5 Best Pre-Recorded Webinar Platforms for B2B Marketers

Videos reign supreme in today's B2B landscape, and most marketers we know are already using event videos to fuel content repurposing efforts. When it comes to hosting those virtual events, however, you always have a choice to make: Should you do a live event or opt for a pre-recorded format?

There are pros and cons to each. We'll sum it up by saying while live events offer a certain pizzazz that comes along with everyone gathering at the same time, there's also a level of risk that something might go wrong — plus, when you're running a large-scale event, speakers can get burned out or, worse, not show up.

Pre-recorded webinars offer many of the same engagement benefits as live ones, but they eliminate a lot of the uncertainty involved with a live event. With pre-recorded content, you have all speakers record their presentations ahead of time, and you're able to review and edit those videos before the actual event.

If that sounds good to you, you'll need a platform that can handle all the technical aspects of pre-recorded content — and, ideally, one that also fosters engagement and conversation among attendees, even when you're running a pre-recorded video.

We've got ya covered with a list of the five best webinar platforms for pre-recorded content! Here's a quick peek at the platforms we'll look at today:

1. Goldcast: Best all-in-one platform designed for B2B marketers to drive pipeline and engagement; Goldcast offers powerful, AI-assisted content repurposing after the event is over.
2. WebinarNinja: This one's popular with solopreneurs, coaches and educators who sell trainings or courses.
3. BigMarker: BigMarker aims to reduce technology barriers by offering a straightforward but powerful events platform for sharing ideas.
4. GoTo Webinar: Although there's a bit of a learning curve with GoTo, the platform offers top-notch security and doesn't impose time limits on events.
5. Zoom: One of the OGs of the event platform brands, Zoom is a tried-and-true option for reliable, functional virtual events and online meetings.

Read on for an in-depth dive into each of these platforms, as well as an overview of the features you definitely need for solid pre-recorded content!

Although all of the platforms we just listed allow you to pre-record webinar content, that doesn't mean that all of them are right for you.

Selecting the right platform for your webinars can be the difference between an engaging, pipeline-driving event and just another meeting. (Harsh, we know, but true!) Next, we'll take a closer look at each of the five platforms and look at what they have to offer B2B marketers.

As you go through the list, think about your specific needs when it comes to target audience engagement, technical support, ROI and analytics reporting, and more. This will help you narrow down your options and create a strong shortlist!

G2 rating: 4.7/5

Goldcast is the leading platform for B2B marketers who want to create engaging automated webinar experiences that drive measurable results.

Features:

• Dedicated Recording Studio for dazzling pre-recorded content
• Automated run-of-show for timed polls and surveys during pre-recorded content
• Simulive functionality that combines pre-recorded content with live events
• On-brand registration forms and pages with no coding required
• Audience engagement tools including polls, Q&A sessions, emojis, and more
• Detailed analytics on attendee behavior and engagement
• Seamless integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo, and more
• On-demand content hub gives you a place to host your evergreen pre-recorded webinars
• AI-powered Content Lab enables content repurposing in minutes, fueling your multi-channel content strategy

"Using Goldcast is very unique. For lack of a better word, I would say it's made webinars sexy again."

• Josh Zhang, Marketing Manager at Benchling

Pros and cons:

Pricing: Contact for more info

Free trial: Demo available; Content Lab is also free

G2 rating: 3/5

WebinarNinja is one of the most straightforward webinar software platforms designed to make webinar programming accessible.

Features:

• Pre-recorded functionality
• Email automation
• Basic suite of engagement tools
• Integration with popular marketing tools
• Access to analytics

Pros and cons:

Pricing: Pay 0.30/attendee; see here for more details

Free trial: Yes

G2 rating: 4.7/5

BigMarker is a browser-based webinar platform that hosts a range of events and prides itself on its customer service.

Features:

• Pre-recorded webinar options
• Marketing integrations
• Landing page builder
• Engagement tools
• Detailed analytics
• On-demand badge printing and scanning
• Mobile event apps
• AI-powered matchmaking for attendees

Pros and cons:

Pricing: See here for details

Free trial: Yes

G2 rating: 4.2/5

GoTo Webinar is an established platform that might make sense for organizations already embedded in the GoTo ecosystem.

