Event marketers eat, sleep, and breathe in-person event programs. But they traditionally haven’t been as closely involved in virtual event programs — until recently. Now, they’re up against the clock transforming their in-person events to virtual, and learning quickly how to market, manage, and measure these events.
As a result, a common question we’re getting about all of this is: How do I know what to look for in a webinar platform?
Your webinar platform can single-handedly make or break your virtual event programs. I’m not saying this to cause panic, but to let you know how important this question is.
The good news is that choosing a webinar platform can be easy. Sure, there are several important features you don’t want to miss out on — but I’m here to break those down for you.
Before you know it, you’ll have the right platform that’ll help you get those webinars up and running quickly and easily.
Let’s cut to the chase. It’s time to divulge the most important thing to consider when choosing a webinar platform: its integration with your event marketing platform.
Webinar platforms traditionally can’t double as an event marketing platform. Even if in-person events were canceled forever (which I don’t believe is the case), a webinar platform itself still won’t cut it.
Why? Because you need five non-negotiable things from a webinar platform and I have yet to find one that offers all five in and of itself. Honestly, no one expects that a webinar platform would offer all of these.
But an event marketing platform is made for these and can easily be integrated with a webinar platform to create the ultimate virtual events solution.
The ability to create on-brand, engaging experiences. Events are an opportunity to bring your brand to life for an audience. As the virtual events space gets more saturated, it’s even more crucial to stand out from the crowd and show your virtual event’s value.
One of the easiest ways to do this is by creating branded event pages and other promotional materials familiar to your audience. Now is not the time to only use the plain, out-of-the-box registration link that usually comes with webinar platforms.
The ability to integrate with your other business systems. A webinar is one of the most effective marketing activities for generating leads, so it’s critical that you capture those leads and act on them — without a lot of tedious, manual effort.
A webinar platform alone may gather attendee information through a registration form, but where does it go? Unless you manually export the list and upload it into your marketing automation and CRM systems, those names aren’t going anywhere.
The ability to provide data visibility to your internal teams. When you integrate with other business systems, your attendee data updates as often as your systems sync with each other. With this access to this data, your internal teams — like sales and customer service — can send more meaningful and customized communications to prospects and customers.
The ability to ensure consistency between in-person and virtual events. If you’re like every other event marketer, you’re optimistic that in-person events will return at some point with a vengeance. When they do, you need to ensure that everything you’re doing today with virtual events aligns with your future in-person events.
This is why it’s important to have one robust solution that connects all of your marketing tech stack. You don’t want to lose out on all the data from your virtual events by keeping your virtual events platform separate from your event marketing platform. Just because your venues are changing today doesn’t mean your sales funnel is meaningless.
The ability to scale your webinar programs. While some companies are outright canceling their in-person events today, many are looking to replace them with virtual events. This means that the number of events hosted by many companies isn’t simply decreasing. Events still need to be scaled so different internal groups can run webinars and other virtual events.
There’s no shortage of webinar platforms to evaluate today. With webinars suddenly the primary way to connect with prospects and customers through events, marketers are scrambling to understand the new landscape and their technology options.
With dozens (or maybe hundreds) of virtual event solutions out there, it’s no wonder event marketers feel overwhelmed and confused. Although the five things above are crucial for a virtual event solution that screams success, there’s more to the story. It’s also important to understand what your options are and which platform would be best for your organization based on the kinds of virtual events you run.
While you’re researching webinar platforms, remember that it’s okay to acknowledge how difficult all of this is. Then, take a breath and start learning as much as you can about how this new world of events can help you engage your audience, support the business, and reach your goals.
And take a moment to appreciate your silver linings, like all the blisters and sore feet you’re avoiding during this time.
As a Senior Manager of Marketing at Splash, Rebecca creates programs that help event marketers understand the importance of scale and how it translates to event goals and business results. A Chicago native, Rebecca recently traded the harsh winters for yearlong sun in the Arizona desert, where you can find her on running trails, in the pool, or at a patio cheering on the Chicago Bears.
