Best Webinar Platforms (To Teach, Sell or Train)

[00:00:00] Hey, before we get started, I want to let you know about Buzzsprout Podcast Hosting.

[00:00:06] Right now you can get a free $20 Amazon gift card when you sign up for any of their

[00:00:11] paid plans.

[00:00:12] It's what I use to host this podcast, but it's also what I recommend because they're extremely

[00:00:17] easy to use.

[00:00:18] They have really fair pricing.

[00:00:20] They price per hour instead of megabytes.

[00:00:23] They're free to start so you get up to 90 days for free.

[00:00:28] If you want customer support is really quick.

[00:00:30] Awesome.

[00:00:31] You get a nice website player that you can embed.

[00:00:35] You get a nice website as well.

[00:00:37] They are constantly coming out with new features.

[00:00:39] They just added an affiliate marketplace.

[00:00:41] They are about to update their stats and they've done a ton of stuff just in the last

[00:00:48] year.

[00:00:49] So I highly recommend them and you can go to Buzzsproutdeal.com to get that free $20 Amazon

[00:00:55] gift card when you sign up for one other plan.

[00:00:58] So again, that's Buzzsproutdeal.com.

[00:01:01] And welcome to episode 57 of the podcasting simplified podcast.

[00:01:05] My name is Ross and today we are going to talk about the best webinar software.

[00:01:11] So it's become pretty popular to be working from home or maybe you want to give a podcast

[00:01:19] and you want to be able to teach someone something in kind of a live format with video or

[00:01:28] maybe you want to sell something or just do some trainings or provide value audience, whatever

[00:01:33] it is, webinar software is crucial to do those things.

[00:01:39] So I put together a couple of the kind of in my opinion, the best platforms and we'll

[00:01:47] go through them.

[00:01:48] First of all, there's kind of a wide variety of pricing, capability features among the

[00:01:55] different platforms.

[00:01:56] And so I'm going to try to highlight some of the some of the best things about my favorites

[00:02:00] and then I'll touch on the pricing as well.

[00:02:04] And you'll find that there's kind of a pretty broad market.

[00:02:07] So there's some that are really focused on more of the online marketing community and

[00:02:13] selling.

[00:02:14] There's others that are more focused on education and e-learning and kind of everything

[00:02:19] in between companies like Adobe have platforms called Adobe Connect and then there's smaller

[00:02:26] ones like Demio, which is really focused on marketers.

[00:02:31] And so we'll get into that.

[00:02:34] And the first one we're going to start with is called Easy Webinar.

[00:02:40] The name implies it's actually really extremely easy to use for both you, the presenter

[00:02:44] or the teacher and your guests.

[00:02:47] And it looks great.

[00:02:48] It's modern, you know, it doesn't look dated or anything.

[00:02:51] And they have both live and automated webinars.

[00:02:55] So what you can do is create a live webinar and then assuming everything goes well, you

[00:03:00] can then turn that into an automated or evergreen webinar that people can sign up for on

[00:03:07] demand basically and watch whenever they want.

[00:03:09] So it's really nice that that's all in one platform.

[00:03:11] You don't have to pay extra for, you know, to get the automated features or anything.

[00:03:17] And then some other highlights of easy webinar are then as there's a new easy cast feature

[00:03:23] which lets you stream to Facebook live and YouTube live at the same time as you're doing

[00:03:28] your webinar to your audience.

[00:03:29] So just in a way to kind of help get the word out there and reach more people all at

[00:03:35] one time, which is really cool.

[00:03:37] And there's advanced analytics that show you if people showed up how long they stayed

[00:03:42] and then even if they clicked on maybe an offer that you showed or something.

[00:03:46] So you can see all that stuff in your stats and even use that data to then like send emails

[00:03:51] to people who left or send different emails to people who didn't show up or something

[00:03:56] like that, which is really cool.

[00:03:58] And kind of along that topic of emails they integrate with MailChamp, ConvertKit, Aweb

[00:04:05] or all the popular email service providers that I recommend at least.

[00:04:10] And then another feature that is really cool, that not all of them have is SMS, text message

[00:04:16] and Skype integration to remind people to show up.

