Choose the Right Webinar Service for your Business

Hosting webinars can be a great way to share company news, spread the word about the latest products, provide training sessions for employees or hold distance-learning courses for academic purposes. Ultimately, webinar services can help you access all the best digital communication tools and then allow you to use them to spread your unique message worldwide. The most important factors in choosing the best webinar services provider for your business are cost, security, communication options and accessibility.

• Webinar Expenses

Cost is a vitally important part of the equation for choosing a webinar service that will fill the needs of your company. In addition to purchasing a service and paying monthly subscription fees, you have to spend employee time to train with the webinar service before organizing an online seminar that will be useful, engaging and convincing.

First, we suggest determining the minimum and maximum size of the audience to whom you'll be presenting. Some webinar services accommodate unlimited audiences, but for a hefty price tag. Others offer fewer guest seats but increased participation options for those guests. If you are showcasing a complicated new software application, one of the smaller services is a better fit for you so you can handle the questions and comments that will inevitably arise. On the other hand, if you are an international company hosting a press release about a new acquisition, reaching as many journalists as possible will take priority.

Employee training time is the next major thing to consider when choosing a webinar service provider. Some of the best products available are packed with features that allow you to set up course materials, divide attendees into breakout chat sessions or transfer controls to an audience member during a live meeting. Regrettably, these services can take hours to learn to use properly. We recommend the more complicated services for businesses or schools that will host several webinars in a series format.

Generally speaking, webinar services that are easier to use tend to lack functionality such as webcam support or extensive file-sharing capabilities. We recommend this type of service for one-time meetings and inter-company webinars.

• Protect Your Trade Secrets and Your Attendees' Private Information

The ease with which we can access data in the information age comes with the ever-increasing likelihood that our private data and intellectual property will be stolen. The same principle is true in the world of webinars. The more ways you have for communicating, the more options thieves have for harming you. The best webinar services come with multiple types of data encryption, secure registration and password protection.

One reason you will want to look to these secure webinar providers is if you are exchanging top-secret information like financial data or proprietary software code. We also recommend seeking out the best security options if your attendees will be returning to your webinars repeatedly. You need to protect the personal information they provide you, including payment information, and you need to provide them with a a downloadable webinar application or an online webinar software platform that won't infect their computers.

If your webinars are more casual or are aimed at a broad audience, security features can get in the way. Examples of this type of webinar would be a tutorial for a web service you're promoting or free virtual classes about personal budgeting or cosmetic application techniques. When you want to get people's attention, don't hide information from them.

• Video, VoIP, Toll-free Telephone or Whiteboard Support?

Your purpose for hosting a webinar should correspond directly to the communication options available in the webinar service provider you choose. For a sales presentation, we highly recommend finding a provider with webcam support. The importance of nonverbal communication can't be overstated in this arena. If you're teaching an algebra lesson, for instance, an application with whiteboard support is necessary.

On the other hand, you might be looking for a webinar service that can double as a virtual meeting service. In this case, choosing a provider with easy-to-use VoIP capability is important for real-time collaboration. If you're hosting a press conference, we highly recommend finding a service with free teleconference support.

• Ensuring Attendance through Easy Accessibility

Regardless of the quality of information you want to share, your intended audience won't get the message if it can't access the webinar service provider you choose. Realizing that many companies have strict download policies for employee workstations, we recommend browser-based webinars for most businesses. The only time asking your guests to download software makes sense is when the functionality you need to make your presentation properly requires it. Even then, you should only use download-based services when you're confident that your attendees are committed to attending your meeting.

Another way to boost accessibility is to choose a service that comes with support for smartphones or tablet computers. Only a few of the services available have this feature, but we expect it to become common in the future as webinar companies update their offerings.

Remember that every step in between your potential attendees invitations to your online meeting and accessing it is another chance for them to opt out.

Webinar services’ options are diverse enough to make taking the time to choose the right one for the needs of your business a richly rewarded effort.

At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.™