What Is The Best Webinar Platform?

NOTE to my subscribers: I am sharing this article with you because there is a fair number of you who look at webinars as a great vehicle for connecting with your target market. You are of course right. That is why this first webinar in my new series 4 Steps To Webinar Success is a must attend. Because you are a Procurement Insights subscriber enter PIBLOGFAN in the Special Promo Code section of the registration page for a 50% savings.

I remember my first webinar as if it were yesterday. It was the fall of 2005, and the platform I used was Webex.

For the time, and despite some of the challenges with navigating the firewalls of my corporate clients, it was a pretty cool technology.

While I want to think that the only reason for my registration to attendance ratio of 98 percent was because of the quality of my content – based on attendee follow-up that was a big part of it, I can’t ignore the “webinar effect” as a contributing factor.

Reminiscent of when the television first made its appearance in which people were tuning in because the idea of seeing a live broadcast was as exciting as what they were viewing, you can’t underestimate the novelty appeal of webinar technology in those early days.

Like Fibe TV

Of course today, television has made an amazing progression from rabbit ears and three channels, to fiber optics and innumerable channels that broadcast content 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Choosing what to watch let alone through what device to watch it is at times mind-boggling – probably one of the reasons why I still like retreating to the comfort of my couch to read a good book now and then.

The same explosion of endless choice and possibilities is true for the webinar world.

Since my nascent foray into the realm of webinar possibilities, I have had the opportunity to use various platforms to broadcast my content. Beside my approximate 900 radio shows on Blog Talk Radio, I have utilized every platform from Oovoo, Zoom, Webex (of course), GoToWebinar, and Ring Central to connect with my followers and prospective followers. I have gone under the hood of a multitude of platforms on the front lines. In short, my experiences are not theoretical or the result of a controlled-environment analysis. I lived them with all the wonder and challenges in real-time.

So which platform is the best?

A Different Answer

Rather than tell you what platform I use, and yes I will share that with you in a future post, experience has taught me that you should avoid getting lost in the features, functions, and benefits weeds by assessing every offering. The reason is fairly simple; you must first have a clear understanding of what it is YOU want to achieve before determining the most effective means of delivering your content. (NOTE: For those of you who can’t resist the urge to know what pundits are calling the “best-of-the-best,” here is the link to codeinwp’s Joe Warnimont’s Best Webinar Software in 2019 – Compared and Summarized article.

Like the old real estate saying regarding the importance of location, with a webinar, your starting point should be content, content, content. More specifically, the quality of your information in the context of the benefit your target audience will derive from investing 45-minutes to 1-hour of their life with you.

For those who would like to see just one example of a successful webinar – and you should simply because you will want to confirm if I know about what I am talking here is one that I both wrote and served as a moderator; EBG | Webinar: Procurement AI: From Promise To Realization.

It Isn’t About You

While there are many things to consider when you construct your content, top of the list should be your desire to establish you and your company as a reliable knowledge source. When people see you as being their source of timely and valuable insights, the transition from attendee-to-prospect-to-customer is considerably shorter and more certain.

Adopting this mindset means that the webinar isn’t about how great you are, but how great your commitment is to provide valuable information that will enable your attendee-prospect-client to solve a problem or realize a goal.

Once your content has passed the non-infomercial test – which is part of Step 1 in the 4 Steps To Webinar Success process, you are then ready for Step 2, which includes selecting the right platform starting with understanding the difference between a Meeting and a Webinar.

I will talk more about this and other considerations in my next post.