8 Tools for Creating More Effective Webinars

Guest article by Andre Oentoro, founder of Breadnbeyond

Today's digital era has made ways for companies to communicate with consumers in entirely new ways. Take for instance webinars. 

After all, webinars are one of the fastest-growing marketing strategies today — providing businesses with an open platform for exchanging knowledge, building relationships, and boosting sales. 

But running successful webinars isn’t easy — you need to ensure that your content is engaging enough to draw people in and keep them interested. Luckily, there are many tools at your disposal that can help make your webinar squeaky clean so they deliver value every time, even after they’re recorded. 

In this post, we’ll discuss 8 video tools you can use to host effective webinars, as well as how you can use an interactive video platform on recorded webinars to create engaging video content that can be leveraged in future campaigns.

Webinar Effectiveness in Today's Digital Landscape

According to a recent study by ClickMeeting, 76% of webinar attendees take action after attending a webinar.

This shows why webinars are considered one of the most efficient and effective communication tools available for businesses today. 

A webinar, is an online seminar conducted live over the web, which allows participants to join from any remote location on any device. 

During webinars, participants are ‘able to offer feedback as well as access audio, visuals, and other resources like live chats and Q&A sessions. Webinars can be used to educate but also to engage with current or potential customers.

Now, let’s take a look at a few video tools you can use to host your own online webinars. 

8 Tools to Host Webinars 

1. Zoom

Zoom meetings are video tools that can really be used as an option for your online meetings. Moreover, Zoom provides free services for you. 

However, if the number of participants in your online meeting is more than 100 for a longer duration, you can use a paid service. With a paid service package, you can accommodate up to 1000 participants at one time, including free time during meetings, aka unlimited meetings.

Apart from being superior in terms of capacity, Zoom offers various features such as high-quality video and audio, interactive tools, screen sharing, recording and custom branding to display videos from the YouTube Channel that make it an ideal tool for creating engaging and effective webinars. 

With these features, presenters can interact with attendees, showcase presentations and documents, and personalize the webinar interface to make it more compelling and professional. 

By leveraging these capabilities, presenters can create webinars that deliver value and engage their audience effectively.

2. GoToMeeting

This video conferencing tool has several compelling features that support your online meetings.

One of them is easy screen sharing that lets presenters showcase their visuals with attendees seamlessly. It also provides an interactive whiteboard that enables real-time collaboration with attendees. 

What's more interesting about GoToMeeting is the customizable branding and automatic transcriptions features to enhance the user experience and make it easier to repurpose content from webinars. 

With these features, presenters can engage attendees and create valuable webinars that achieve their objectives.

3. ClickMeeting

ClickMeeting can be an alternative that you can use to hold online meetings, online classes, or webinars. It has the ability to customize registration pages with your brand's identity, which can help create a sense of familiarity and trust with potential attendees. 

Plus, the option to pre-record webinars and automate them means you can reach a wider audience and repurpose content to save time and resources.

During the live webinar, you can also leverage its interactive tools like polls, surveys, and Q&A session to keep audiences engaged and gather valuable feedback. It also integrates with marketing and CRM tools to streamline workflows and optimize performance. 

4. BlueJeans Meeting

BlueJeans Meeting might be a perfect fit for you! 

With the ability to host a webinars for thousands of attendees, it is the right choice for large-scale events. Plus, its compelling features like polls and Q&A sessions allow you to engage with your audience in real-time, making for a more dynamic and engaging experience.

Not to mention, BlueJeans lets you record your webinars so you can repurpose the content for future use. Its user-friendly interface and integrations with other tools help your audiences to have the best experience during your webinar.

5.  Livestorm

Instead of just offering webinars, Livestorm has three different types available. This allows pre-arranged, on-demand, and automated conventional seminars to be provided.

Webinar content can be pre-generated and uploaded. Presented directly or as a combination of scenarios that you have created. You can take advantage of AI content marketing tools to create interesting content for your webinar.

Participants can interact with the presenter, ask questions, and be asked questions with polls. All interactions can be recorded, and reactions to presentations are available via analytics and reports after the event.

6. Zoho Meeting

Zoho Meeting is another powerful video conferencing tool that provides unique features, including its user-friendly interface, which makes it easy for even the least tech-savvy users to create and host webinars.

Besides its easy to use features, it also lets you customize webinars with your own branding and integrates with other marketing tools for a streamlined workflow.

Moreover, Zoho meetings are also known for their safety. On its website, Zoho writes that they are committed to protecting the privacy and data of its users when conducting online meetings.

7. GetResponse

GetResponse is all about marketing automation, lead generation, sales funnel, and eCommerce website solutions.

For more than two decades, GetResponse has remained one of the most preferred tools for marketers. It offers features like webinar automation tool, which allows you to set up and promote your webinars with ease.

From registration forms, A/B testing, and FAQ to webinar templates, you'll have all the tools you need built-in right here without much fuss. Interestingly, what make it unique from other tools is its advanced analytics and reporting features that help you give valuable insights into attendee engagement and webinar performance.

8. Google Chats

Google Chats is a messaging platform that can be helpful for certain types of webinars, despite not offering all the features of a full-fledged webinar platform. It's especially handy for collaborative or team-oriented webinars because it lets you share files and collaborate with others in real-time.

With Google Chat, you can set up video calls with up to 25 people. This platform is recommended to smaller, more laid-back webinars or online meetings.

Although it might not be ideal for bigger or more complicated webinars, it's still a valuable tool for online events because of its collaborative and video chat features. 

Interactive Elements in Webinars 

A webinar can generate value for your business long after it originally aired. By adding interactivity to your previously recorded webinars you can allow viewers to explore their interests rather than sitting through the entire webinar. 

Let’s take a look at a few examples of how you can use interactive elements to make your webinar recordings more engaging.

Chapters

Long webinars can lose viewers' attention, but with chapters, you can break the content into logical sections. This is a great way to give viewers ownership of their webinar experience and allows them to explore their interests when they want and in the order they want. 

Questions

Adding questions is another great way to keep viewers engaged. With interactive video platforms, like Mindstamp, you can prompt viewers with a wide array of question types and even move viewers to different places based on their answers.

Video Branching 

Using interactive elements like branching, you can give viewers an entirely personalized experience. Through branching, viewers are offered a variety of viewing paths. This way the viewer can take control of the webinar and choose the sections of your content they find interesting or relevant.

Call-to-Action

In addition, you can add a final call-to-action (CTA) to your recorded webinars to encourage participants to take action. You can retain viewers by having them watch additional webinars, request an email for more information, or offer a link directly to your website or landing page. 

No matter how well done, webinars alone aren't enough to help businesses engage with their viewers. But, by adding interactive elements to your past webinars, you have the ability to collect data and insights from viewers that can be used to tailor their entire video experience. 

Overview

Webinars have the power to captivate an audience and keep them engaged. Incorporating interactive elements can greatly enhance webinars of all genres by keeping participants engaged. They allow you to brainstorm ideas with the participants, draw their attention to certain points, add entertainment value through gamification, and break the monotony of traditional webinars.

For more tips on how to use interactive elements to maximize engagement in your webinars or virtual events, visit mindstamp.com today!

About The Author

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). 

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Twitter: @breadnbeyond

Email/Gravatar: andre@breadnbeyond.com 

LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro