Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Time and again, email marketing has proved its effectiveness, proving the speculations of its death wrong. According to Litmus, emails bring an ROI of $42 for every $1 spent. This is the biggest testimony that email is very much alive and outshining all the other marketing channels. What started off as a simple medium for…
The post Experts Speak: Email Marketing Trends to Look Forward to in 2021 appeared first on Benchmarkemail.

Hello everyone, We just launched our MVP and we are looking for early adopters. Soctify enables automation of your Facebook contests and makes contest management more time and cost efficient. Our features will allow you to: – Manage a large number of Facebook contests efficiently. – Automate the contest related post creation. – Specify multiple qualification criteria. – Automate winner selection and communication with winners. – Gain insights on how your contests are performing. Early adopters will receive free membership for 6 months, access to the private community group, and premium support. They will be able to request features, provide valuable feedback, and shape the product roadmap. If you are interested or have any questions – do not hesitate and let me know. Feel free to contact me via DM or leave a comment]. To apply to the program – visit https://soctify.com/early-adopter-program/ or contact me via DM.
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How can you treat your projects the same way you treat your investments (SEO) How can you treat your projects the same way that You treat your investments, Specifically how can you put things in place that will work for you while you work on other stuff? It’s no secret that building is hard, but for a builder, marketing is even harder, and eventually twice as important. Since I don’t have a lot of money to spend on my side projects, I use a set of tricks and hacks for marketing which guarantee long-term growth at low or no cost. The key to a successful hack is 2 things: Very low cost (<$0.05 CPC) Very low effort (<3 hours) So what processes can I put in place once, that will gradually give me >10x returns in the future? The answer is SEO, scheduled posts, twitter automation, marketing projects, and understanding my funnel. These are all pretty big topics on their own so I’m splitting them up and just talking about SEO right now. Why SEO I find that many see SEO as a daunting task, and get scared away by either the terminology or the relatively long timelines. I was the same way. What changed? I realized the power of SEO. There is literally no cheaper, better channel to optimize for, and this is true for almost any business. It boils down to the following: If people are literally searching Google for what your business can provide, they are ready to convert, and your business needs to be right there. So I spent 2 weeks hardcore learning about SEO, and the real fundamentals that will get you ranked take less than an hour. Before getting started, SEO is a long game, if you’re a young business, your iteration cycle can be less than a day as you can implement feedback in a few hours, but SEO iteration cycles are on the scale of a month. Here is the SEO chart for the past 12 months of one of my companies, Sendblue https://preview.redd.it/dzlpsnc020t61.png?width=2802&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8fb754119fe102c1bf8b0f8b3d9ab3df7f41b83 It took 6 months to get to a point where high-intentioned users came to the site and clicks from Google consistently came in As you can see, there are points where the general trend of impressions and clicks either spikes or drops (see 7/20/20 – drop and 10/17/20 – spike) These were results from iterations a few days prior, which were made by studying the performance for the previous months. 874 clicks for the past 12 months seems really low for a year though, doesn’t it? Yes. But as I mentioned, SEO is a long game, 90% of those clicks came from the last 6 mo, and 50% of those clicks came from the last 3. It’s an investment that has the ability to grow your business exponentially. These clicks are also 100x more likely to convert than any other channel. >25% of them at least started the free trial. The Fundamentals that will take you less than 1 hour Put a Sitemap.xml on your page Sign up for google search console and register your sitemap with the search console Write a decent title and meta description for your website. (Optional) add Open graph tags, twitter cards etc Put a Sitemap.xml on your page This is a crazy easy step for most businesses, just hop over to https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and sit back while they crawl your site and generate it for you. Most website creation sites will then let you upload this sitemap or they will generate their own on your behalf anyway. The only caveat here is if you have a very complicated site with routes that change by the day or based on what is available (such as an e-commerce site), for this I would spend 30 minutes researching wildcard paths and sitemap priorities and do it manually. Sign up for the google search console and register your site with it I’d say this is the most important step. Registering your site with Google fast-tracks their crawler to come check out your website. Google’s crawler will otherwise have to happen across your site by finding a link to it elsewhere. This step also lets you track and iterate on your webpage performance. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console/about and hit start now. Go through the onboarding flow for your website. This will require messing with DNS settings a little bit, but nothing crazy. Tell Google where the sitemap for your website is, Google will parse it and then tell you if there’s anything wrong. Fixing all the errors Google gives you is crucial to ranking. Wait. It will take a while before you start seeing Google rank your site, but they will do it (assuming there are people searching for what you’re offering). Write a decent title and meta description for your website. Now comes the fun part. Pick 1 or 2 competitors and head over to ubersuggest.com, enter their domains and see what keywords they are ranking for. This is your time to shine. Either: find a keyword with 100-1000 searches per month with an “easy” ubersuggest ranking difficulty and use that, or: come up with a keyword that they ARE NOT ranking for yet and search ubersuggest for it. If that has an easy ranking difficulty that could be your in into the industry. With the keyword you determined in the previous step, write a title and meta description for your site. Pro tip: Front-load title + description with relevant keywords, use keyword synonyms, and make it generally clear and clickable. Upload these to your site, the Google search here is: “How to set title and meta description in javascript/wordpress/webflow/etc.” (Optional) add Open graph tags, twitter cards etc It’s debatable whether these actually help SEO so these are optional, but any solid business has them as well. This is the stuff that makes your business expand into a card with an image on twitter, in iMessage, and anywhere on the web really. This is beyond the scope of this post but the two google search terms here are: “How to set up Open Graph in WordPress/Webflow/javascript/WhateverPlatformYouUse” “How to set up Twitter Cards in WordPress/Webflow/javascript/WhateverPlatformYouUse” Trailing activities Once you’ve set up the fundamentals, it’s time to wait. I know it sucks, and I know it feels like a waste of time, but trust me. While you work on improving your product, talking to customers, getting product-market-fit, Google is slowly learning about what kind of people are looking for what you can offer. This is where your last task comes in: Once a month, revisit the google search console and see how your site is doing. Going back to Sendblue – google offers a great report view where you can see what people are clicking on. See below: ​ https://preview.redd.it/j7e3xkv720t61.png?width=5678&format=png&auto=webp&s=2d27e3097b966d655da28eb3339ca1c9f92bad51 Your job is to study these keywords, see what people are clicking on, and iterate. Every month when I get back on the search console I look at what people are searching, and if google is ranking me for those things. If Google is ranking me for something (impressions), then I ask: are people clicking on my page? If so, are people staying on the page? If the answer to any of the above questions is no, I play around with the copy high up on the site and in the title/meta description and let it sit for a month (btw, this is where google ads can massively increase your testing rate) (1 mo -> 5 days iteration period) The first 3-6 months of iterations might be complete shots in the dark, but just remember to critically think what people would search for if they were looking for your business, and keep testing until you hit something. Remember: Google’s job is to show people what they are looking for, and they’re pretty d*mn good at it. If you want to hear about how I use scheduled posts, twitter automation, marketing projects, and funnel knowledge to automate my marketing process leave an upvote, I am trying to post like this once every week so I can improve my writing process. I’m excited to hear if I missed anything or if anything was unclear so please leave any feedback below!
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Link building is an invaluable part of SEO. In fact, it’s one of the top factors search engines look at when determining your ranking.
Whether you’re developing a new link-building strategy or revising a current one, it’s important to look at where you currently stand. That’s where a backlink strategy comes into play.

