GoToWebinar is a Citrix Online tool that is geared toward web seminars which have up to 1,000 attendees. It works with both Windows and Mac, and includes a variety of tools that are not present in its smaller web meetings counterpart, GoToMeeting. GoToWebinar is a user-friendly and cost effective tool that is a great choice for those who are looking for a simple to use and features rich web conferencing tool.
GoToWebinar at a Glance
Bottom-Line: Much like GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar is an extremely intuitive and easy-to-use tool for large live meetings and webinars. It is a great tool for beginner users who are new to hosting Internet-based seminars, but it still has all the more advanced tools that will satisfy the needs of the more seasoned webinar organizer.
Pros: GoToWebinar has a beautiful user interface, which makes it a pleasure to use. Users can purchase a toll-free phone number plan, which lets participants join the web seminar at no additional cost to them. This plan integrates perfectly with GoToWebinar, and the toll-free number appears on invitations sent by the organizers automatically.
Cons: It is not possible to turn your webinar into a video conference, as GoToWebinar does not allow for image capture from your webcam. Transmission of images is also not perfect, and it tends to lag. If you are planning an image-heavy web conference (which goes beyond Power Point slides), you might want to consider other webinar tools.
Price: GoToWebinar starts at $99 per month for unlimited webinars. If you would like to try the tool before committing, there is a 30-day free trial period that you can sign up for.
Webinar Invitations
Signing up for GoToWebinar is quick and easy, and only the host needs to do so. Once registration is complete, the organizer is ready to plan their first webinar. Invitations are entirely customizable and the host can decide what registration information they would like to capture from the webinar participants. A handy feature of GoToWebinar is that it lets users schedule recurring webinars, so organizers don’t have to continuously input the same information time and again. Also, automated e-mail templates are available - this is a good feature for time-pressed webinar organizers.
Once the web conference invitations have been sent, hosts can track the number of attendees that have signed up, so they know how many people they will be presenting to. What’s more, if the host would like to hold a web conference immediately, they can choose to “meet now” and e-mail the webinar link to the target participants.
Preparing for the Webinar
Once a subscription to GoToWebinar has been purchased, Citrix Online will offer to train web conference organizers on how to use the tool, so subscribers to the service will be able to make the most of it. While most web conferencing tool providers will also train their subscribers, the Citrix Online training personnel is knowledgeable and patient, and able to help even the most inexperienced users.
Large Web Conferences
GoToWebinar is specifically designed for web-meetings with up to 1,000 participants, with tools that help webinar presenters obtain and maintain participant attention. For example, there is the standard polling tool, which is useful for getting attendee input throughout the web conference. A more advanced capability of GoToWebinar is the ability to publish the results of the poll just taken to all web meeting participants by simply pushing a button. In addition, GoToWebinar has a tool that lets organizers see how many of the conference participants are attentive, as it tracks whether the webinar window is minimized or sent to the background. This helps hosts keep their web conferences interesting and engaging.
Web conference guests can also use GoToWebinar’s ‘raise a hand’ tool, so if they have any questions or comments they can easily communicate that to the hosts.