Live Webinar vs Automated webinar: Know Which is the Best?

We see many professionals and even novices struggling to sort out between live vs automated webinar, as it needs a thorough understanding of how each of them has its own merits and demerits.

End of the day it’s all about revenue generation and finding the best money making way to expand your business and brand’s reach in a short time. Conducting webinars can vouch for that, as you can do it at your convenient way and webinar marketing can help you pace the gap between the competitors, and your audience with relevant topics, by turning every lead into delighted customers.

So let’s see the unique functionality of both live webinars and automated webinars to help you explore and discover the solution that works best for you !

Even if you have already decided, why not spend a few minutes reading an article with a different perspective, who knows you may get the best insights ever.

What is a Live Webinar?

A live webinar is a virtual event broadcasted to an audience in real-time across the world.

Streaming a live webinar also implies virtual conferences, classes, seminars, panel discussions, meetings and much more virtually for people in remote locations without any language and location barriers.

The main reason to understand what is a live webinar lies in discovering the nuances that can boost real-time interactions and foster deeper engagement between the presenter and viewers.

Benefits of Live Webinars

• Limited Resources
• Convenient
• Affordable
• Easy to Record
• Live Q&A Sessions & Polls
• Live Demos
• Improved Efficiency
• Fun-filled Features

When to use a Live Webinar?

Whenever there is,

• Real-time training
• Internal project meeting
• Online interviews
• Product launch announcements
• Community events

Now that we saw what is a live webinar is, we’ll shift next to,

What is an Automated Webinar?

An automated webinar is a delivery of pre-recorded webinar video content that is automated or pre-recorded by creators and then broadcast to a larger audience at a specific time or on an on-demand basis.

The surprising aspect of automated webinars is that interactive features like polls, quizzes, and surveys can also be automated. The main advantage of using an automated webinar is that it allows you to reach larger audiences with minimal effort while delivering a flawless presentation.

Benefits of Automated Webinars

• Flexible
• Scalable
• Improved Income
• HD-quality Video
• Saves Time
• Content Repurposing
• One-time Recording Cose
• Improved Engagements

When to use an Automated Webinar?

Whenever there is a,

• Training demanded priorly
• Video content to be repeatedly hosted
• Need to host webinar content to audiences in different time zones
• Marketing need

In addition to these two, there are other types of webinars like on-demand webinars, and evergreen webinars that are preferred for certain use cases. Well, let’s not focus on those now, we will come afresh with these included sometime later.

Alright, champs! By now you would have got the slightest idea of how beneficial live and automated webinars can be for your business. Now, it is time to see their perks and pitfalls.

What are the Advantages & Disadvantages of Live Webinars?

When you see in the digital world, live webinars organizing have become the preferred mode for many webinar content creators as it brings a sense of closeness and boosts interactions instantly.

But it is not always rosy, as they also have their set of pitfalls, which we will see below.

What are the benefits of using Live Webinars?

Some of the real points on benefits of using live webinars by professional creators are:

• Fosters direct connection between host and audiences
• Gets audiences to their seats by bringing in interactive elements on live
• Presenters can resolve customer issues or queries right away
• Promotes engagement and raises the bar for lead generation

What are the demerits of using Live Webinars?

Some of the demerits of using live webinars are:

• Needs prior planning of content as everything is live
• Presenters can face issues related to network conditions or software bugs
• Time to gather audiences for a presentation can be tiresome
• Some of the audiences may not be able to take part because of time-constraint zones
• Some live webinar platforms do not give options to record the session

Now, let us look at the,

What are the Advantages & Disadvantages of Automated Webinars?

Webinar automation software can turn out to be beneficial if users expect convenience and content consistency. So now, let us see the real perks and the downfalls of automated webinars.

What are the benefits of using an Automated Webinar Platform?

The merits of using an automated webinar are :

• Attendees can tune in to pre-recorded webinars at their flexible schedules. Whether you are a night owl or an early bird, you can access content anytime.
• Content can be streamed without any glitches or network instability.
• Automated webinars can be accessed by audiences residing in different time zones.

Now, it is time to see,

What are the demerits of using an Automated Webinar?

The demerits of using an automated webinar are:

• Participants cannot be able to resolve their queries and issues instantly
• Content needs to be updated regularly
• A pre-recorded webinar can bring down the sense of closeness than a live interaction
• There is more required from the presenter’s end

Now that we have seen the basic definition of the two types of webinars, their benefits, and when they can be used. Our next section details the major differences between them.

Live Webinar vs Automated Webinar: How Are They Different?

Let’s see a quick head-to-head comparison of both types of webinars. This evaluation will help creators decide which to use for their upcoming events. Before getting started, it’s important to understand the difference between live and pre-recorded webinars, and why this topic is gaining significant attention in the world of live streaming.

