If your business relies on webinars as part of its marketing strategy, you know how important the right hosting platform is.
GoToWebinar is a customer favorite in webinar solutions and they offer everything from integrations to 10,000 attendee sessions to give you what you need.
What is GoToWebinar? As part of the GoTo suite of business products, this platform is dedicated to creating, hosting, marketing, and analyzing live and pre-recorded virtual events.
GoToWebinar comes with several paid plans plus the option for a free trial, with features like custom branding, engagement dashboard, and one-touch connectivity.
To get an understanding of what GoToWebinar has to offer without signing up, we’ve reviewed the platform in its entirety.
You’ll see all of the software’s features, its best and worst points, and how it stacks up against the current competition.
GoToWebinar’s Features
As a virtual event platform dedicated to webinars, it’s no surprise to find a lot of features in GoToWebinar that can make them more successful for your business.
If you sign up to this online solution, these are some of the features you’ll get to benefit from:
- App and computer-friendly: The GoTo platform can be used on your computer, tablet, or smartphone so you can join training sessions or host webinars from wherever you are.
- Pre-recorded events: If you don’t want to host the webinar live, you can pre-record with the GoTo software. These events can be scheduled or offered on-demand, with reminder emails sent out, depending on how you want to share them. You can have up to 10,000 viewers of pre-recorded events so you can reach a wider audience.
- Live webinars: In webcast mode, attendees of your webinar can view the live stream directly from their browser without needing to download anything. The maximum attendee rate for a webcast is 3,000 viewers.
- Customer support: Access to 24/7 customer support means you’ll never be left in the dark. GoToWebinar has a host of options for contacting them including live chat, FAQs, guided tutorials, email, and social media channels. At this stage, there’s no phone support, so it would be good to see this in the future.
- Event planning: GoTo has expert event planners who can help you organize your virtual event from start to finish. If you don’t want to be bogged down with the finer details or are new to webinar hosting, this is a handy tool.
- Marketing and promotion: Ensure your virtual event reaches the crowd you want it to with the marketing and promotion features of GoToWebinar. Personal channels, single-click publishing, and post-webinar audience analytics can all help you to better your presentations.
Pricing and Plans
GoToWebinar makes their platform accessible to businesses of all sizes and budgets, and they have four plans you can choose from to meet your needs.
The main difference between each subscription level is how many attendees you can have at a webinar, but there are more add-ons and features available the higher the plan you have.
The most basic level is Lite and it costs around $64 a month with 250 attendees, and at the higher end of the scale is the Enterprise plan for up to 3,000 attendees.
GoTo also includes access to their GoToMeeting software for hosting online meetings, and this is available on all plan levels.
Alternatively, GoToWebinarhas a Flex plan that lets you pay for the webinars that you use at a $25 a month rate plus the webinar fee each time you host.
This would suit businesses who don’t use them as regularly, but it’s likely more cost-effective to sign up to one of their monthly plans.
Free Trial vs Paid Version
If you’re still unsure about GoToWebinar, they offer a free trial period where you can enjoy all of the benefits and functions of their Standard plan.
There’s no credit card needed to sign up but the trial only lasts for 14 days, so it can be hard to get a true handle on what’s available in this short amount of time.
GoToWebinar has a free demo that you can view by speaking to one of their sales consultants, which can give you more of an idea of all of its features.
You’ll need to fill out a contact form on their website and wait for someone to get in touch, so if you’d rather not deal with a salesperson directly, this might not be the best option.
Potential Downsides to GoToWebinar
Although there’s a lot to love about GoToWebinar, it’s not a perfect solution for every business.
These are some of the potential downsides that others have noted about this platform that could be a dealbreaker for you.
- Can be expensive: Paying for the name and reputation of the GoTo brand means this is a much more expensive option, and it has premium features that might not be needed by everyone. Compared to some of the cheaper options, it’s almost double to use GoTo.
- Only does webinars: Unlike other video conferencing software, you’ll only be able to host live and pre-recorded webinars with this one, so there are no video calls or meetings possible. You will be the only one who can be seen as heard as the presenter and it’s not a collaborative tool.
- Integrations limited: While there are lots of apps you can integrate with GoToWebinar, it must be done through Microsoft Office, so there are some limitations. However, when compared to other webinar hosting services it has more integrations possible.
- No phone support: Although GoToWebinar promises 24/7 customer support, you can’t reach them on the phone. If you have a pressing issue, you’ll be waiting for the live chat or an email response to get it sorted.
The Difference Between GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar
As popular products in the GoTo suite, you might be considering whether GoToMeeting or GoToWebinar is the best approach for your business.
Although they belong to the same collection of business tools, the first is an online meeting platform, and the second is solely dedicated to hosting webinars.
The best way to determine which platform you need is to think about the purpose of having the software.
If your goal is to hold online meetings within your business or with other stakeholders and you want everyone to contribute, GoToMeeting is best.
Otherwise, GoToWebinar should be used if you want to host online events, present information on a larger scale, and don’t need attendees to be seen or heard.
GoToWebinar vs the Competition
A quick comparison of the market shows the main differences between GoToWebinar and the competition.
Here’s how it stacks up against the other popular contenders so you know which one is best for your brand.
- GoToWebinar vs Zoom: Zoom is an all-rounder for online business communications with functions like video calls and conferencing, webinar hosting, and live chats. GoToWebinar deals solely with webinar hosting so isn’t designed to be a one-stop-shop for your business communication needs.
- GoToWebinar vs EverWebinar: EverWebinar is another popular webinar hosting platform but they only allow you to create automated and evergreen presentations, unlike GoTo which does all types.
- GoToWebinar vs WebinarJam: WebinarJam and EverWebinar offer many of the same features for customers, but EverWebinar slightly edges out the competition by having more integrations with other software possible.
GoTo For Webinar Efficiency
GoTo has proven itself to be a powerhouse when it comes to business solutions and their virtual event platform is no different.
Although more expensive, its quality is evident, so if you’re looking to boost your online events, GoToWebinar is the most efficient way.
Related Questions
Webinars provide the perfect platform to share your ideas with the world and get leads and conversions from a larger audience.
If you’re still unsure whether webinars are a good fit for your brand, check out these FAQs that can teach you some of the basics.
Should a Webinar Be Free?
A webinar can be offered as a free or paid event, depending on what your goal is for having one and the worth of the content being delivered.
A free webinar is more effective at generating lead quantity, but a paid webinar may attract higher quality leads, so there are benefits on both sides.
How To Follow Up A Webinar?
To follow up with the attendees of your webinar to increase the chance of conversions, there are a few methods you can try.
Personalized emails, surveys, exclusive offers, Q&A sessions, and offers of an on-demand recording of the webinar are all effective ways to follow up with attendees.
Do You Need Webinar Software?
A webinar platform is the most efficient and easiest way to create and share professional-quality webinars, and this can be browser-based or downloadable software.
There are lots of options for webinar software that lets you create pre-recorded, automated, or live presentations, depending on your needs.
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