With a topic and goal in mind, you decide to plan a webinar. How should you go about selecting the best webinar vendors to host? There are quite a few things in keep in mind when looking for the ideal vendor. Firstly, how about lining up presenters? Secondly, what about visuals (PowerPoint, excel, graphs?), different types of technology, or how to set up the times and dates? And lastly, are there follow-up plans with surveys? These are all good questions to ask and consider while conducting preliminary research on the best webinar vendors available.

Initial Meeting with the Best Webinar Vendors

Successful webinars can help increase sales and provide a platform for marketing ideas to clients. So, establishing a good reputation early on is important. The best webinar vendors should offer free consultation services, especially in the early stages of development, which can be a great investment for your company. At that point, feel free to share marketing strategies and goals. You should be able to come up with a cohesive plan while also sticking to your strategies, but also implementing ideas from your webinar software vendors. After all, the best webinar vendors have fantastic experience attracting an exceedingly qualified audience, and they will understand what works and what does not work.

Who Will Help Manage Pre-Event?

This can be easily overlooked as you are researching for the best webinar vendors, but should not be! Having the best event manager, especially for the first time hosting, can be a real game changer. As previously mentioned, if this is the first webinar it should be expected to have someone guide and manage the event to run smoothly. This person may very well “save the day” helping to provide everything. Your event manager will maintain the ebb and flow of the conversation and coordinate: rehearsals, training, and event-day schematics with audio, video, Web, IP stream and event support. While researching for the best webinar vendors, costs can certainly vary while managing the event, but they should all be addressed up-front before events begin.

How About During the Event?

Some of the best webinar vendors will only offer packages in one select model, such as, for event registration and conducting surveys. However, if you want to add additional resources to your webinar they may not do these features, or, they will for additional fees. You should pick a vendor that delivers additional resources, like offering white papers, or can offer different packages, not the same, tired cookie-cutter approach. Surveys should be unique for each company. Remember, this is your webinar so customize it as you see fit.

What about Pricing?

There is nothing wrong with shopping around to find the best webinar vendors. Not all providers are created equal with features, offers, and strategies, so shop around! Pricing is definitely varied from one to the other, as is technology, and other services. Having a comparison chart listing all webinar vendors, their technology, event management strategies, training and consultation prices, would be a good business approach. A variety of factors can influence the deciding vote on your best webinar vendor.

Caution!

Be aware of additional fees while researching the best webinar vendors. If you have to cancel the event or move it to another date, will there be a cancellation fee? What about under-booking or overbooking fees?n These should all be negotiated well in advance.

However, when it is all said and done you should have the best webinar vendors in mind to make that final decision.

Have you found the best webinar vendors to host your webinars? How did you conduct your research to find the best one?