Let’s cover what a backlink analysis looks like and the tools needed to conduct one.
Backlink Analysis
What is backlink analysis?
Backlink analysis is a comprehensive review of a website’s backlinks to analyze the site’s performance and identify issues that could affect its search engine ranking.
Backlink analysis is like the SEO version of going to the doctor for a check-up. You should do it regularly to ensure everything is in order, but you also do it when you notice something is wrong.
Completing this process is one of the best ways to understand your site’s health and understand what factors are contributing to its ranking. Perhaps you’ve noticed a sharp dip in your ranking, or you’re simply not seeing the progress you were expecting.
A backlink analysis will also show you how your website measures up against your competitors. You’ll gain some insight into what strategies your competitors are using and what you could implement in your own process.
Lastly, it’s a chance to identify new growth opportunities that you haven’t yet explored.
1. Choose the sites you want to analyze.
While it’s obvious you’ll be analyzing your own website, you’ll also want to narrow down the competitor sites you want to review.
You may already have a few top of mind, but if you don’t, you’ll want to pick sites that:

Offer similar products or services.
Are currently outranking you for your target keywords.

2. Select an auditing tool.
Although you could conduct a manual backlink audit, it’s likely more efficient to use a backlink tool that already has the key features you’re looking for.
There are several backlink checker tools out there, ranging in price and capabilities. You’ll usually find them as a section within an SEO tool, like Majestic and SEMrush.
Need help finding a backlink analysis tool? Find a few suggestions here.
3. Get a quick overview.
Once you select your auditing tool, it’s time to start the analysis.
Enter your domain name into the search bar and look at the results.

You’ll start with a ton of data. To get a quick idea of how your site is performing, focus on these metrics:

The total number of backlinks: The total number of links pointing to the site. For instance, if website A writes a blog post and hyperlinks to a page on website B, that is a backlink. If this number is very low, it may be the reason why your page isn’t ranking well.

Referring domains: The total number of websites that are pointing to your site. Website A pointing to website B counts as one referring domain. Sorting these domains by authority can tell you how valuable these pages are to your ranking and give you ideas for outreach later on.

Top linked pages: The pages on a website that get the most backlinks. This can indicate the type of content that’s best for link building.

Repeat this step with your competitors to set a benchmark and learn where you fall. Depending on the tool you use, you may be able to compare these metrics on the same page without going back and forth.
4. Analyze the details.
Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty details and look at metrics that will answer the “why.”
Begin by looking at your anchor texts, the words used to hyperlink your webpage. This is a great way to identify spammy backlinks that could be hurting your ranking.

If you’re not sure how to know if the referral domain is spammy, see if the anchor text relates to the content on your site. If it looks like the junk section of your email and includes crude language, it’s likely spam.
Once you identify these links, you could reach out to the websites to ask to be removed. It’s a long shot but could work in some instances. Disavowing those links is the more realistic option, which is basically telling Google to ignore those backlinks.
Speaking of spam, you’ll also want to look at your country code top-level domain (ccTLD) distribution. ccTLD refers to the last portion of a URL, which designates the country it originates from.
This is another way to identify websites that could be the source of your negative SEO (i.e. malicious practice meant to negatively impact your ranking).
If your website gets a lot of traffic from Haiti, for instance, it wouldn’t be a red flag to see a lot of .ht backlinks. However, if you start to notice links like .cn or another unfamiliar TLD, you may want to look deeper into this.
Next up: broken or lost links. It’s important to identify your broken and lost links as you miss out on “link juice,” the potential to rank higher from a backlink. In addition, it can make your website harder to crawl.
How do you fix it? There are several ways to do so:

Reach out to the referring domain and ask that it be fixed.
Redirect the broken page to a new webpage on your website.
Redirect the broken page to another page on your website with similar content.

5. See what your competitors are doing.
As you dive deeper into your domain, be sure to compare your findings with your competitors.
For instance, look at the referring domains for the website that’s outranking you. If there’s little overlap between your list and theirs, this could give you direction into which domains to aim for.
It’s also helpful to compare your backlink acquisition rate against your competitors. Are they growing at a much faster pace than you? It could highlight another section worth investigating.

Top Backlink Analysis Tools
1. Google Search Console

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Google Search Console is a free tool to do an initial backlink check. You can see top metrics, like your total links and referring domains.
The downside to this platform is that you cannot compare your site to your competitors. However, it is a good place to start to gain a big-picture view of your site’s performance.
2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an SEO tool with extensive features to help companies optimize their websites.
The backlinks checker is easily accessible through the “Site Explorer,” and allows you to quickly export the data for further analysis. You can also access the sections on the left sidebar to explore each backlink feature more in-depth.
Ahrefs is a paid tool with pricing starting at $82/month and up to $832/month for agency-level capabilities. You can also take advantage of their free trial for seven days at $7.
3. SEMrush

SEMrush is another top SEO tool with a backlink tracker available to subscribers.
You can easily compare your report to three competitors at a time and use the graphs for a visual understanding of the data.
To get a peek into how it works, SEMrush allows free users to make 10 requests a day. While you will only get a limited view of the feature, you can get an idea of how the dashboard functions.
For full access, you must obtain a subscription. Pricing starts at $99/month and goes up to $449.
4. Moz

Moz is one of the top backlink tools in the market.
The dashboard makes quick downloads easily accessible to focus on key areas of interest.
The “Spam Score” feature provides some insight into which links may be damaging your SEO efforts and how to reduce them. Another standout feature on the site is the “Discovered and Lost” section which shows you the linking domains you’ve gained and lost within a specific date range.
You can use Moz using a free 30-day trial or subscribe to one of their monthly plans, starting at $79.
Backlink analysis is an essential part of your SEO strategy and will require continuous maintenance. However, Once you know what to look for, it should be a painless process.

