Webinar marketing is a vital strategy for B2B businesses and a lot of consumer brands are also turning to it for their own B2C marketing efforts.
Webinars give you the chance to build a more personal relationship with your audience, and answer their objections – at scale. In the case of automated webinars, you can even do this while you sleep.
In this post we’re going to run through some of the best webinar marketing platforms available right now to get your own webinar strategy up and running.
We’ll be running through the features, pros and cons of each platform, plus a brief explanation on what purpose each platform is best suited to – everything you need to choose the best webinar platform for your needs.
1. Demio
Demio is one of the best webinar platforms available today. Throughout the pandemic, they thrived, adapted and kept up with the growing needs of marketing teams being forced online.
While many other platforms are outdated and have failed to keep up with the times, Demio offers a modern and powerful platform.
Unlike many webinar platforms, which offer automated or live webinars, Demio offers both, as well as an option for hybrd mixes of pre-recorded and live recordings.
Throughout your webinar, Demio also allow you to run interactive polls, launch offers with call-to-action buttons, share live document handouts, run Q&As and much more.
Demio features:
- “Stay registered” series: Allow people to sign-up once for an ongoing series of webinars.
- Private chat: Users have the option to send private messages to event coordinators or public messaging visible to everyone.
- Branded registration page: To keep things consistent with your brand.
- Like Live Replays: Automate replays of your webinars to build email lists.
- Analytics: Insights into your webinar performance.
Who is Demio for?
Demo is built for marketing teams who want a dedicated webinar tool with automated replays but put more emphasis on the live events. As of writing, we are evaluating webinar platforms for our latest venture and are almost certainly going to be using Demio.
For non-profits and education companies that have been forced to run their operations online due to coronavirus, Demio are offering a 50% discount for those companies.
Demio is used by many marketing heavyweights including the team at Proof, Drip and OptimizePress, so you’re in good company.
You can see Demio’s pricing and features here.
2. Livestorm
Livestorm is one of the few webinar platforms that go beyond being a marketing tool. While it still offers all of the marketing features you’d expect (automation sequences, automatic replays etc), Livestorm has a lot more to offer.
For example, Livestorm can also be used for meetings and demos up to 12 people – and integrates with collaboration tools like Miro to level-up your team’s virtual meetings.
The entire platform is beautifully designed and has a great user experience – from the registration landing pages to the live webinar experience.
Finally, it’s not a black box. Unlike some of the more archaic webinar platforms, Livestorm integrates with most common marketing tools like HubSpot and Salesforce, so that you can understand how your webinars are performing.
Livestorm features:
- Automated webinars: Schedule webinar to replay at set times throughout the day – e.g.: every hour.
- On demand Webinars: Tells users there’s a webinar just about to start, encouraging them to sign up on the spot.
- Live webinars: The typical live webinar format
- Polls: Speak to live attendees in real time & set them tests/polls
- Instant meetings: Livestorm is designed to also replace Zoom/Google Hangout as your company’s go-to video meeting software
- Free training: In-depth resources on creating webinars
- Analytics: Insights on the performance of your webinar strategy.
Who is Livestorm for?
Based on the integrations and features, I’d say Livestorm is a good alternative to Demio to consider for software and tech companies.
Based in France, Livestorm is also a good option for any organisations serving EU or UK contacts who are required by law to be GDPR compliant.
3. EverWebinar
The next platform we’ll look at is EverWebinar – this is what we’ve historically used for our webinars at Venture Harbour.
And while their website delivers intense infomercial vibes that make the Brit in me want to curl up in the corner, their platform is annoyingly about as good as they claim it to be.
EverWebinar pioneered the automated “evergreen webinar” years before it became the norm. With EverWebinar, you can schedule and automate your webinars to play at set intervals and the software aims to recreate the live experience for users.
We used EverWebinar to automate webinars for Leadformly (one of our previous ventures) and saw great results. As you can see below, when we started using webinars (using Everwebinar’s sister company WebinarJam) our attendee show up rate was around 39%. Since moving to EverWebinar and testing the scheduling of our webinars it’s increased to 75-80%.
EverWebinar features:
- Automate webinars: Schedule webinars to replay at set times throughout the day – e.g.: every hour.
- Just-In-Time Webinars: Tells users there’s a webinar just about to start, encouraging them to sign up on the spot.