Features:

• Pre-recorded content
• Custom registration pages
• Automated email notifications and follow-ups
• Basic engagement tools
• Analytics and reporting

Pros and cons:

Pricing: Starts at $12 per organizer per month with limited meeting participants; see here for more details

Free trial: Yes

G2 rating: 4.5/5

Zoom provides basic webinar functionality with the familiarity of a product that's been in the virtual meetings space for years.

Features:

• Pre-recorded content capabilities
• Basic engagement tools
• Registration management
• Integration within larger Zoom ecosystem
• Widespread compatibility
• Access to simple reporting

Pros and cons:

Pricing: See here

Free trial: There is a free plan for meetings up to 40 minutes

If you want to release pre-recorded webinar content, there are certain features that will help your content stand out from the pack. Here are some key webinar features to look for as you continue your search.

Of course, you'll need to be able to host videos in order to upload pre-recorded webinars. In Goldcast, for example, you can upload an external video as pre-recorded content or you can record the presentation within Goldcast's new Recording Studio. You can also choose a video from your existing video library, which contains past event recordings.

Ultimately, you want high-quality video streaming so that your videos look crisp and clear. It's also nice to have support for different video formats and the ability to organize your video library on the backend. The right platform makes it easy to manage all of your videos, including the ones you use for pre-recorded content.

Simulated live, or "simulive," allows you to combine the benefits of pre-recorded content with the engagement of a live event. Many Goldcast customers take this route — after all, if you're doing the hard work of planning and hosting an event, it makes sense to try to drive as much connection and engagement as you can.

Take Smartling as an example. The company wanted to attract 1K+ registrations in the middle of Covid, and they used Goldcast to deliver a Netflix-like viewing experience. Smartling pre-recorded most of their content, uploaded it into Goldcast, and then had it auto-play when the live webinar began.

Even if you don't plan to use simulive, it's a good idea to have it as an option in case you ever change your mind. Look for a platform that enables seamless transitions between pre-recorded and live segments and makes it look like pre-recorded content is being presented live. You should also be able to deploy certain features, like Chat and Q&A, during simulive presentations.

Continuing with Smartling's case study, the team was able to parse through Goldcast's robust data and analytics to understand the impact this event had on their business.

Here are just some of the KPIs that the Smartling team tracked:

• Registrations and attendance rates (attendance was 42%, which is significantly higher than the average 29% we saw in this year's Webinar Benchmark Report)
• Titles and companies of people who attended
• How long attendees stayed at the event
• What links were clicked
• How attendee time was spent

Just like "regular" content, you can use the data you get from pre-recorded content to make decisions for your future events and webinars. Strong webinar tools will help you connect your event KPIs directly to business outcomes.

The platform you choose won't exist on an island — it will have to work alongside your larger MarTech stack. Make it easy for yourself by choosing a tool that integrates with many of your existing platforms.

Integrations can really save you time with existing workflows and reduce the risk of manual error. We integrate with HubSpot, Marketo, Slack, Salesforce, Wistia, and more. We want to be able to connect to any platform B2B marketers are regularly hanging out because we know that simplifies onboarding and everyday tasks for you!

Onspring, a tech company providing intelligent process automation, used our HubSpot and Salesforce integrations to tie their event data back to metrics like upsells and cross-sells. Through Goldcast's integrations, they were able to determine that their event created a 183% ROI. Plus, the Onspring team no longer has to manually input webinar registrations into HubSpot, which saves her around two hours each event.

Even though you're recording your content ahead of time, you still want to be able to engage with your audience. Good moderation features include the ability to manage and see the chat, the option to spotlight specific questions "on stage" for all to see, the ability to respond privately or publicly to attendees, and other tools to stay on top of the audience experience.

Goldcast's automated run-of-show feature allows you to schedule polls and surveys to launch and close at certain times within the pre-recorded session. This can streamline the workload on your producers, coordinators, or speakers and standardize the audience experience. Plus, you can set up as many automated cues as you want!