Initially launched in the 1990s, webinar caché once relied heavily on live events. In 2020 however, we saw the webinar space pivot towards the on-demand space.
Lower cost per acquisition, ease of automation, and building trusted archives of useful content has proven to be an effective means of moving customers through the sales funnel.
While not as flashy as their live counterparts, evergreen webinars have proven to be the tortoise to live webinar’s hare: slow and steady sees the highest ROI.
Read on to find out our favorite evergreen webinar strategies, platforms, and the features that make all the difference.

When businesses first started producing webinars the focus skewed towards live events. Shiny and new, the promise of a live webinar meant capturing highly engaged leads and collaborating with top talent in the industry.
But live webinars are also a ton of work to produce: weeks of coordination, marketing emails, practice sessions, and script revisions, building slide decks… all for an hour of learning, and a few days of follow-ups.
Tons of information was lost every time a webinar ended because there wasn’t a simple way to re-watch it. Until we got savvy and started recording them.
Hosting your recorded webinars is an excellent, low-cost way to create resources for potential or existing customers about how to get set up with your software, walking through common blockers customers face, or demonstrating new tools and integrations.
There are many different content streams you can explore with automated webinars, including:

Training videos: Record your account executive’s run-through of your software and make it work harder by offering it as an on-demand webinar.

Lectures and thought leadership: Get the most out of guest-speaker and C-Suite time by offering a thought-leadership section of on-demand webinars in your archive.

Tutorials: Make it simple to learn how to use and explore new product integrations or updates with quick, evergreen webinar content.

A case study walk through: Make your case studies come to life, and then automate the recording to make your witticisms and insights go the extra mile.

When done well, a library of on-demand webinars can act as an automated sales engine, driving customers through the funnel as they engage with and learn more about your product. It’s a great example of working smarter rather than harder.
Evaluating the Best Evergreen Webinar Software
It’s tempting to outsource your software search to Google. While you might end up with a good product, you may be missing key features that will make your presentations really hum. You may even end up over-investing. The first thing to do? Understand your limits.
A webinar program can be a simple automated recording … or it can be as complicated as producing live television. Understand the complexity of your program by asking yourself the following questions:

How many attendees do I expect per session? Most platforms have tiered pricing tied to how many guests can attend a given webinar. If you’re just starting your webinar program, look for an option that will allow you to scale up but doesn’t demand a huge investment right away.
What resources are available to me? Training and implementation take time. A lot of time. As you’re researching platforms, consider what kind of support is available. Will you be given a dedicated account manager? How robust is the platform’s resource library? Remember: The best software is the software you actually use.
Always take advantage of a free trial … and if you are considering purchasing the product, but need more time, ask for an extension.

The Best Evergreen Webinar Software
On-demand webinars don’t have the same immediate converting power as their live counterparts. Instead, they excel at customer education and establishing brand trust.
Think of your on-demand webinars as a way to educate your existing customer base, and as an ambassador of your company’s willingness to help.
Here are two of the best software for hosting, recording, and delivering evergreen webinars:
1. DEMIO

Demio is a best-of-both-worlds option. While its focus is on producing live webinars, Demio makes it simple to build out your webinar library. We love how Demio:

Offers automated recordings, which make it easy to record and archive live events into an easily searchable content library.
Has a “Stay Registered” feature, which allows participants to sign up once for an ongoing series and captures valuable emails for future marketing efforts.
Boasts an excellent analytics dashboard to give you insight into how your live and on-demand webinars are performing — a great opportunity to let your learnings inform your live and evergreen webinar content.

2. EverWebinar

The OG in evergreen webinar technology, EverWebinar is all about the on-demand life. If you’re looking to set it and … well, not forget it, but not be beholden either, this is the software for you.

