Zoom Whiteboard Tutorial (Step-by-Step Guide)
Jake Lizarraga
Companies often use evergreen webinars for user onboarding and customer training. Their goal is to automate as much of the process as possible to free up team resources and direct their time/energy toward other things.
If you want to do the same but need the right tool to make it happen, we’ve put together a list of the 5 best evergreen webinar software platforms:
DISCLAIMER: eWebinar is our product. We are of course biased towards it, but only because our backstory has made us passionate about evergreen webinar software and the features that make it great. eWebinar is the product we always wish we had and we now use it ourselves every day!
4 key criteria to look for when choosing evergreen webinar software
We struggled for years with the shortcomings of evergreen webinar platforms. From our hard-won experience, we recommend you look at things from two points of view when evaluating your options: your needs and your audience's needs.
After all, if you've got what you need while your audience is having a lousy webinar experience, who cares?!
With this mindset, we have identified the 4 main criteria you should look for when picking evergreen webinar software:
Criteria #1: Direct private communication
Criteria #2: Interactive attendee experience
Criteria #3: Around-the-clock scheduling
Criteria #4: Great design (Easy to use + beautiful to look at)
Each of the evergreen webinar platforms in this post have been evaluated by these criteria.
For Criteria #4, however, we describe only eWebinar. We encourage you to investigate the usability and design of the other products on your own since it is somewhat subjective and tends to speak for itself. We’ve included a few tips later on for how you might go about doing that.
1. eWebinar
In this section, we’ll discuss:
- Brief overview of eWebinar (2-minute video)
- How eWebinar meets the 4 key criteria of evergreen webinar software
- Other criteria to consider for automated webinar software
- Testimonials & case studies
Brief overview of eWebinar (2-minute video)
Watch the 2-minute video above for an overview of eWebinar and its key features.
For a detailed overview of eWebinar, join our 20-minute demo on demand or visit the features page on our website.
At the time of writing, eWebinar has a 5-star rating on Capterra. Read our reviews.
If you already think eWebinar might be right for you, sign up for a free trial. Our plans and pricing start at $99/month.
How eWebinar meets the 4 key criteria of evergreen webinar software
In this section, we describe how eWebinar meets the 4 key criteria for great evergreen webinar software.
In doing so, we look at each criteria from two points of view: your needs and your audience’s needs.
We have worked with thousands of webinar hosts over the years. This is how we were able to specifically list their (your) needs alongside eWebinar's features that meet them.
CRITERIA #1: Direct private communication
People expect to be able to ask questions during a webinar. However, since webinar automation means sessions can happen 24/7, you won’t always be available to answer questions from your attendees in real time.
If you want to make sure people don’t feel ignored or that you never miss any of their questions, choose a webinar tool with features that allow for that, ideally something that gives you the flexibility to chat live with webinar attendees when you can or respond later at your convenience via email when you can’t.
(Spoiler alert: Only eWebinar's chat feature makes that possible.)
| Your Needs | Audience Needs | eWebinar Features |
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You want to be able to chat live with attendees so you can answer questions. |
Your audience wants to know they can ask questions and get answers. |
Ability to chat with attendees live using eWebinar's built-in live chat and third-party integrations. |
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You need to be notified of new messages so you can jump in and chat with attendees live. |
They want (and may expect) to be able to chat live with the host or a moderator during the webinar. |
Get notifications of new attendee messages through email or Slack channels. |
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You want to be able to respond to questions from attendees via email when you're unable to respond live. |
If no one is available to respond live, attendees want questions to be answered in a timely manner. |
Ability to respond to attendees via email after the webinar ends or if they go offline while chatting. |
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You never want attendee questions to fall through the cracks and damage the customer relationship. |
They want to know whether anyone's available to chat and when to expect an answer. |
Autoresponder to set response time expectations so attendees know they aren't being ignored. |
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You want to chat with attendees live but can't be there to respond to questions 24/7. |
They want to be able to ask questions during the webinar but continue the conversation later. |
Enable live chat and email responses simultaneously to get the best of both worlds. |
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You want to encourage people to ask questions if anything in your presentation was unclear. |
They may not know if someone will be there to answer them if they leave a question. |
Automated welcome messages in chat when an attendee joins a webinar to start a conversation. |
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You want to give attendees a safe space to send you private/sensitive questions. |
They may want to chat privately for fear of being called out in public chat. |
Private chat (not public chat) so attendees don’t feel self-conscious about asking questions. |
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You want to respond as soon as possible so questions aren't left unanswered for too long. |
They might need their question to be answered before they can move on to the next step. |
Assign chat moderators to share the response workload with as many people as needed. |
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You need to respond to attendees who are watching webinars while you're not at your desk. |
They have an urgent question that can't wait until you get back to the office. |
Mobile chat admin that lets you respond to webinar attendees while on the go. |
How to choose webinar software with robust communication features
Only eWebinar gives you the flexibility to chat with attendees live AND respond to them at your convenience via email. Other software makes you choose between the two instead of supporting both.
