In 2024, webinars as a method of marketing communication between a business and its audience have not lost their relevance. Today, organizing such events has become much simpler, more convenient, and accessible thanks to the widespread use of specialized services. In this article, we will talk about their advantages and applications, and also introduce you to the top 5 most popular webinar platforms.
Applications and Benefits of Webinar Platforms
Webinar platforms are cloud services for holding virtual meetings and events in the format of webinars and video conferencing. They provide users with a solid set of tools: audio and video broadcasts, online chat, polls, screen sharing, and others. In addition, they help solve a number of organizational problems. For example, they can be used to instantly send invitations to participants, moderate speeches, and comments.
Webinar services are used in many areas. Most often, they are used to achieve the following goals:
- Product demonstration. With their help, companies can present new products and services to their target audience, as well as effectively convey the necessary messages.
- Lead generation. Such platforms are considered a powerful lead generation tool; businesses actively use them to attract new customers.
- Education. Webinar programs are often used to conduct distance training and other educational events. They make training and development accessible to employees located anywhere in the world.
- Support. Thanks to such services, companies can make user support more accessible, convenient, and efficient.
- Business events. Webinars are a very popular tool for organizing modern business events. They make it possible to quickly and cost-effectively organize large-scale conferences or trade exhibitions with participants from different countries.
In addition to their versatility, online webinar platforms have other advantages:
- Coverage. Specialized programs provide businesses with a wider audience reach through professional training and holding events, as well as their competent promotion.
- Interaction. Services of this type contain a number of interactive elements (chat, polls, etc.) that improve the interaction of organizers with the audience and the latter’s engagement.
- Availability. The use of modern programs makes webinars more accessible to all participants. They allow them to consume content without restrictions and maintain active communication through various devices.
- Expertise. Professional online services take the organization of webinars to a much higher level. Thanks to them, companies can strengthen their positive image and demonstrate expertise to their target audience.
Livestorm
Our review of the best webinar platforms begins with Livestorm, a popular cloud service for organizing webinars with a built-in video conferencing system. It is versatile and ideally suited for companies from various fields: finance, healthcare, education, IT, media communications, and many others.
Key features:
- Livestorm users can conduct webinars online and broadcast recorded events. It is possible to split the webinar into several sessions. Each of them will appear in scheduled events.
- The Event Room tool allows you to flexibly customize your webinars by enabling, disabling, or changing various webinar features. With its help, you can manage the methods of communication of participants (chat, questions, surveys, etc.), displaying their personal data, contacts, and more.
- The platform allows you to conduct automated webinars without the participation of organizers. They can schedule the start and end time of the event, show the video, and redirect participants to external sites.
- The service provides the ability to customize webinar registration forms: upload a logo and background image, select the colors of the text, background, and buttons. It is even possible to create a full-fledged landing page for these purposes.
- Livestorm allows you to customize and automate any mailings related to webinars. Organizers can send automatic email reminders to participants about upcoming events, as well as follow-ups.
If you are interested in webinar platforms free, you have found what you need. The free plan of this service will give you the opportunity to organize a webinar for 30 participants with a session duration of up to 20 minutes without any payment. In addition, the service offers three paid tariffs:
- Pro (up to 100 participants, session duration up to 4 hours) – $79 per month. For a fee, the number of participants can be increased to 1000 people.
- Business (500–3000 participants, session duration up to 4 hours) – the price is calculated individually and is available upon request.
- Enterprise (500–3000 participants, session duration up to 12 hours) – the price is calculated individually and is available upon request.
BigMarker
Despite the fact that the BigMarker service is gaining momentum in popularity, users classify it as one of the top webinar platforms. It focuses on organizing marketing webinars and offers useful tools for their presentation, as well as detailed analytics. In addition to webinars, this platform can be used to host other types of events: virtual, hybrid, and offline.
Key features:
- There are 7 types of webinars available: live, on demand, automated, evergreen, 24/7, live streams, and webinar series. Another option is broadcasting. All online events allow you to run polls and interact with the audience in every possible way.
- BigMarker is one of the best video webinar platforms, providing the opportunity to organize professional online events with comprehensive branding and flexible management. Users can combine 15 modules, including sessions, breakouts, exhibition halls, gamification, networking, and more.
- The platform contains a set of tools for promoting webinars and other events. Among them, there is a solid catalog of thematic landing page templates to attract and inform the audience. They include a registration form, a confirmation page, and other sections.
- Organizers can remind about the upcoming webinar using offers with different designs and backgrounds, as well as a call to action. Integration with many CRM, marketing, and email platforms is supported.
BigMarker offers its users three tariff plans with different sets of functions:
- Basic – for small and medium-sized businesses that are just starting to conduct webinars (up to 1000 participants, share up to 9 webcams, 1 host license).
- Enterprise – for rapidly growing companies (up to 10,000 participants, share up to 64 webcams, 4 host licenses).