EverWebinar allows users to schedule their webinars to play at set intervals throughout the day, week, or month. This has the double benefit of mimicking the live experience (which does tend to get higher engagement). It also lets your marketing team run tests as to what time of day is best for your audience.
A list of unique features makes it easy to drive home the “live” illusion and cut back on the stress of managing a big roster of scheduled webinars. Options like “Block dates,” which stop your webinars from playing on specific days, or “Block nighttime viewing,” which keeps your analytics from being skewed by background streaming. “Time-zone auto-detection” makes it easy to globalize your offering with the click of a button.
A bonus for super-users: if you’re looking for a platform to help you organize your collection of recorded webinars, EverWebinar and WebinarJam are designed to function together. *Insert handshake emoji*

3. WebinarGeek

A great option for a company new to the webinar game, WebinarGeek is a simple software that makes it easy to host and record live webinars and turn them into a library of evergreen, on-demand content.
Along with standard features like customizable waiting rooms and robust analytics, we also love:

WebinarGeek’s intuitive interface: It’s easy for someone brand new to the webinar world to orient themselves in the WebinarGeek platform.
The monthly pricing plan, making this option accessible for businesses looking to explore the webinar space without a deep financial commitment.
The pre-record function makes it simple to test presentations, rehearse with multiple presenters, and explore other features. Pre-recording your webinar also leaves you with a “clean” version to upload as your evergreen content.

Build an evergreen webinar funnel with these top tools.
As we all get more literate in live and on-demand educational content, the need for simple and sleek webinar platforms will continue to grow.
By determining your needs early and taking the time to test various platforms, your team will be ready to educate, inspire, and get a better understanding of your customer base so you can help them make great decisions.

With nine in 10 marketers planning to use YouTube in their 2021 marketing strategy, it’s more important than ever to capture your audience’s attention. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a connection with your viewers through fostering community.

YouTube’s own creator academy says it best: “A loyal community of viewers can help promote your videos to new viewers through their own social networks, and give you instant feedback on what they do and don’t like.”
While building these relationships doesn’t happen overnight, it’s rewarding to see your channel grow.

The community tab is one important way that YouTube helps creators build relationships with their audience. Read on to learn how to get your own YouTube Community Tab, and how to use it to build relationships, increase subscriptions, and boost watch time.
Fans can comment and like or dislike posts, and share them with their friends. And just like that, a functioning community is created.
Community is an important part of our human experience. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the way we participate in our communities has changed.
According to SproutSocial, YouTube has stepped into this position. “Viewers are connecting with YouTube content in a way that helps them feel like they’re living what they’re watching. After a year in a global pandemic, this is a necessary way to help people still feel connected to their passions, hobbies, and normal life activities. “
How to Get a Community Tab on YouTube
To get a Community tab on YouTube, your channel will need to have over 1000 subscribers, and it can take up to one week after passing that number to see the Community tab appear.
Note that if your channel has over 1000 subscribers, but the Community tab option is not yet visible on your channel, you’ll need to enable custom channel layouts to display the tab.
How to make a Community post on YouTube
Once you have access to the Community tab, it’s time to start posting and engaging with your audience. Creating a post is simple and similar to posting on any other social media feed.
To create a Community post:

Sign in to YouTube.
At the top of the page, select ‘Upload’ and then ‘Create post.’
Type a message to create a text post or choose to add a video, poll, gif, or image to the post. You can also mention other channels using the @ symbol followed by the channel name.
Click ‘Post.’

Once your post is published, your subscribers will see it in their feed. They may also get a notification that you’ve posted something new.
Where is the YouTube Community Tab?
You can find each creator’s Community tab on their homepage, if they have it enabled.
On desktop, click on a channel name to go to their home page.

From there, click on Community in the middle of the screen. Here, you’ll find all their most recent posts where you can comment and interact with them.
On mobile, you’ll need to use the official YouTube app to see the Community tab, as it won’t show up in the mobile browser. Once you’ve opened YouTube, visit a channel’s home page. You’ll be able to click on the Community tab on the top of their page.
7 Ways to Use the YouTube Community Tab
Engagement is one of the most important YouTube channel analytics. When your audience is more engaged they will watch more videos, share more, and keep coming back. If you use the Community tab to its full potential, you can grow your audience and build a community around your content and brand. Here’s how.
1. Post behind the scenes footage and updates.
While your videos might be carefully produced, scripted, and put together, many viewers crave authenticity from creators. Your Community tab is where you can show more casual updates. Use this format for sneak-peaks or personal updates.

