Best Webinar Software & Tools

Definition of Webinar Software: What is a Webinar and Why is Webinar Software Needed?

The term "webinar" is a portmanteau of the terms "web" and "seminar". Thus, webinars are fundamentally seminars that are conducted over the internet or online. Such online seminars can have diverse intentions. Naturally, it is possible to hold all conceivable trainings through webinars: starting with traditional school education and university lectures (e-learning) through training of employees in companies to meet certain operational standards, to product seminars on the proper use of machines or other goods. Moreover, it is possible to convey wellness courses or even health applications via webinars. Seminars can also be used online for customer acquisition or retention - for example, by companies introducing new products and their functions or regularly providing their customers with tips for the most advantageous use of purchased goods. Webinars take place in one of the following variants:

• An online lecture that works according to the one-to-many principle, which means there is one speaker and many listeners.
• An interactive seminar on the internet, where the imparting of specific knowledge is at the forefront, but the conveyers and recipients are in mutual exchange.

Furthermore, webinars can be made available either live or on-demand:

• Offering live webinars: As the name suggests, live webinars are online seminars that are broadcast in real time.
• Offering on-demand webinars: In contrast to live webinars, on-demand webinars are first recorded and can then be accessed, with interaction, of course, not possible.

Webinar software can be specialized in individual areas of these. It is practically about online seminar platforms that (ideally) include all functions to host one or regular webinars. With these tools, organizers can not only broadcast their seminars, but also organize them in advance - from setting specific visual settings for the online seminar to its time planning, the activation of a registration form for participants, costs handling (for those who offer paid webinars) and email notifications to the analysis of a running event and its evaluation.

How Does Webinar Software Work?

Webinar software is a tool for planning, conducting, and following up on internet seminars. Appropriate online seminar platforms can either be downloaded and installed on one or several computers or used directly via a browser as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) service. Most online seminar software has a central dashboard and a feature menu. Via this, providers of online seminars can create new webinars, edit registration pages, send emails to (possible) participants, and perform other essential tasks for the successful placement of webinars. The dashboard also contains important information about upcoming or running webinars, like the number of participants per webinar.

Online Seminar Software as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Service Webinar systems as a SaaS usually function directly in a browser without any applications needing to be downloaded. This type of software is therefore accessible anywhere there is an internet connection. Often, these applications can also easily be used on the go as a webinar app. The software is automatically updated and maintained. Users hardly have to bother with administrative work.

Downloadable Webinar Software For webinar software that is downloaded from the internet, users have to install an application on their computer. Practically the same features for planning, scheduling, and following up on online seminars can then be used as with a SaaS solution. Webinar software offered for download may offer better performance if it can fully utilize the lavish resources of the Personal Computer (PC) on which it is hosted. However, if this has low computing power, this may result in reduced performance compared to SaaS webinar software. The additional steps required to download and install the software can not only be a barrier for webinar organizers. Often, the participants of the online seminars also have to install a corresponding application, which is sometimes discouraging and leads to a lower participation rate. In addition, software updates, data security, and other administrative work usually need to be carried out independently. These types of webinar tools are hardly centralized to organize since they are located on different computers. This makes working with them relatively complex. They are also more challenging for growing teams to manage and scale.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Webinar Software?

Web seminar software particularly proves its advantages in the following areas:

• Boosting attention and reach: An online seminar tool can aid a company, a brand, and their products or special ideas, methods, and other intellectual goods gain more attention. The purpose of webinar software is the spread of information. The content itself can range from life-changing valuable to casual and yet thought-provoking. No matter what is conveyed - companies can step in front of a large audience using webinar software and arouse interest in various ways.
• Strengthening education: Webinars prove to be an increasingly useful teaching tool. Many people prefer to learn remotely - and there is sometimes no other option in times of Corona. Webinar tools allow moderators or experts, lecturers or teachers to guide through explanations or concepts step by step almost as if they were on site. Personally conveyed facts can be supported by videos and other digital assets, making it more likely that the respective webinar will genuinely and have long-lasting effects.
• Internal Benefits for Companies: Webinars are not always public. Webinar software can also be used within an organization to broadcast important meetings or company-wide announcements. These can also be saved and archived for later purposes, providing employees with valuable information resources in the long term.
• Live is interesting and engaging: Webinars excite people. When you know that a presentation or other information is being broadcast live, it gives the subject additional significance. It gives listeners the feeling of participating in something important, exciting, and/or new. For this reason, it is more likely that the webinar audience will truly engage according to the goals of the respective online seminar, meaning applying relevant methods, making purchases, or becoming active in other ways. Surveys and polls give participants the feeling of being more involved and can contribute to better internalization of ideas.
• Building Expert Status: Hosting a webinar on a topic that a company is well-versed in can strongly contribute to establishing oneself as an expert in a specific field. Webinars allow companies or even individuals to more firmly associate their face or brand with a particular subject or business area.
• Generating Leads: An opportunity not to be underestimated is to use webinars as a marketing tool for generating leads. For instance, new email addresses via the double-opt-in process or even paying customers can be acquired. To win new customers, for example, chargeable products or courses can be advertised in the webinar or even sold directly.