Watch our on-demand demo to experience eWebinar's chat features firsthand!
If you decide to go with a platform that makes you pick one or the other, we recommend you prioritize the ability to respond asynchronously via email. If live chat is your only option, you’ll need to personally attend every single session — which defeats the purpose of automation — or risk missing questions whenever you’re offline.
Unfortunately, using email-only webinar platforms would mean losing the invaluable ability to respond to questions in real time.
There are solutions that offer simulated chat to it seem like the webinar is a live event when it really isn’t. We DON'T recommend using this feature — especially if it gives attendees the wrong impression that you can respond.
CRITERIA #2: Interactive attendee experience
The experience of automated webinars can be much more interactive than live webinars, provided you use software like eWebinar.
Interactions like polls, questions, tips, contact forms, and special offers can be pre-programmed to appear at precisely the right moments in your presentation. They give attendees a way to participate in the webinar, so they stay engaged until your presentation is over. And they give you a way to collect valuable feedback from every customer who watches one of your pre-recorded webinars.
When comparing live and evergreen webinars, the latter also offer a greater variety of interactions.
| Your Needs | Audience Needs | eWebinar Features |
|
You need to keep attendees engaged to hold their attention and maximize watch time. |
Your audience wants to feel engaged and participate in the webinar. |
20+ interactions that increase attendee engagement and facilitate audience participation. |
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You need to get attendees to follow instructions during the webinar and take the next step when they finish. |
They need informative resources and step-by-step instructions to follow along with the presentation. |
Timeline editor that lets you easily insert interactions at any point of your webinar. |
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You want to be able to gather feedback from attendees so you can improve your webinar. |
They want an opportunity to voice their feedback to ensure you can meet their needs. |
Polls, questions, and quizzes are interactions you can insert to gather feedback from attendees. |
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You want to learn about your audience so you can personalize the customer journey. |
They want personalized experiences across each step from demos to onboarding and beyond. |
Third-party integrations with CRMs and other tools that let you gather segmentation data. |
Webinar interaction best practices
Interactions can be a powerful way to make your automated webinars engaging but they work best when you follow a couple of best practices:
- Plan ahead. You should consider which interactions you want to use (and at which point of the presentation) while you're creating your webinar script. This will be far more effective than simply recording a live presentation and then stacking interactions on top of it after the fact.
- Optimize intervals. Attendees should be exposed to a regular (but not overwhelming) flow of interaction to keep them engaged throughout the entire presentation. Avoid going more than three or four minutes without an interaction to maximize watch time.
CRITERIA #3: Around-the-clock scheduling
The amazing thing about automated webinar hosting is you never need to be there to present anything live. You can create evergreen webinars then make them available around the clock — at any time in any time zone — or on demand.
| Your Needs | Audience Needs | eWebinar Features |
|
You want to be freed from having to host the same live webinars over and over again. |
They may want to register for a webinar that fits their schedule so they can put it on their calendar. |
Recurring schedule that lets you make multiple sessions available in the attendee’s local time zone. |
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You want people to watch your webinar at their peak moment of interest or need. |
They may want to join your webinar at the spur of the moment right when they find it. |
“Just-in-time” webinars that are automatically scheduled to start within a few minutes. |
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You want to scale by creating an evergreen webinar library that's always available. |
They may want to watch your webinar like a regular video they can pause or play at 2x speed. |
On-demand replay that people can register for to watch your webinar like a video at any time. |
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You want to maximize attendance rates by making it as convenient as possible for anyone to attend. |
Different people want different options based on their own unique preferences and schedules. |
Ability to enable these options at the same time so your registrants can take their pick. |
More scheduling options = higher attendance rates
There are several webinar tools that offer the scheduling options listed above. However, only a handful let you enable all of the options at once. Make sure to choose webinar software like eWebinar that lets you enable all these features simultaneously on the same webinar to get the highest attendance rates.
