Because this site focuses on lead generation I’ve only listed webinar platforms and tools, not collaborative web conferencing systems (such as GoToMeeting). I’ve written a post that gives an overview of how webinar systems are different from web conferencing. There are also full-service providers of webinar services but for now I haven’t listed those.

All feedback is welcome! Just leave a comment or email me.

Webinar Software

Webinar software allows you to show a presentation to all attendees and share your desktop. It usually includes a phone conference or voice over the internet. The three main players are:

There are also some niche players:

  • Dimdim Webinar
    Dimdim started as a collaborative web conferencing vendor, but now also offers a webinar product for a attractive price (see their website for the most up to date pricing).
  • BrightTALK
    Combination of webinar promotion with a webinar platform. Does not support desktop sharing.
  • Cool Conference Live
    Low-budget solution that does not include desktop sharing or sound
  • SlideRocket
    This shows attendees a slide presentation with voice over the internet. You can include Flash movies, for example to show recorded demos. It includes an authoring tool for slide shows, but can also import PowerPoint.

Event Promotion

You can list your events on these websites to attract more people to your webinar. Some are specific to webinars, and some offer premium plans to make your webinar more prominent.

Event Registration

Maybe you already have a webinar platform that offers registration pages, or you may be using a Demand Generation system to host your registration form. If you have none of these, you can also use one of these offerings:

  • Corvent Attendee Metrics Platform (AMP)
  • EventBrite
    This is free for free events, you only pay when you charge for your event. Since most lead gen webinars are free, you can use this system free of charge.

Webinar and Demo Recordings

If you want to record the webinar from your own computer (rather than via the webinar system), you can use desktop screen recording software. This software can also be used to record product demos, that can be incorporated in live or recorded demos. The recordings can be exported to popular formats, such as Flash, Windows Media and Quicktime.

Recorded Presentations

Recorded live events are not always ideal to watch on-demand, so you may also want to create a dedicated presentation that is shorter and more professionally produced: there are both desktop and online solutions for this.

  • Adobe Presenter
  • Articulate Presenter
    This product is based on PowerPoint: you add additional features and a voice over to a PowerPoint presentation and then export to Flash
  • BrainShark
    This is a hosted solution: your presentation will be hosted on the BrainShark network.
  • Camtasia
    In addition to screen recordings, you can also use Camtasia to create recorded presentations. Camtasia also generates the HTML so you can copy it to your website

Audio Tools

If the quality of your audio track leaves something to be desired you can use these tools to make improvements:

  • Audacity
    A basic and free tool
  • Goldwave
    A commercial and comprehensive audio tool, though fairly complex

Live Video

There are different opinions about adding live video to webinar: some people think it’s distracting or not professionally looking, others think it adds a personal touch. Whatever you decide, these are tools you can use for broadcasting live video:

Video Editing

If you want to use video to create lead generation materials, you probably need to edit it, and to turn it into a web-ready format. You can use the same tools as for your home videos. For example:

I use Pinnacle Studio myself, because it was both the cheapest and easiest to use: it has limited features, but it’s good enough for my simple editing tasks: cutting, merging, adding subtitles and exporting to Flash. Tip: try Pinnacle VideoSpin first: when you install it you get a nice discount on the full product.