How GoToWebinar Helps you Run Outstanding Virtual Events

Carl Taylor | February 15, 2021

Take your online events and meetings to the next level. Use the best solution to modern challenges

In light of the ongoing pandemic, traditional meetings have become nigh-impossible to hold. So many businesses have started adapting to the new situation.

Now, it’s become clear that taking your business online is the best solution. Virtual meetings are becoming the new business norm. While convenient given the current situation, it still has its fair share of challenges.

There are several issues when making the switch from traditional to virtual events. Most problems stem from the choice of platform.

An unreliable or hard to use platform can’t bring many benefits. If it doesn’t offer the right business tools, it might even be harmful. Setting a virtual business environment is already challenging enough, what more with a clunky platform.

If you’re preparing to modernize your company, you’ll need the best services. GoToWebinar might be the perfect choice for your business. It has many benefits that will support the transition. Plus, it will provide all the functionality you might need.

What Is GoToWebinar?

A professional tool by design, GoToWebinar serves as a platform for online conferences. It’s an excellent solution for interaction with both colleagues and customers alike. That’s because the platform makes it easier to reach the target audience. Also, you’ll be able to engage with them in the online environment.

It’s very straightforward to set up and maintain without IT support. This makes GoToWebinar beneficial in cost to performance ratio. It’s also compatible with both PC and Mac, so system requirements aren’t an issue. This further broadens the app’s range and ensures no one will miss out on a conference.

It’s aimed at companies that want to adjust their business to the digital world. But it’s not just a wise choice given the pandemic. Even without the current challenges, investing in online tools is the best decision.

Why GoToWebinar Could Be Your Choice

Webinars are among the most effective marketing strategies today. Existing since 2003, GoToWebinar has been at the forefront of online communication. Webinars hosted through it count in the millions per year.

It offers users ease of use, effective promotion tools, and useful analytics functions, among so many others. All of this makes GoToWebinar the ideal choice.

Let’s discuss its benefits in detail.

1. Live and Automated Webinars

At present, a live webinar is the closest thing to a face-to-face meeting or a live conference. Live webinars are useful to connect to your audience in real-time and have an easy interaction with them. They can be excellent tools for marketing and meetings.

Meanwhile, automated webinars are previously recorded. While they aren’t interactive, they have the benefit of being available at any time. The best use for automated webinars is to present timeless content. Communication with the audience is still possible, although it is typically done via email.

You can host live and automated webinars on GoToWebinar.

2. Great Organization Options

GoToWebinar allows for daily, weekly, and monthly scheduled events. In fact, both live and automated webinars are easy to schedule. You can also make the scheduled webinars a single or a recurring event. Finally, you can customise the frequency to fit your marketing plan exactly.

Every webinar can host a maximum of six organisers and six panellists. The organisers act similar to moderators and have complete control over the webinar features, including video and audio. Panellists, meanwhile, are essentially special guests. They’ll be able to interact with the audience through screen and video sharing.

Other important organisation options include setting up colours, notifications, and engagement features. You can insert your logo and match the colours to your brand. The setup for these features is as straightforward as the rest of the application.

3. Customized Registration and Reminder Emails

Once attendees register for your webinar, they’ll get a registration email with instructions for joining the webinar. Besides that, the email will also contain a custom message from you. This is an excellent way to present your audience with a CTA and additional offers.

You can use the message as a chance for the audience to find out more about your business.

The custom email will also have several useful links and buttons, like a link to add the webinar directly to their calendar. This option functions seamlessly with various calendar apps, including Google Calendar and iCal. The attendees can also check the system requirements via another link to ensure a smooth connection during the event.

Finally, there’s a button to join the webinar and another one to cancel the registration. The cancel button is particularly handy because once someone clicks on it, they give up their slot for the webinar. This helps free up space for new attendees.

The reminder emails have the same content as the registration ones and you can set them to arrive one, two, or three hours before the webinar.

4. Polls and Q&A

GoToWebinar has excellent features for interaction with the audience – polls. These provide a quick insight into important information about the attendees.

However, you’ll need to set up the poll in advance. Once the webinar begins, you can launch them at appropriate points. This can be very useful during both live and automated webinars.

Launching a poll during a live webinar might help you feel the pulse of the audience better. Also, polling in automated webinars is precious for gathering information and further statistics. You can optionally share the results with others during the conference.

Q&A is a good way for the audience to reach you in real-time. This feature functions like the live chat that’s become widespread on professional sites. The questions appear in a docked window that only the host can see. This makes communication private and easier to manage.