CRITERIA #4: Great design (Easy to use + user-friendly interface)
When we say great design, we mean two things:
- Is the software user-friendly and intuitive?
- Does it look clean, and modern?
Webinar software is notoriously complicated and hard to figure out. It also tends to look clunky and outdated, not a good look for you in front of potential students or clients. When evaluating which evergreen webinar platform to use, choose a “back office” admin that is super simple to use and a “front office” presentation you can be proud of and that reflects well on your brand.
| Your Needs | Audience Needs | eWebinar Features |
|
You need software that's easy to set up and start using out of the box. |
Your audience needs the viewing experience to be seamless and reliable. |
Simple webinar creation workflow that only takes minutes to complete. |
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You need to be able to preview your work as you go so you can see what your audience will see. |
Your audience wants a webinar that was built with care and refined before going live. |
Preview-as-you-go editing so you can see what the end result will look like. |
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You need software that's intuitive to use so you can jump in and make quick changes anytime. |
They need a webinar interface that makes watching the presentation and leaving questions easy. |
Intuitive UI/UX to keep webinar hosts and attendees from getting stuck. |
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You need a product with a modern design that can be branded to your company. |
They want a clean UI in line with the consumer products they use on a daily basis. |
Clean and modern design you can feel proud of and customize to your brand. |
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You need a web-based application that you can use without installing software. |
They don’t want to download and install anything just to be able to join your webinar. |
Web-based application so attendees won't have to download any software to join webinars. |
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You need a mobile-friendly platform so attendees can join from any device in a single click. |
They want to be able to watch a webinar from their PC, tablet, and phone while at home or on the go. |
Mobile-optimized experience for attendees watching webinars on their smartphone or tablet. |
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You need your automated webinar software to work seamlessly with your tech stack. |
They want to be able to continue conversations cross-platform without repeating themselves. |
Integrates with the tools you use — either directly or via Zapier — so your entire workflow is unified. |
How to choose a user-friendly, well-designed product
Here are two things you can do to evaluate the design and usability of any evergreen webinar system you are considering:
- Sign up for a trial and see how long it takes you to create an evergreen webinar, without any instruction. Does it take minutes? Do you get stuck? How many times do you have to click? Could you easily remember where everything was? It shouldn’t take you longer than 10 minutes to complete a basic setup or require you to click more than 10 times just to see all your options.
- Attend an evergreen webinar hosted using the software. Was the experience one-sided and boring? Or engaging and interactive? Could you easily get your questions answered? Was it an experience you’d be proud to have represent you and your brand? (Attend our 20-min demo if you want to experience eWebinar as an attendee.)
Other criteria to consider for automated webinar software
While the 4 key criteria we’ve discussed are by far the most important to consider when choosing evergreen webinar software, there are a few other features you should make sure meet your needs. Here are the ones we think you should look at along with questions to ask yourself:
Analytics
- What kind of analytics, metrics, and reporting do they support?
- Are you able to track your conversion rate?
- Are the analytics easy to interpret and understand?
- Can you actually use the data to make your webinar better?
Integrations
- Do they integrate with the products you use, like ActiveCampaign or HubSpot?
- Does the integration actually get you the end result you need?
Templates & resources
- What kinds of webinar templates do they provide?
- What are the templates made up of? Just a registration page? Or is it an entire webinar experience?
Registration pages & widgets
- Do the webinar registration pages meet your needs?
- How easy are the registration pages to customize? Can you preview your work?
- Can you customize the fields in the registration forms?
- If you would rather use a custom webinar landing page, do they support that integration?
- What webinar marketing widgets do they offer to drive sign ups from your website, blog, or landing page?
Email notifications
- Do they offer registration confirmation, reminder, and follow-up emails?
- What about SMS notifications? (eWebinar integrates with Twilio.)
- Have they been pre-written for you or do you always have to start from scratch?
- How easy are they to customize with merge fields?
Regular product improvements
- What recent improvements have been made to the product?
- Is there evidence they are regularly making improvements? Or has their product stopped evolving?
Customer support
- What kind of customer support do they offer?
- How easy is it to get in touch with someone?
- How quickly do you hear back?
Testimonials and case studies
Don't take our word for it, hear what our customers have to say about the benefits of evergreen webinars in their own words:
Read The Receptionist case study →
Read Jon Schumacher case study →
Note: Popular use cases for eWebinar include product demos and onboarding/training for SaaS companies.
Would you like to take eWebinar for a spin?