2. Heart ❤️ and respond to comments.
When reviewing your community comments, use a heart ❤️ to show appreciation for a viewer’s comments.
The viewer may get a notification (depending on their settings), and they’ll be able to see that you liked their comment.
Responding to comments starts a conversation, and builds a stronger connection with your viewers. Don’t get too caught up in replying to all of the comments on your channel, but taking the time to heart and respond to a few will show that you’re paying attention.

3. Pin a top comment.
When a comment really tickles your fancy, it’s from a VIP, or just something that you want to promote, you can pin it to the top of the comments. It will be the first thing other viewers see when they check out your community posts.
4. Promote a collaboration video with a fellow creator.
Are you really a YouTuber until you’ve done a collaboration with another creator? Once you’ve uploaded your shared creation, make sure both of you post about it on your Community tab. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your channel and expand your audience.

5. Poll your audience on what type of video they want to see next.
Find out what your audience wants from your channel. Ask them for feedback on your upcoming videos, or poll them about an upcoming competition.
Sportsnet has over 124,000 votes on their latest poll about the 2021 Rocket Richard Trophy.

6. Shoutout to a fan or fellow creator using an @mention.
Mention a fan or another creator to share the love or get more eyes on your videos. Popular channels will often select a fan to shout-out to at the end of their video. The Community tab is another place where you can make these connections.
7. Share ‘members only’ posts.
If you offer Channel Memberships (a paid subscription to your channel where “viewers make monthly payments in exchange for access to exclusive badges, custom emojis, and other perks”), you can choose to create posts that are exclusive to your channel members.
This is a great way to thank them for their support and give them even more opportunities to engage with your channel.
Building a Community on YouTube
One of the things I noticed when trying to find examples for this post is that many creators aren’t using the Community tab to its full potential.
The power of being able to post updates and notify subscribers is huge! You’ve got a captive audience, so make sure to update them regularly, even when you don’t have time to upload a full video.
Stay engaged with what your fans want, and you’ll build a loyal following quickly.

If you’re looking to attract highly engaged leads, interact with your audience, get real-time feedback, and capitalize on exciting guest speakers, the live webinar format is for you.

In a blind test run by the team at Business2Community it was discovered that a live webinar not only got 2.3x the number of registrants than an on-demand video, but the live webinar’s attendance also exceeded that of its on-demand counterpart by 23%.
The live attendants were also more … well … attentive. Participants viewed an average of 80% of the live webinar content, whereas the on-demand version captured 35%.

To take full advantage of these benefits, you need to choose the best software for live webinars. Read on to discover our favorite candidates for a live webinar platform, divided by category for easy research. Oh, and once you’ve found the right webinar platform, make sure you check out our ultimate guide to creating compelling webinars.
The Best Live Webinar Software
Best Webinar Software for Marketers
1. WebinarNinja

Optimizing for the customer journey is crucial and WebinarNinja knows it. The team of WebinarNinja focused their tool development on making it easy to track and customize according to a prospect’s position in the funnel. We love how this platform:

Integrates with CRMs such as Salesforce and Hubspot so you can easily track your leads.
Offers a gated landing page option to charge for events, which is a great option for hosting online conferences or other high-value content alongside regular webinar programming.
Provides more targeted, customized tracking with a Facebook Ad tracking pixel on webinar attendees.

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2. WorkCast

As the webinar platform that brands itself as “created for marketers,” WorkCast is simple to use and has a multitude of helpful features. Whether you’re offering live or on-demand webinars, creating evergreen content, or a combination of all three, WorkCast has your back with:

Integrations with all of the most popular CRMs, including HubSpot, so you can track your leads and follow up automatically.
No downloads or plugins required to host, attend, or present at webinars.
The option for simulive webinars using pre-recorded video combined with a live Q&A session or presentation. All of the benefits of viewer engagement, without the stress of organizing a live webinar.