- Block night-time viewing: Stops playing your webinar through the night to keep the illusion of live webinars realistic.
- Block dates: Stop your webinar from playing on any desired date or holiday.
- Time zone auto-detection: Automatically sets your webinar plays to different time zones so you only have to schedule things once.
- Free training: In-depth resources on creating webinars and using EverWebinar.
- Integration: EverWebinar is designed to build email leads and integrates with email ActiveCampaign, GetResponse, MailChimp and other email marketing platforms.
- Analytics: Insights on the performance of your webinar strategy.
Just-In-Time Webinars are a great feature that really gives people the nudge to sign up and attend your next screening.
Who is EverWebinar for?
EverWebinar is the platform for you if you want to automate screenings of your prerecorded webinars and turn them into a highly effective lead-generation strategy.
4. WebinarJam
WebinarJam is developed by the same team as EverWebinar but the focus is on screening live webinars. WebinarJam is more like a traditional webinar platform designed for live events so there’s no automation or scheduling with this tool. However, it syncs perfectly with EverWebinar to provide a platform combination that caters to all of your webinar needs – more capable and cheaper than most of the competition.
WebinarJam features:
- Streaming: Stream to Facebook Live, YouTube Live or WebinarJam’s private JamCast broadcaster.
- Recording: Automatically record every webinar for use with EverWebinar.
- Branded pages: Customise your pages for brand consistency.
- Interaction: Engage viewers with live chat, polls and a virtual whiteboard.
- Presentations: Insert pre-recorded video into your webinars for presentation purposes.
- Security: Webinar rooms protected by password.
- Analytics: Reporting on your live webinar performance.
Aside from the live streaming itself, the auto-record feature is an absolute winner with WebinarJam. This means every webinar you hold provides evergreen material for your webinar strategy that you can replay with EverWebinar.
Who is WebinarJam for?
Marketers who want to stream webinars live and record them for use with EverWebinar.
5. WebinarNinja
Used by the likes of AppSumo, BareMetrics and John-Lee Dumas, WebinarNinja has nailed all of the little details that you wished for in a webinar platform
From integrations with every major CRM system to timed offers, and built-in email notifications, WebinarNinja is designed to do one thing extremely well; Help you convert attendees into customers.
The platform is extremely well-designed, and while many webinar software platforms skimp on their landing pages, WebinarNinja offer a beautiful variety to choose from.
WebinarNinja features:
- Paid events: Run free webinars or paid virtual summits
- Ad Tracking: Insert your Facebook Ad tracking pixel
- Automated & hybrid webinars: Run fully-automated replays on a schedule, or combine live and pre-recorded elements.
- Integrations: Integrate with over 1,000+ apps via Zapier
- Multiple presenters: Have one or multiple presenters
- Analytics: Reporting on your live webinar performance.
Who is WebinarNinja for?
Frankly, it’s another great option for marketers and businesses looking for a modern and reliable webinar platform.
If you’re running a small webinar for under 100 attendees, WebinarNinja is slightly more competitive on price, but if you’re running a virtual summit or have a larger audience up to around 500 users, I would err towards Demio.
If you’re running a webinar even larger than that, or require extremely low-latency, our next option may be an even better option.
6. WebEx
WebEx is more than a webinar platform, combing a wider range of features for holding online meetings, events, training sessions, interactive presentations and team collaboration. This sets it apart from the tools we’ve looked at so far, although the pricing is very similar. So you get a lot of features for your money compared to GoToWebinar and a completely different set of features to Demio.
WebEx features:
- Webinars and video conferencing: So you can host a wide range of live events, meetings and training sessions.
- Chat and brainstorming tools: Interactive whiteboard and other tools for collaboration.
- File sharing: The ability to share files and apps for a better workflow.
- Call back: Automated calls inviting people to attend your webinar.
What you don’t get with WebEx is a dedicated webinar marketing tool. This is primarily a video conferencing suite that also caters for webinars and other live events. It’s far more than a webinar tool but perhaps not the best webinar marketing tool.
Who is WebEx for?
Businesses that want a single, powerful video communication system without the marketing features.
7. GetResponse
GetResponse is an email marketing platform by trade but it also comes with decent webinar features on most of its plans. So if you’re after a single platform that provides email marketing, webinar marketing and basic automation, this could be a good choice for you.