[00:04:20] And so what you do with that is you ask people to leave a phone number and you know you

[00:04:25] make sure you only tell them you're only using it to remind them to show up for the webinar

[00:04:30] and that will greatly increase the chance that people will see it and greatly increase

[00:04:36] the chance that people will show up for your webinar when they get a text message.

[00:04:40] Which was really nice.

[00:04:42] And there's a bunch of case studies on easy webinar site from a bunch of high profile

[00:04:46] people and companies that have used the platform.

[00:04:49] So pricing starts at $78 a month for up to 100 live attendees and then it goes up to

[00:04:56] $129 a month for 500 live attendees.

[00:05:02] Although you can save quite a bit, I believe you can save three months worth if you pay

[00:05:08] annually so you pay for the year upfront and all these platforms have free trials for

[00:05:16] the most part there are two week free trials.

[00:05:19] So all leave links in the description.

[00:05:21] And also you can go to podcast insights.com slash 57 to go over to the blog post and have

[00:05:29] all the show notes for this as well.

[00:05:33] The next platform is webinar ninja and this one was co-founded by Omar Zenhome of the $100

[00:05:40] MBA podcast, which has been a long time top business podcast on Apple podcasts.

[00:05:47] So you definitely know he knows the needs of podcasters and online creators.

[00:05:52] And you can run with webinar ninja, you can run any type of webinar live automated.

[00:05:58] You can even create a series of webinars or a hybrid where it's automated but you can

[00:06:03] kind of pop into the chat and talk with people.

[00:06:06] So that's really cool.

[00:06:08] And then all the kind of features you would expect in a webinar platform are included

[00:06:12] so you get a chat, a question and answer area.

[00:06:17] You can have polls while you're doing your presentation.

[00:06:20] You can have offers pop up and there's other even more features than that.

[00:06:24] So there was nothing to download.

[00:06:26] You can offer replays with the option to have them expire after a certain number of days

[00:06:31] which is kind of cool.

[00:06:33] Kind of promotes, you know, gets people to take action and if they missed it at least

[00:06:37] get them to watch it before it expires.

[00:06:40] And then they also integrate with everything, you know, email platforms and CRM systems.

[00:06:46] They are GDPR compliant and have awesome real support which is really cool.

[00:06:52] And I know this is sort of subjective but I think they have one of the best looking designs

[00:06:58] for everything from the dashboard to the registration pages and thank you pages and even

[00:07:03] the your attendees experience in the platform how it looks.

[00:07:08] So big fan there of webinar ninja and then another bonus is they have a webinar search engine.

[00:07:14] So it's basically everyone who's on their platform can choose if they want their webinars

[00:07:19] to be public and then people can find them on on their search engine.

[00:07:24] So another way to kind of increase exposure for free and they have some of the best entry

[00:07:32] level pricing.

[00:07:34] So webinar platforms aren't cheap overall but they have a $39 a month plan when you

[00:07:39] pay annually for up to 100 attendees and then they have several other plans that scale

[00:07:44] up to 1000 live attendees for $199 a month when you pay annually and the price is a little

[00:07:54] little more if you pay monthly, but you can check all that out on their pricing page.

[00:08:00] And so the next one is Demio and they call themselves hassle free webinar software for

[00:08:07] marketers and they also have an impressive list of customers.

[00:08:12] And like webinar ninja, they have one of the better looking webinar platforms which really

[00:08:18] helps make your brand or your podcast or your blog whatever look kind of it makes you

[00:08:25] look good while you're teaching because these platforms can kind of affect how people

[00:08:30] think of you.

[00:08:32] And I think it's important to have something that looks good, modern and easy to use.

[00:08:37] So highlights for Demio include live hybrid automated and on-demand webinars so we kind

[00:08:45] of touched on all those different types already.

[00:08:47] You can easily turn existing live webinar recordings into automated webinars that people

[00:08:53] can sign up for on demand for instance.

[00:08:57] They have excellent analytics that are being regularly improved actually looked at their

[00:09:01] change log just a couple days ago and they were updating some of the stats about who showed

[00:09:07] up and who didn't depending on certain things that happened in the platform.