- Enterprise+ – for enterprises and organizations that already conduct very effective webinars and events (up to 500,000 participants, white-labeled domains, 6 host licenses).
BigMarker does not indicate the cost of tariff plans, as it is calculated individually.
EverWebinar
EverWebinar service is a popular webinar software. It is designed to organize automated and hybrid webinars, providing a number of useful functions for their effective conduct and promotion.
Key features:
- The platform offers users the opportunity to create fully automated webinars using a step-by-step builder. As a result, they can easily conduct online events on autopilot around the clock, launching them at the required frequency (at least every 30 minutes).
- The service allows you to manage pre-recorded webinars. You can do this in several ways: import from WebinarJam, download videos from YouTube, Vimeo Pro, or any MP4 file from a PC, laptop, or mobile device.
- After adding a webinar and entering information about it and its organizer, users have access to a number of event settings. They can schedule it, manage registration, email and SMS notifications, live elements (autoplay, countdown, live content, online chat), set up repeats, and more.
- Other tools in this one of the best webinar software include a visual page builder (for registration, "Thank You Page"). No less useful are surveys and research, automatic mailings based on triggers, split testing, and clickable offers.
EverWebinar offers two pricing plans:
- Yearly – $499.
- Biennial – $874 (paid once every two years; first 3 months free).
Both plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied and no longer wish to use the platform. To get your money back, you just need to contact technical support and report your decision.
Demio
The Demio cloud platform is one of the most popular online webinar software today. Just like other platforms in our selection, it is focused on conducting marketing events. This service is suitable not only for webinars but also for a number of other online events, which significantly expands its target audience.
Key features:
- One of the main advantages of Demio is unlimited sessions. With its help, users can organize an unlimited number of meetings and invite up to 3,000 participants to each of them.
- Built-in analytics tools provide organizers with valuable insights. Among them, it is especially worth highlighting the tracking of registrations, attendance, and even the attention of visitors. All collected data is available for download in a CSV file.
- The platform allows you to launch different types of webinars: standard, automated, and serial. In the event account, you can add a variety of content: slides, videos, polls, promotional materials.
- Demio gives users the ability to flexibly customize and brand their webinar registration page. In particular, they can change form fields, background images, add a logo, color scheme, and so on.
- Webinar organizers can send email notifications to registered participants. The service supports integration with many external systems, including Drip, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, ConvertKit, AWeber, GetResponse, HubSpot, PayPal, LinkedIn, Pipedrive, Slack, Salesforce, and TikTok.
Unfortunately, Demio is not one of the free webinar platforms. Its range of tariffs consists exclusively of paid plans:
- Starter (for small businesses and individual entrepreneurs; maximum session duration – 3 hours; 50 participants) – $42 per month.
- Growth (for developing companies; maximum session duration – 8 hours; 150 participants with the possibility of paid expansion up to 3000) – $75 per month per host.
- Premium (for businesses that require special support; maximum session duration – 10 hours; 150 participants with the possibility of paid expansion to 3000; additional functionality with artificial intelligence) – $184 per month per host.
The indicated prices are valid subject to payment for the year immediately. If you pay monthly, the cost will be higher.
ClickMeeting
The ClickMeeting platform is a popular and convenient webinar software. It is a video conferencing service with the ability to organize webinars and other online events.
Key features:
- The service functionality is available through the web interface, desktop program (Windows, MacOS), and mobile application (iOS, Android). All versions have almost the same set of tools, but only the browser application supports virtual backgrounds.
- By default, the ClickMeeting interface is in webinar mode. It allows organizers to share information, screens, slides, whiteboards, and polls with an audience of up to 1,000 participants.
- The service easily integrates with marketing and analytics tools. For example, users can connect a webinar landing page to Google Analytics or embed a Facebook pixel into it. The webinar page itself can be flexibly customized.
- ClickMeeting has a number of important security features. The most useful among them are closing webinars with a password, deleting participants, and automatically scanning files sent in a webinar for viruses and malware.
The service offers a 30-day Free Trial plan with an unlimited number of webinars that can be attended by up to 25 people. In addition to this, there are 3 paid tariffs in the line:
- Live (unlimited number of webinars; 25 participants with the possibility of paid expansion up to 1000) – $26 per month.
- Automated (automated webinars; 25 participants with the possibility of paid expansion up to 1000) – $42 per month.
- Custom services (up to 10,000 participants; priority support; white label) – the cost is calculated individually and is available upon request.
The indicated prices are valid subject to payment for the year immediately. If you pay monthly, the cost will be higher.
Conclusion
All of the systems listed in our review have been on the market for several years now, enjoying popularity among both small businesses and large companies. They have a similar set of tools, although there are some differences. If you are specifically interested in the best free webinar platforms, we recommend paying attention to Livestorm and ClickMeeting (the latter’s free plan is valid for 30 days). The most affordable paid plan is again from ClickMeeting. Of course, the price is an important factor, but it is also worth paying attention to other features of the service. We hope that our article will help you choose the optimal solution for your tasks.
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