Get Response webinar features:
- Quick scheduling: Select your dates, times and create custom URLs for your webinars in moments.
- YouTube integration: Boost your audience with YouTube integration.
- Recordings: Record your webinars, download and share with whoever you want.
- Engagement: Engage viewers with dynamic presentations, interactive whiteboard, videos and live chat.
- Security: SSL-encrypted URLs and you can choose whether your webinar is open to everyone or password-protected.
- Analytics: Reports and analytics on your webinar attendance rates and other metrics.
GetResponse offers up some impressive webinar features – particularly for a platform that’s primarily an email and marketing automation tool. It’s not up there with some of the specialist webinar marketing tools but it was never designed to. Either way, it’s a good option if you’re after a general purpose marketing automation tools with some decent webinar features.
Who is GetResponse for?
Marketers who want email, marketing automation and webinar features from a single platform, but don’t demand industry-leading tools.
8. ClickMeeting
ClickMeeting is another dedicated webinar tool and it pretty much offers all the features you would expect at this stage. The only major thing lacking is the automated relay feature, once again – but you can record webinars and download them for sharing.
ClickMeeting features:
- Subaccounts: Assign webinar duties to different individuals in your team.
- Customisation: Customised invitations, branded webinars and “waiting rooms”.
- Recordings: Record your webinars, download and share with whoever you want.
- Engagement: Engage viewers with dynamic presentations, interactive whiteboard, videos and live chat.
- Analytics: Reports and analytics on your webinar attendance rates and other metrics.
ClickMeeting gives the best webinar tools a run for their money, offering some unique features you won’t get elsewhere. How useful they’ll be to you really depends on what you’re looking for but I wouldn’t say any of these additional features are essential. That’s for you to decide, though.
Who is ClickMeeting for?
Serious webinar marketers should definitely take a look at this one.
9. Livestream
Livestream is by no means webinar platform but rather a system designed to create studio-like live streaming. The idea is to use multiple cameras, professional audio equipment and lighting for high-end productions, including corporate webinars. So Livestream doesn’t come with any of the webinar marketing features we’ve focused on so far in this article. Instead, it provides a platform for streaming live productions of the highest quality and how you use that is up to you.
Livestream features:
- High-end production: Livestream a professional production suite for film crews and production exports.
- Advanced editing: Including autofades, graphics overlays, pictures within pictures and green screen.
- Social media integration: Reach your audience across Facebook Live, YouTube, Twitch and Twitter.
- Engage audiences: With a moderated chat feed.
- Analytics: Insights into viewership and other key metrics from your Livestream productions.
Once again, this isn’t a webinar platform and you don’t get any of the marketing features we’ve looked at so far. But you do get a level live event production software that none of the other options in this list come close to.
Who is Livestream for?
Brands that produce professional grade live video content for streaming across online platforms – webinars optionally included.
10. Zoom
After the last year, this one needs no introduction.
While there’s no webinar automation available with Zoom, you do get a reliable system for an incredibly modest price tag if all you need is live webinar hosting. Low prices come at a cost, though, and there’s very little in the way of webinar marketing features with Zoom.
Zoom features:
- Interactive: Up to 100 interactive video participants for webinars with large panels of speakers.
- Integration: Broadcast your webinars to Facebook Live and YouTube.
- Controls: Mute/unmute speakers for full control over participants.
- Interactive: Polls, Q&As and live chat for engaging viewers.
- Closed captioning: Provide text captions for hard-of-hearing audiences or people using devices on mute.
As a video conferencing platform, Zoom is a feature-rich platform that’ll meet the needs of most corporate businesses. As a webinar tool it caters well to live broadcasts, especially if you have a large panel of speakers waiting for their turn to speak.
Who is Zoom for?
Businesses that need an all-in-one video conferencing tool that includes live webinar broadcasting.
Which is the right webinar tool for you?
There are some great webinar platforms on this list and a few outside bets that cater to more specialist needs. For us, Demio and EverWebinar came out on top as we were looking for a webinar marketing platform specifically. Few platforms can match these two in terms of marketing features and automated/hybrid webinars.
The right webinar platform for you, depends on your specific needs, of course. However, I can fully recommend taking a closer look at the options we’ve covered today by trying out a few free trials.
