Warning: If webinars are part of your company’s sales funnel, webinar platform features can make or break your marketing efforts. 

Webinar marketing is a critical part of many B2B enterprises’ marketing strategies. And a lot of consumer brands are joining the bandwagon. There’s no question that COVID-19 has played a big role in this trend, with many businesses moving from in-person sales meetings and events to virtual meetings.  

Webinars can help you build a more personal relationship with customers, even with the new normal looming over your head. The question is, how do you pick a webinar platform to get your webinar marketing strategy up and running?

Here are some of the features that will help you run events that will help your webinar stand out and make your brand shine.

Must-Have Webinar Platform Features for Enterprise

  1. Customizable Audience Console

Webinars are a powerful tool for driving sales in your organization. In fact, one source notes that  20 percent to 40 percent of attendees turn into qualified leads. But here’s the thing, you need to stand out from the competition by making your webinars memorable. You can do this by customizing the whole experience. 

A customizable audience console is one of the most important webinar platform features to consider. It allows you to align the webinar experience with your brand. You can make your webinar pop by incorporating the following:

  • Logo color scheme
  • Brand imagery 
  • Typeface
  • Custom wording
  • Resources, such as e-books, white papers, case studies and even video
  1. Webinar registration landing pages 

Landing pages can help you seal the deal when it comes to registration. You can also create “Thank You” pages to help spread the word and improve attendance. 

A good webinar platform should allow you to create landing pages quickly without hiring a web developer. It should come with customizable templates that let you incorporate social sharing, add to calendar capabilties, and multimedia, such as audio and video.  

  1. Analytics

You need data to make decisions about your current and future webinars. A webinar platform should come with an analytics dashboard that tells you:

  • The number of people who registered for your webinar
  • The number of registrants who attended the webinar
  • The number of registrants who watched the replay
  • How long the attendees stayed
  • The number of those who clicked on your offers 
  1. Automated webinars

Automated webinars are webinars that run on autopilot. You can automate the beginning and the end without more intervention. It’s also possible to fully automate a webinar, so it simulates a live event. 

Ultimately, automation is a nice-to-have webinar platform feature that can save you tons of time and effort. Some of the webinar actions you can automate include:

  • Starting a webinar
  • Ending a webinar
  • Playing a video
  • Redirecting to a page
  • Sending a poll
  • Showing a presentation
  • Sending a CTA (Call to Action)
  1. Webinar Replay

A good webinar platform should allow you to record and store your live webinars. This way, registrants who missed the live webinar can watch it later. The replay is a second chance to reach the people you “almost had”. 

According to the Webinar Benchmarks & Best Practices Report by Deck 7, up to 70 percent of webinar no-shows watch the replay (Download the report here). This is too big of an opportunity to miss – on-demand hosting is a must have. 

  1. E-mail Integrations

The webinar platform you choose should allow you to integrate with separate e-mail platforms. This is a great option for sophisticated e-mail marketers that already use HubSpot, Active Campaign, and MailChimp. This integration allows you to maintain lists, tags, and segments across platforms. 

  1. In-Webinar Polling

Polls are a great way to find out more about your attendees. A webinar tool with polling features allows you to:

  • Use surveys to get feedback on your webinars
  • Get ideas for your next webinar
  • Engage your audience more meaningfully
  1. Live Support

This is one of the most important considerations when choosing a webinar platform. It doesn’t matter how incredible a tool is if you can’t get help when you need it. You want to check out the company’s website to make sure it has live support. 

Don’t just stop there. Give the company a call or start a chat and see how long it takes to respond. 

  1. Mobile Friendly

Choose a mobile-friendly webinar platform. Today, more and more people are using their mobile devices to access content online. Don’t limit yourself to your audience’s laps and desks. You should get in their pockets, too. 

  1. No Downloads for Attendees

Some webinar platforms require attendees to download software onto their computers before they can watch their presentations. This just adds an extra step for your viewers and may lead to frustration and, in the worst case, abandonment of your event. You want to make the customer journey as smooth as you possibly can. Say no to downloads. 

Conclusion

Don’t find yourself caught up in the webinar platform features race. And don’t forget that you’re looking for software that works best for your business. Having narrowed down the most critical features we hope this makes the process of choosing a webinar tool much easier for you. Happy hunting!