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Best webinar software for small businesses
3. WebinarGeek

An easy-to-use platform that provides live, on-demand, and hybrid webinar features. With their smart marketing features, you’ll be able to attract viewers and convert them to customers within the same platform. Priced reasonably for small businesses, WebinarGeek has a number of great tools, including;

No downloads required for your audience, which makes it easy for non-tech audiences to attend.
Create your own webinar channel to showcase all your on-demand and future webinars in one place.
Highly rated customer support (9.8/10 on G2) that will help you set up and deliver seamless webinars.

4. WebinarJam

Marrying a simple interface with comprehensive tools makes WebinarJam an easy favorite for small businesses looking to run live webinars, even on the go. We love their:

Customizable templates, such as waiting room graphics and emails, for an on-brand experience.
Ability to add up to six co-presenters, making it easy to produce a collaborative and high-value presentation. You can even inject pre-recorded video for additional presentation options.
Trifecta of engagement tools: a virtual whiteboard, poll options, and an attendee chat.
Automatic recording function, which makes it easy to follow up with registrants who missed the live recording.

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Best Webinar Tools for Training and Classroom Sessions
5. ClickMeeting

ClickMeeting offers webinars and video conferencing in one tool. Schedule meetings or webinars easily, and scale your webinar program with ClickMeeting’s 5000 attendance capacity.
ClickMeeting is particularly useful for running training and classroom-style presentations because of its:

Customizable waiting rooms with agenda layouts, file delivery, and presenter information.
Full suite of webinar tools including additional rooms, whiteboards, and polls.
Ability to join and deliver webinars on-the-go with the ClickMeeting mobile apps.

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6. Adobe Connect

Adobe Connect is ideal for guided training and seminars where you need to “set the stage” for your audience. Their classroom tools enable students to work together effectively. You can also:

Create breakout sessions, whiteboards, and teaching aids to help you deliver your message effectively.
Set up multiple “topic chats” to keep discussions on track.
Read your audience’s digital body language with advanced analytics to help you improve your delivery.

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Best Free Webinar Software
7. Zoom

While many of us may have used Zoom for meetings, it’s also a great choice for webinars.
Because so many people are familiar with Zoom, hosts, and attendees both find it easy to use. Plus, if you’re on a tight budget, you can use Zoom’s video conferencing platform for small, free webinars (up to 100 participants).
Some of the benefits of Zoom include:

Keeping the focus on the presenter’s video, rather than slides, making for a more human interaction.
Leveraging virtual backgrounds, studio effects, and background noise suppression.
Dedicated live event support, including monitoring and moderation.

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8. Freeconferencecall.com

One of the only completely free webinar platforms, Freeconferencecall.com is still a powerful solution. It’s completely browser-based (which means no downloads for you or your guests), and:

Offers one-click recording so you never miss out on saving your webinar.
Has screen- and file-sharing capabilities so you can share your presentation materials effectively.
Allows you to host up to 1000 guests.

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Best Live Webinar Software
9. On24

On24 is the enterprise platform that does it all, as noted in their positive reviews on G2: “We had a wide variety of needs for a service like this — internal training, external publications, panel forums, expert-led seminars, and more. We felt that ON24 checked every box.”
On24 specializes in live broadcasts and has a host of features designed to increase customer engagement with your video presentations. We love their:

Enterprise-level streaming quality. They’re built for big events that need to stream smoothly.
Engagement analytics that integrates with your business intelligence platforms for better audience segmentation.
Engagement hub that stores past webinars for an “always-on” experience.

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10. GoToWebinar

A best-in-class option that makes running a live webinar feel positively smooth. Equipped with the greatest hits of live webinar management like engagement tools, automatic recording, and excellent integrations, GoToWebinar goes the final mile by offering:

24/7 customer service, which is essential in times of live webinar panic.
Source tracking to help determine the most effective sign-up strategies.
Truly excellent analytics that help you to keep iterating and improving.

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11. Webinar.net

This is an easy-to-use webinar platform that looks good. Webinar.net might be one of the newest platforms on the market, but they’re starting strong with a 4.8 out of 5 stars rating on G2.
Their customers love them because:

They’re browser-based, so there are no downloads required for presenters or attendees.
You can upload a background template and pick your colors and font so that your webinar matches your company’s branding.
Broadcasts can be launched in under 60 seconds with their five-step wizard.

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The Best Webinar Platforms in 2021
There are so many different webinar platforms available. Choosing the right one for your needs depends on your budget and your goals.