Sign up here for a free trial. Or join our 20-minute demo on demand; we’ll answer your questions, show you what eWebinar can do, and demonstrate the best ways to use it.
2. EasyWebinar
EasyWebinar is a popular option for evergreen webinars.
- EasyWebinar offers a 14-day free trial with plans starting at $78/month
- Visit easywebinar.com to learn more about their webinar features and pricing plans
- Read EasyWebinar reviews on Capterra
Schedule: EasyWebinar offers a recurring schedule (with webinar sessions in the local time zones of attendees), instant replays, and in-time registrations.
Chat: Though they do not offer live chat, you can respond to questions from attendees by email.
Interactions: They have two interaction pop-ups (polls and offers) which you can schedule to appear at specific times in your webinar.
3. Demio
Demio started as a live-only webinar platform and later added webinar automation capabilities.
- Demio offers a 14-day free trial with plans that include automation starting at $99/month
- Visit demio.com to learn more about their webinar features and pricing plans
- Read Demio reviews on Capterra
Schedule & Chat: There are two basic approaches you can take for scheduling and communication in Demio, which are mutually exclusive:
- You can set your webinar on a recurring schedule which will allow you to chat live with attendees (as long as you join each session to respond to them)
- You can make it available on demand and respond to attendee questions post-webinar via email
Interactions: Demio offers a poll, handout, and CTA, which you can pre-program to appear at specific times during your webinar.
4. WebinarGeek
WebinarGeek’s software supports live, automated, and on-demand webinars — but isn't a dedicated evergreen platform.
- WebinarGeek offers a 14-day free trial with plans that include automation starting at $67/month
- Visit webinargeek.com to learn more about their webinar features and pricing plans
- Read WebinarGeek reviews on Capterra
Schedule: When scheduling an evergreen webinar in WebinarGeek, you can either set it on a recurring schedule or offer it as an on-demand webinar replay.
Tip: In the context of an evergreen sales webinar, we suggest you use on-demand replays instead of a recurring schedule for two reasons:
- In WebinarGeek, you can not offer the times of scheduled sessions in the attendee’s local time zone, which means the times you choose may not be convenient for everyone.
- Faced with the choice, in our experience, it’s better to let webinar registrants join your webinar room on demand at a peak moment of interest.
Chat: You can either enable live chat or accept questions from attendees and have them forwarded to your email.
Tip: Of the two options, we suggest you choose the latter, since you won’t always be available to chat live with attendees, especially if you decide to make your webinar available on demand. Though this means giving up the opportunity to chat live, you will not risk missing inquiries.
Interactions: WebinarGeek has quizzes, info boxes, CTAs, and polls, which can be preset to appear at different times during your webinar.
5. EverWebinar
EverWebinar from Genesis Digital is the automated counterpart to its sister live webinar software, WebinarJam.
- EverWebinar offers a 30-day money-back guarantee with monthly plans starting at $99/month
- Visit everwebinar.com to learn more about their webinar features and pricing plans
- Read EverWebinar reviews on Capterra
Schedule: EverWebinar offers a recurring schedule that can show session times in the local time zone of registrants, on-demand webinar replays, and just-in-time webinars.
Chat: They do not offer live chat. However, attendees can submit questions by email from on-demand webinar replays.
Interactions: EverWebinar offers surveys, special offers, polls, stickies, handouts, and an announcement banner, which can be preset to appear at different times.
Note: Though we have listed what we believe to be your 5 best options for an evergreen webinar system, others to consider are StealthSeminar, WebinarNinja, ClickMeeting, GoToWebinar, and LiveStorm. Zoom evergreen webinars are not really a thing, as Zoom only lets you host cloud recordings of livestreams and live webinars as gated videos.
Conclusion
We hope this article has been useful in helping you decide which evergreen webinar platform is best for your product demos, onboarding webinars, and training workshops.
Whether you choose eWebinar or decide to go with something else, we are excited for you to experience what it’s like to deploy high-touch onboarding and training 24/7 on autopilot through the power of evergreen webinars.
Not only will you be able to scale onboarding, you’ll also get back a ton of time which you can spend doing other things — such as creating new content for your help center or offering 1-on-1 support to the customers who actually need it.
Once you have that “aha” moment with automated webinars, you’ll never go back!
Sign up here to try eWebinar for free and join the thousands who use it — including SaaS companies like BombBomb, Later, Travefy, Dotloop, and many more!
It’s so easy to get started.
Begin your 14-day free trial today!