As always with software solutions, there are also certain disadvantages or problems that can occur with webinar services. The following friction points are typical:

• Unexpected Costs: It is far from just the webinar software itself, which is associated with costs that often even regularly – namely with every new webinar. The biggest cost surprise in planning, promoting, and conducting a webinar lies in the time and personnel required. Particularly companies that do not have specific teams for respective tasks, can quickly lose track of how much time and resources to provide for their webinars.
• Data Protection: Participants usually have to register in advance for webinars. Normally, these online seminars are also tracked to analyze their successes or failures based on concrete data in the end. In addition, it is possible to record webinars to provide the information conveyed there to the participants and perhaps other interested parties even afterwards. In all this, personal data and perhaps even interactions of individual seminar participants are processed. To prevent webinar operators from getting into legal difficulties, they must always keep track of current data protection laws and comprehensively consider them for their online seminars. It is also worthwhile to ensure when choosing webinar software that it complies with current data protection laws and provides functions for complying with the GDPR.

How to Choose the Right Software for Online Webinars: What to Pay Attention To?

There are many different webinar tools to choose from, which vary in scope of functions and price. Anyone searching for a suitable webinar provider should perform a differentiated webinar software comparison and first inspect any special solutions for their own sector or respective area of application. For example, there are web seminar providers specializing in specific needs of schools and universities. Other providers of webinar software focus particularly on wellness or sports offerings. Yet others are primarily designed for company-internal webinars. Even during this first step and finally also when viewing other more generally oriented webinar software providers, interested parties should ask the following crucial questions, whose requirements define the minimum requirements for a webinar system:

• Should webinars be designed more as a one-sided presentation or an interactive event?
• Should webinars be made available live and/or on-demand?
• How many participants are planned?
• How long should a webinar typically last?
• What functions are required for the goals of the webinars - whiteboards, screencasts, chat functions, branding, virtual backgrounds, analytics, etc.?
• Will webinars be offered free of charge or with a fee, which would make an integrated payment system important?
• What is the budget for the webinar software?

What Does Webinar Software Cost?

One of the first (and most important) questions people ask when they assess their webinar options is the question: How much will the webinar cost? Understanding the pricing structure and the costs associated with each potential webinar and each webinar platform is key to planning and managing your webinar ROI. Those who opt for free software often have the problem that technical modules are sometimes not available or only available in full at certain times. The transmission quality is limited and the providers only allow a small number of participants. Therefore, these offers are unsuitable for marketing-oriented webinars. Although free products sometimes suffice for training purposes, they rarely support recordings, so retrieval for further learning is not possible. In this sense, these products are only intended for domestic use. For professional needs, webinar organizers have to resort to paid services. The most obvious costs associated with conducting your webinars are the costs of your webinar platform. Some simple webinar platforms can be used free of charge up to a certain number of participants, while for more advanced technologies a monthly or annual fee is usually charged for conducting your events.

The prices for a solid webinar platform range from $150 per month to $500 and more per month, depending on your package and individual requirements. You need to be careful with the fine print. Many companies, especially those that do not publish their prices on their website, tend to plan hidden fees and additional costs for your events, which would penalize you for needing additional moderator logins, having more participants than expected or even technical support during your event if you have only purchased a basic package. Fortunately for you, companies like WorkCast keep their pricing structures really simple, so you can easily predict your costs and ROI.