.

What are the major benefits of using a Webinar Management Software?

Ease of Access for Audiences

Audience can join webinars from any location simply by logging in with their credentials or event-specific access codes. Some webinar solution providers also offer mobile apps that allow viewers to access webinars from their mobile devices. This ease-of-access increases attendance and removes any travel or logistics expenses.

Collect and Analyse Responses More Effectively

In order to make the webinars more effective, it's important to collect feedback and frequently assess the performance of all the sessions. Best Webinar Software allows users to send out digital feedback forms to audience post the session, thereby increasing survey participation.

In-session Partnership

Webinar solutions also help in improving collaboration amongst hosts and the attendees. It provides participants with a chat interface that enables them to post comments and questions while a session is going on. Hosts can also distribute files with the audience and conduct Q&A sittings after the webinar.

Wider Reach

Webinars can usually be accessed by a global audience. This means that organizations can extend their reach to anybody across the globe easily and conveniently, provided that they have access to the essential internet devices. With a comprehensive webinar app, businesses are no longer restricted to only promoting their services or products to the customers within their geographical reach, but also across the globe. To expand their geographical spread, organizations have always been required to actually send their officials to far off locations. These officials typically settle deals via individual or direct conversations. On the other hand, webinars and video conferencing solutions enable individual, as well as one-to-many, virtual meetings amongst business representatives and other stakeholders in a well-organized way, without the need to waste resources on pointless travel. 

More Engaging

Best Webinar Software are amongst the most effective digital marketing solutions available that can be used by businesses today. One of the major reasons for this is that these solutions are great at engaging the audience as compared to, for instance, traditional marketing videos. This also means that participants who would want to follow the whole presentation will put in their best effort to join the event through a computer, tablet or a mobile device from start to end. This not only confirms that the viewers don’t miss anything, but also that they also get the chance to ask their queries and have them resolved in real time. Generally, it is possible for the participants to pause, stop and/or close marketing videos for later watching, this is not likely with webinars. Webinar participants have to be present and watch the entire webinar to the end if they are actually interested in the content.

Improved Branding Value

Significant amount of time, energy, and money is invested in branding of businesses. Some webinar platforms, make it possible for the users to make use of their own brand colours, signs, and domain names to personalize each and every part of their webinar presentations to suit the exclusivity of their own brand. During each webinar, participants are exposed to the brand recurrently. With time, the brand becomes more and more notable to the whole target audience. Post that, every time that the audience thinks about the industry, niche, or product, they will more likely recall the brand. If this is compared to the shorter mentions used at traditional in-person events for interacting or conventions, where many other brands would also be active, and the company will begin to learn more about the powerful branding value offered by online webinars.

Better Understanding of Audience

Businesses that know well about their target audience are more likely to create better products and services, sell more, and achieve better in the long run. Moreover, any prevailing products can be altered to match with the precise needs of the target audience as more information about their necessities comes to light. Amongst all the benefits and disadvantages of webinar solutions, they provide businesses with access to a lot of valued information, gained right from interested participants, through polls, surveys and Q&A sessions conducted during the live event. Organizations also get the opportunity to understand more about what prospects, clients, suppliers, and employees are expecting help with. 

Cost-Efficient Communications

One of the most important benefits of a webinar solution is its affordability. The basic needs for conducting a successful online webinar are an internet connection, computer device, webcam, and access to a good quality webinar app. Affordability plays an important role in driving up the profitability of any organization. By using webinar solutions, organizations can significantly minimize the number of resources required for unimportant travel to networking events, sessions, and individual meetings. This means that rather than spending money and time on commute to meet a small group of already existing or possible suppliers or customers, organizations can instead create cost-effective webinars on a timely basis. This not only promises that they uphold close, individual contact with everyone in their network, but it also helps them to expand their network through bigger, one-to-many webinars. 

What are the most important webinar solution capabilities that need to be assessed before buying one?

In order to be able to use the best webinar software to its fullest potential, the buyers will need to look at some capabilities before buying the software. Some of these functionalities have been listed below here:

Number of Participants

Many of the webinar platform providers calculate this on a monthly or on a yearly basis, it is very important for the buyers to be clear about the number of participants they would need.  If they are conducting their first webinar, they may have plans to get in a large number of attendees at a later stage.  It is important for the users not to miscalculate, otherwise, they may end up paying for extra attendees that may not even be attending the event.  By assessing the number of participants, it becomes a bit easy for the hosts to calculate their budget.

Budget

IT is always suggested that prior to going through their webinar solution options, the organizers need to be very clear about their budget for the solution. In most cases, there is going to be a big expense of buying a webinar tool. There is a wide range of webinar tools that are available at various price points. Whatever the choice is, the buyers will need to ensure that they will get their expected ROI so that their webinars actually add value to their business, and not become a financial liability.  If the users focus more on lead generation or sales, that can be a lot simpler to compute.  However, if the users have any other purpose, then they may want to look at customer retaining or webinar engagement as likely metrics. 

Free Trial

Buyers need to check if the chosen webinar solution provider offers free trials. Since, free trials are a good opportunity to try out and test any software, users can do a rigid testing of the solution to understand how it operates from an admin point of view.  Additionally, it is also recommended to test the solution to see what how it works from a user perspective. 

Customized Branding

Customized branding generally refers to the ability of the users to use their logo, exclusive colours, font styles, email sender particulars in the software. A few of the webinar platforms even allow users to entirely personalize their branding, whereas there are some solutions that don’t allow much customization, unfortunately.  This makes it important for the buyers to determine how important customization is for them to carry out their branding activities.

Integrations

Integrations normally refer to the knack of the buyers to make use of technology to pass details of their contacts to other platforms.  This may comprise registration details, attendance or no show data and other data amongst their webinar solution to other software, like CRM.

Software Reviews

Whenever assessing any webinar solution, it can be helpful if the buyers proactively check on customer reviews to get some first-hand insights into other users’ experience of the software. It would be even better if the buyers connect with people they know of, who are also presently using the same webinar platform and get their direct review on the same. 

Webinar Software Support

It is pretty natural for all the users to have questions or need support with any technology solution.  Be it just a few general questions about getting the webinar setup, or some technical issues in operating their webinars.