[00:09:11] So really cool to see them constantly updating there.

[00:09:15] They have integrations with drip active campaign, mail chimp convert kit and more as far

[00:09:21] as email providers.

[00:09:23] There's no downloads, it's all browser based and then one thing that is pretty cool is

[00:09:28] you can also other platforms do this too but you can upload slides or share videos right

[00:09:35] inside Demio so that means you don't need to open up PowerPoint or keynote on your screen.

[00:09:41] You can actually upload it into the webinar platform and then it's all built in and so you

[00:09:46] don't have to switch screens and flip around.

[00:09:49] It just helps make the entire presentation much more professional and smooth and it just

[00:09:55] makes it easy.

[00:09:56] They also have polls called actions that you can pop up handouts so if you have a cheat

[00:10:02] sheet or maybe like a note taking thing you want to give people which is actually really

[00:10:07] good to help increase engagement, you can provide handouts right inside the platform

[00:10:13] that people can download when they get in.

[00:10:15] There's a chat system of course, all built in and you can start a free trial with all

[00:10:21] the features included without a credit card and when you decide to pay pricing starts

[00:10:29] at $49 a month for 50 attendees and goes up to $234 a month for 500 attendees and you

[00:10:38] will need to be on the $99 a month plan which is the middle tier to get access to the automated

[00:10:45] events, automated webinars and you can save 30% by paying annually which brings those

[00:10:53] prices down quite a bit.

[00:10:55] Now the next one is webinar jam and this one is highly recommended I've seen it for a

[00:11:01] long time and they actually completely rebuilt their entire platform in February 2020.

[00:11:09] They are focused on using webinars to sell so that could be services, products, online

[00:11:15] courses, stuff like that but you can definitely use it for any purpose that you want.

[00:11:19] They have a ton of features in webinar jam and they're software.

[00:11:25] This is kind of where they set themselves apart.

[00:11:27] It has the ability to reach up to 5,000 people so if you have a larger audience that you're

[00:11:35] teaching or selling to this is the platform you want to use and people can join from

[00:11:39] any device, a desktop phone, tablet.

[00:11:42] You name it, it'll work and one cool feature that I wanted to highlight is they have

[00:11:49] a drawing board so what you can do is draw right over your screen or over your PowerPoint

[00:11:56] presentation and so you can do annotations or highlight things with a little pen tool

[00:12:01] or whatever you want.

[00:12:04] That's kind of a nice feature that just makes it more interactive and there's a bunch

[00:12:10] of different scheduling options like the other platforms so you can have people sign up

[00:12:14] right now or scheduled or have a series and analytics are easy to understand, kind of

[00:12:23] a nice visual.

[00:12:24] I recommend you go over to podcastinsights.com slash 57 and you'll see a screenshot of their

[00:12:33] analytics so it shows visitors and then the sign up rate and how that goes into the show

[00:12:39] up rate and how many live attendees there were and how many replay attendees there were

[00:12:43] so kind of cool makes it easy to see and then other highlights, the HD everything which

[00:12:50] really all the platforms have, there's one click registration so if you already have

[00:12:56] someone is on your email list and you already have their name and email address, you can

[00:13:01] set it up so that people don't need to fill out a form.

[00:13:03] They just click a link and that info is just passed into the webinar jam system and it

[00:13:13] just makes it really easy to sign up, kind of reduces friction and should increase sign

[00:13:18] up rates and there's polls and surveys.

[00:13:21] You can add attendees as speakers or guests if you want to have someone come in and answer

[00:13:26] their questions or something, you can have them be a part of your live presentation.

[00:13:31] There is a registration page builder, there's templates you can use, there's a B testing

[00:13:37] so you can see which pages work better to get people to sign up.

[00:13:43] There are email and SMS text reminders and follow ups that you can send, you can even

[00:13:50] charge for presentations if you want so if you're doing like a paid thing you can do

[00:13:55] that.

[00:13:58] There's a lot more there's a ton of stuff there and so pricing is only build annually

[00:14:03] that's the only option and it is $499 for up to 500 attendees but for an extra $16.66

[00:14:16] a month extra you can have up to 2000 attendees and you get some other upgrades as well.