Attribute	Live Webinar	Automated Webinar
Engagement & Retention	High chances for engagements	Limited community-building potential
Live Interactions	Possible with live Q&A, quizzes, polls	Few interaction capabilities can be automated
Technicalities	Susceptible to network glitches	Stable network as content is pre-recorded
Host Availability	Need creator’s presence	Not required as content is automated
Host Timing	Live events can happen only at scheduled time	Can watch content at user’s flexibility
Replay	Users missing live events will miss out sessions	High replay value, users can watch at their convenience
Resources	Need to have a check on webcam, mic, presenter, and network condition during presentation	Need to finalize on requirements prior to webinar automation
Conversation Rates	Has higher conversation ratio as queries are addressed in real-time	Lower conversation rates

You’ve seen the quick differences between the two types of webinar services. Make sure you also have a good understanding of the differences between live and recorded webinars. As you need to do prior recording to stream an automated webinar. In the section below, we will explore where you can use each type.

When to Choose Live Webinars?

Here is when you need to choose live webinars:

• Live stands as the best choice if creators are focusing on creating a sense of closeness with their audiences by forming an active stage for fostering interactions.
• If hosts wish to form a personal connection by addressing their names
• If hosts want to know the feedback of their webinar sessions
• If creators or brands need to promote their new launches or reveal on product discounts
• If presenters are willing to raise their credibility bars
• Lastly, if presenters are willing to build a stronger audience community

When to Choose Automated Webinars?

Simply go ahead with webinar automation if you have your views that come under the following:

• Want your webinars to reach a larger audience group irrespective of time zones
• Need to craft video content that can be viewed as per the user’s flexibility
• Want to give your viewers options to record sessions for future perusal
• You only have limited resources and a time frame for creating a session
• You are creating a webinar for education or training purposes

By now, you got hold of the differences between the two, their pluses, and minuses. So, automatically the next question that you might think of is,

Which is better for your business: Live Webinars vs Automated Webinars

To answer in a jiff, both work well and draw revenue in their style. Just like how one is a hot cup of coffee drawing the user’s attention to the seat via live sessions, the other is a scorching sun that is to stay in the minds of viewers for a very long time.

Therefore, now it is left to you to choose which webinar type based on your business needs, as we have detailed the benefits of both in this post.

Top 3 Webinar Hosting Platforms

When discussing webinars, you need to know there are top-rated webinar platforms that help you host, create, and schedule webinars and conferences. These platforms offer the right solutions to showcase your business skills professionally, addressing your audience’s business needs.

Webinar also paves the way to engage with your audience efficiently and let you identify your potential customers. Let’s see how the following platforms stand out by offering webinar hosting and webinar marketing solutions to your business needs.

OnTheFly

OnTheFly is an all-in-one best webinar platform for enterprise businesses, online events, guest interviews, and brand broadcasting. This webinar platform allows you to manage both hosts and attendees while ensuring a professional webinar experience. You can include up to four admins or co-hosts to collaborate and manage sessions effectively. If you are looking for a webinar platform that supports e-learning, lead nurturing, product demos, training, and workshops with live streaming, OnTheFly is your go-to choice. It lets you multistream with an RTMP server that allows live streaming to over 50 destinations, including YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.

Don’t just conduct webinars, drive engagement with interactive tools such as live polls, surveys, real-time chat, contests, gamification, and push notifications. Host up to 12 guests on-screen to conduct a collaborative webinar event.

Livestorm

Livestorm is a best automated webinar platform, certified by HubSpot, that allows users to host engaging webinars. Livestorm makes it easy to conduct webinars tailored to industries such as healthcare, finance, technology, and more with advanced video engagement solutions. Build powerful video engagement strategies to optimize your webinars campaigns for maximum reach with detailed analytics and insights during and after webinars, helping you track engagement and measure success. Its user-friendly interface simplifies the webinar setup and management process.

Livestorm also includes built-in tools to optimize webinar engagement, such as polls, Q&A, and chat, to encourage participant interaction and engagement.

Wistia

Wistia lets you host attention-grabbing webinars and live events, turning them into lead-generation tools, social clips, and more. With Wistia, you can conduct sessions that include Q&A, audience polls, chat boxes, and emoji reactions to keep you connected with your audience.

Automate the process with AI-generated descriptions, flexible forms to pull in registrants, and automatic email reminders to keep your attendees in the loop. So, if you are looking for the best webinar hosting solution, give a thumbs up to Wistia for its specialized automated webinar tools.

Plus, if you have decided on the mode and are searching for the best webinar platform in the market, check out our blog that’s drawing user’s attention. In case you are devoid of time, Get started with OnTheFly.

Concluding Notes!

In a nutshell, we have covered the what, why, when, and where concepts of both live and automated webinars. Therefore, it is up to you now to experiment with various factors and decide which webinar model stands well for your business requirements.

We hope that your questions on how to choose between live webinars and automated webinars are best derived in this blog answering all the queries you have ever had.

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