By now most of us are familiar with webinars. Whether we’ve personally attended one or have branched out and hosted our own, they have become a regular part of online learning. 

If you’re interested in pursuing webinars for your business, WebinarJam is for those who want to host a live webinar. You may be thinking “ok, aren’t all webinars live?” but truthfully, many webinars are pre-recorded and automated. These pre-recorded options have the look and feel of the live version, and the attendees never know the difference. 

WebinarJam makes hosting live webinars smooth and painless. They offer features like live chat, the ability to provide handouts, and even bring an attendee “on stage” for one on one interaction. 

Why You Need a Webinar Hosting Service

First, let’s back up a bit and discuss why hosting webinars benefits you and your business. Webinars are a great way to connect with an audience. Whether you want to promote a product, host a Q&A session, break down a complicated topic — whatever your communication goal, a webinar can help you achieve it.

But for webinars to work, you need attendees. And people don’t show up to random webinars for fun. You need to get the word out on why someone should spend part of their valuable time listening to what you have to say. 

You can create your own marketing plan, or partner with a service provider with marketing tools and broadcasting your webinar availability.

Once you have the attendees, your webinars have to engage them. Simply positioning the camera towards your lovely face while you read from a script or recite a sales pitch isn’t enough — otherwise a video conference call would be all you need.

Attendees need to be engaged with multimedia effects, screen sharing, live Q&A sessions, and other tools in order to hold their interest. But not every webinar hosting offers multiple tools at your fingertips to increase engagement. 

How Does WebinarJam Work?

WebinarJam puts all the tools you need for successful webinar management — from marketing, to hosting, to follow-up emails and texts with your attendees — all in one place. It is also a source for live webinars, versus only pre-recorded versions.

WebinarJam uses cloud-based broadcasting technology. This is one way of keeping expenses for the webinar down. This technology also delivers smooth, non-pixelated broadcasts, so your presentation is delivered via quality high-definition. As long as you have a stable internet connection, you can start hosting with WebinarJam right away and present using the best technology.

Learn more about WebinarJam here. 

Features of WebinarJam

WebinarJam is a fully-featured option for webinar hosting. 

Live chat. One of the essential tools for audience engagement is the live chat feature. With this feature, you can highlight comments, have private comments, use sticky announcements, and other flexible options for chat. You can also add in polls and surveys.

Flexible scheduling. While live webinars are an important part of this platform, your business has several options for scheduling the sessions, including:

• Quickly open a live room so you can host a webinar with a moment’s notice
• Schedule an event for a future date
• Host a recurring series of webinars and schedule at the same time each week
• An “AlwaysLive” room so you can go live with your webinar at anytime

Attendee spotlight. This feature puts attention on an attendee by allowing them access to the mic and screen sharing. They can also broadcast their own webcam.

Handouts: You can share files with your attendees so they can follow along with a workbook or agenda. 

Page building templates for attractive landing pages. If you need a resource for marketing your webinar, use one of the professionally designed templates to get started.

Full email and SMS features. This is a much-needed feature for sending out email and text invitations and reminders to attendees. WebinarJam let’s you schedule your messaging frequency whether you’re reminding someone of an upcoming event, or sending out a follow-up message after the webinar.

Add in active offers. If you have a product or service to promote to your attendees, the Active Offer feature let’s them purchase easily with a click of the button. They don’t have to go to another web address to purchase. Plus you can add a countdown timer to add further urgency. 

Inclusion in the WebinarJam Database. For those of you who want your webinar available to the public, getting included in the database is a useful “extra.”  The audience can see when you’re going live, or they can watch a re-play of your presentation.

Works on any device. Whether someone attends from their desktop, mobile device, or tablet, the webinar is enabled to be viewed on any type of device. 

Video injections. Easily add a video element to your presentation.

Automated recordings. Let’s say you recently hosted the absolute best webinar and you’d like to duplicate the magic, the only problem is you’ve already scheduled your week-long trip to the beach. The automated recording feature records each webinar (if you enable this). It also mimics the exact LiveRoom events, so your audience never knows it’s a replay and not a live session.

PanicButton. This feature (for the Professional and Enterprise plan) allows you to reboot your webinar seamlessly, even in the middle of a presentation. You may need this feature if you experience a technical glitch.

Control Center. For the Enterprise plan, the Control Center allows you to hand over the reins and let your staff run the webinar while you present. 

Learn more about WebinarJam here.

WebinarJam Pricing

Getting all of these features for your webinars does have a price, and fortunately WebinarJam offers multiple options for you when it comes to billing. 

For starters, you have access to a $1 14-day trial. 

Once your trial ends, you need to pick a plan. There are three options to choose from, depending on what works best for your business. 

Basic plan. For $499 per year, you can host an unlimited number of webinars. This plan allows for up to 500 attendees in each one. You are allowed two hosts and your webinars can last up to two hours each.

Professional plan. For $599 per year, you can host an unlimited number of webinars. However, this plan allows for up to 2,000 attendees, for up to three hours, and with up to four hosts.

Additionally, the Always-Live room is on and you have access to the PanicButton feature, which you do not with the Basic plan.

Enterprise plan. For $999 per year, the Enterprise plan gives you unlimited webinars, up to six hosts, and up to 5,000 attendees. 

Not only do you have use of the Always-Live room and PanicButton, but you receive the Control Center feature with the Enterprise plan. 

All plans with WebinarJam come with a 30-day money back guarantee. You should also take note the plans are sold in one-year increments, which means there are no monthly plans available. 

Learn more about WebinarJam here.

Pros and Cons

There are a ton of great features with this product, but a few points of consideration before you decide if WebinarJam is right for your business. 

Pros

• A wide array of options and features to give your audience a first-class webinar experience
• Competitively priced compared to other webinar hosting services
• Easy to get started
• Your webinar is added to the public WebinarJam database so it’s visible to thousands of additional potential attendees
• Whether you prefer to go live, offer a re-play, or schedule something in advance, there are so many scheduling options available

Cons

• If you want access to all the features, you have to purchase the most expensive plan
• Although it includes some marketing features, you may need other services to advertise the webinar to a broader audience
• Limited branding capabilities. If you are going for a certain “look” and want your webinar to replicate your own brand you might find the choices limiting
• Some reviews complain of the 10-30 second delay. This may not be an issue, but if you are conducting a live Q&A session then this can be frustrating 

Who Should Use WebinarJam

WebinarJam is a fantastic option for businesses starting out in the webinar world. It’s an easy way to navigate this type of online presentation and learning. While the prices may seem a little high to businesses who have never conducted webinars before, the yearly plans are actually more affordable than many other options out there. 

If you anticipate you will always have less than 2,000 attendees per session, then WebinarJam should work for just about any business. 

It’s also a smart option for someone conducting “universal” webinars. Meaning, the webinars you host are open to anyone who may express interest in a product.

Overall, if your business would benefit from the use of webinars, and you are looking for a simple solution to get started, then WebinarJam is a great alternative to other pricey platforms.