[00:14:22] So there is a one dollar free trial of webinar jam if you want to check that out and then

[00:14:29] there is kind of a sister company to webinar jam and that is ever webinar which is their

[00:14:35] automated evergreen webinar platform.

[00:14:39] And so the downside of the separate platforms, I guess it could be a pro or a con if you

[00:14:45] just want one and you just want to pay for one system that's great but if you want the

[00:14:48] automated system you'll have to pay separately and otherwise the automated system has all

[00:14:55] the same kind of features that are in webinar jam and you also get a bunch of different

[00:15:03] sign up options for the automated versions so you get specific sign up dates and times

[00:15:08] if you want, you can have recurring sign up dates.

[00:15:11] So if you want your webinars, your automated webinars to always be available on Tuesday at

[00:15:18] 3pm you can have those just go into the future forever and people can sign up.

[00:15:23] There's just in time webinars so people can start within minutes of someone registering

[00:15:30] which is kind of cool.

[00:15:31] So they come on and it says the webinar starting in 15 minutes and so they sign up and then

[00:15:39] they can get all the emails and everything ahead of time and they'll be ready to go.

[00:15:45] So that's another option and you can easily turn, the platforms do connect so you can

[00:15:52] turn your webinar jam recordings into evergreen webinars in every webinar and there's some

[00:16:01] options that I, let's just say I'm not quite sure on the ethicalness of it but you can

[00:16:11] make your automated webinars appear to be live and so everything including your chat

[00:16:18] and polls can show up live basically like they're happening and there's no indication

[00:16:28] that everything is recorded so I don't think you should deceive people.

[00:16:35] I think you should make it clear that it's a recorded webinar if you're going to use

[00:16:41] something like that but just know that it looks live to people and so the pricing

[00:16:48] for every webinar is $499 a year and again there's a 14 day one dollar trial if you want

[00:16:58] to try it up.

[00:16:59] And then there's a couple other platforms they're not going to go any depth on them but

[00:17:03] there's ones like Adobe Connect that I mentioned earlier zoom can actually be used for webinars

[00:17:11] although it's not really designed for that go to webinar is another platform click meeting

[00:17:18] live storm is the popular one and these tend to go scale up into the more educational and

[00:17:25] enterprisey levels so I didn't really want to get into them and wanted to focus more

[00:17:32] on the marketing ones that I think are best for us content creators and then there are

[00:17:39] free a few free webinar platforms that may be a good way to get started or you know try

[00:17:47] things out so you can use Google Hangouts meet if you have if you already use G Suite

[00:17:53] for your email you'll have access to that and it'll allow up to 100 people to sign up

[00:17:58] for the basic edition or 150 people on the business plan and then they also give you a dial

[00:18:06] in phone number for people to use as well so that's kind of cool and then there's YouTube

[00:18:11] Facebook and Twitch live so those aren't exactly webinar platforms but it's a way to reach

[00:18:19] people live and they are their free platforms so if you have audiences in those places that's

[00:18:26] where where I would start and then there are a few things to just kind of consider when

[00:18:33] when looking over these platforms because they're not all exactly equal so a few things the

[00:18:39] the ease of use the budget number of attendees you need reliability webinar frequency branding

[00:18:47] and do you need recordings and replays and then analytics and what your needs are there

[00:18:53] and then also just be sure and ask yourself if you absolutely need certain features right now

[00:18:58] because you can always change platforms or upgrade the higher tiers later on so I would just

[00:19:07] encourage you to take advantage of the trials that a lot of these offer if you're interested in

[00:19:13] webinar software so that you can make sure it's a good fit make sure it works for you do a do a small

[00:19:20] test webinar you know with just your just a few people and you know get a good good feel for it

[00:19:27] before you commit to purchasing one of the platforms so that wraps up everything for the best

[00:19:34] webinar platforms if you want to go read all this stuff be sure and go to podcastinsights.com

[00:19:41] slash 57 or check out the show or episode description in whichever podcast after listening

[00:19:49] in and you'll see links to the the post or to the individual platforms that you can check out

[00:19:56] and that's it for today so I appreciate you listening and I'll see you in the next episode.