One of the biggest concerns that people have when they're exploring pre-recorded webinars is that they'll lose out on audience engagement. Based on what we've seen, we don't think you have to worry about that. Even without live presenters, a good platform has plenty of interactive elements to keep your audience engaging with you and the content.

Essential interactive features include:

• Interactive polls and surveys
• Live chat and ability to ask questions
• Resource sharing and call-to-action (CTA) buttons to drive conversions
• Emoji reactions
• Breakout rooms and other ways to let attendees mingle and network

Just like a traditional webinar, your goal with a pre-recorded webinar is for your attendees to become active participants, contributing to the energy of the session and making it more impactful for everyone.

Because most B2B marketers host events or webinars, they're sitting on a ton of valuable video content that can be repurposed to use on social media (and on other channels, like email, blog, etc.) We think any webinar platform worth its salt will also allow you to easily repurpose the resulting video content!

With Content Lab, you can harness the power of AI to automatically generate short video clips, blog drafts, email campaigns, key takeaway posts, and more. It takes just a few seconds to process your video and turn it into a ton of assets you can distribute throughout your multi-channel strategy.

Good repurposing abilities to look for include:

• AI-assisted content creation
• Automatic transcription and/or captioning
• The ability to customize the branding and colors of your content
• Brand voice options so that your content is written in the tone of the person you're creating content for

When you repurpose your pre-recorded content, you expand your reach to a larger audience and keep your message going, building brand awareness. A tool like Content Lab turns just one video into dozens of other valuable content pieces, skyrocketing your ROI!

All of the platforms we've covered offer pre-recorded webinar capabilities, but Goldcast stands apart with its comprehensive, video-first approach to creating engaging events and content that helps you capture Mindshare with your audience.

By saving you time and resources when it comes to producing video, the Goldcast platform allows you to continuously build your brand and reach prospects, meaning you'll be on their minds when it's time to make a purchase decision.

Check out these customer stories for some real-world stats on what Goldcast can do for you:

• ThoughtSpot used its 2022 virtual event to create $1.56M and influence $4.27M in pipeline
• Benchling boosted attendance from 27% to 34% and generated $6.1M in pipeline
• Onspring saw a 95% attendance rate and an 87% engagement rate, with an overall 183% ROI from just one event

And that's not all. You can see more customer stories here!

One of Goldcast's most valuable features is the AI-powered Content Lab, which allows you to automatically transform webinar recordings into dozens of valuable marketing assets.

The Marketing AI Institute discovered firsthand the power of Content Lab when they were searching for a solution to turn around same-day event content for their flagship event, MAICON. They wanted to be able to process video recordings quickly, auto-generate session notes, and rapidly get video clips.

Content Lab delivered, allowing Marketing AI Institute to send out notes for more than 20 sessions to more than 4K attendees — typically within 30 minutes of the session ending! The resulting social media clips were also shared the same day, boosting social media engagement by 400%.

PS: Goldcast Content Lab is free to use! Sign up below if you'd like to give it a spin.

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One thing we're super passionate about is getting the most out of your content. It's why we go all in on repurposing, and it's also why we recommend setting up an on-demand, centralized content hub so your pre-recorded webinars continue driving ROI long after they're over.

84% of attendees say that having access to on-demand webinars increases their viewing time, so it's clear there's a demand for it!

Plus, because Goldcast is built for B2B marketers, we know how important it is to have customizable hubs that you can brand your way. An on-brand hub also lets you promote upcoming events so that people can both view your archived content and sign up for new events!

When you're ready to level up your B2B video marketing and events strategy, you'll want to try Goldcast. We can help you reach a wider audience, create high-quality video content, and repurpose content into valuable video snippets and more.

If you'd like to see Goldcast in action, reach out for a demo and discover how we can transform your webinars and events.

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Or, if you want to try Content Lab for free, sign up here and upload your first video recording to see how simple it is to remix videos into social media posts, blog drafts, and beyond.

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