It might take some getting used to when it comes to Q&A in live webinars. But once you get the hang of it, answering the questions while hosting will become more convenient.

5. Presentation Tools

Besides video sharing, GoToWebinar supports screen sharing. This can be a perfect tool for a slideshow presentation as you can time it precisely to fit your schedule. Once you start the screen share, you’ll be free to move or resize the windows. However you set up your layout, it won’t change what the attendees see.

File uploading in real-time is another great tool. It’s handy for sharing free promotional material, such as white pages or spreadsheets. As such, you can treat your audience with freebies while the webinar is going on. This added value will be very beneficial for promotions, especially if you make it a surprise.

You can also share YouTube videos in the webinar, as streams run smoothly on GoToWebinar. It will open in a separate smaller window, allowing the audience to see the webinar layout at the same time. You can also pause or resume them at your convenience.

6. Highlighting Vital Points with Drawing Tools

GoToWebinar makes the presentations easy to follow with several drawing tools. You can use them to put an accent on an important point or direct the audience’s attention towards a crucial detail.

The drawing tools in GoToWebinar include a pen, a text marker, arrows, and spotlight. It’s a given that you can use the text marker to highlight vital information. The pen tool is excellent if you need to add text or mark a section of the presentation quickly and arrows are self-explanatory. Meanwhile, the spotlight serves as a virtual laser pointer. You can also pick the colour of the tools, and every option has its place in the presentation.

Master these drawing tools and your presentations will become more alive. The small editing in real-time gives the webinar a certain charm that might be missing in a perfectly prepared presentation.

7. Reliable Webinar Service

None of the mentioned features would matter if not for the crucial trait of GoToWebinar. The main plus of this platform is how stable and reliable it is.

With GoToWebinar, most of the common issues associated with webinar hosting will disappear. The stream is smooth and won’t freeze or crash. Audio and video issues are extremely rare, the synchronisation is perfect, and drops are almost unheard of.

Other services might offer flashy features that GoToWebinar lacks. Yet, stability is paramount here. Poor webinar service can result in frustration and even financial losses. That’s why GoToWebinar has a design that emphasises a reliable hosting service.

8. The Analytics Tools

GoToWebinar offers useful analytics, giving you a detailed view of the most important statistics. The Analytics Dashboard has an overview of all webinars hosted so far. It’s where you can see and export different reports.

The Session Overview report is a summary of statistics for webinars in a selected date range. Engagement shows you all audience questions, engagement details, and contact information. You can even compare attendee reports with the Multi-Session Attendee option. Plus, there are more reports that contain information about registration, performance, surveys, and Q&A.

The reports here are insightful and detailed. For example, the Registration report shows the audience’s contact information and form results. It will also show what source they came from and on what date they registered.
With GoToWebinar’s analytics, you’ll have complete insight into the audience response. You can even export all reports to spreadsheets

9. Live Webinar Recording and Editing

GoToWebinar will record every live webinar as soon as it starts and will stop recording when it ends. If the webinar included any polls, those will also show up in the video. Attendees will also receive a follow-up email, with an option to watch the recording.

The recordings will remain in the Video Library where you can download, edit, and share them. You can also use the software’s interface to trim and edit the recordings – a convenient feature that’s unique to GoToWebinar. The edited recordings could then become new, automated webinars. This way, you’ll get double value off the app.

Create Quality and Engaging Webinars with GoToWebinar

A large part of the business world is migrating more and more to virtual environments. Because of that, dependable webinar services are becoming a necessity.

If you want a reliable live event host, consider GoToWebinar. It is an excellent webinar hosting platform to bring your business up to date with modern times.

Its analytic tools are perfect for getting a detailed performance report. The presentation tools allow for creative and flexible live webinars. When edited, those webinars will provide more future content as recorded, automated events.

GoToWebinar lets you engage your target audience easily and give flawless presentations. At the same time, you’ll avoid the worries of organising a live meeting.

Quality presentations require quality planning. To get a feel for what the application offers, please feel free to download our GoToWebinar Planner PDF.

About the author 

Carl Taylor

Carl Taylor is the Founder & CEO of Automation Agency. For the past 10 years Carl has been building businesses and marketing them online through the use of Sales Funnels, Email Marketing Automation, Landing Pages, and Wordpress Websites. Carl is also a #1 author and highly sought after speaker and consultant whose work has impacted thousands of businesses across various industries worldwide.

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