Webinar Hero [review]
POS:
Low cost and effective alternative to what is normally an expensive serviceNEG:
Branding on signup pages (unless OTO is purchased)Today I’m doing a review of Webinar Hero I had a review copy of Webinar Hero for a while and wanted to get this review out much earlier today however I had some questions for the vendors and needed some clarification before I could write my full review. Unfortunately when I was messaging them on […]
Today I’m doing a review of Webinar Hero
I had a review copy of Webinar Hero for a while and wanted to get this review out much earlier today however I had some questions for the vendors and needed some clarification before I could write my full review. Unfortunately when I was messaging them on Skype last night it was around 3am their time so they did not get to send me answers until after the product went live. Well now I have my clarification and can write my review.
Now I wont go into detail explaining what a webinar is because I think just about everyone should know. Webinars are basically live group meetings with people. Marketers use them for training sessions and they also use them (very effectively) to sell products and earn affiliate commissions. The problem is that webinar software is normally quite expensive. For example: GoToWebinar charges $79 per month for up to 100 attendees and $319 per month for up to 500 attendees. Now for an established marketer this is not to terrible because they know that will make a return on this monthly investment from the sales they make. However for the new marketer or someone just getting into webinars this is often a prohibitively high cost that prevents them from getting into the lucrative webinar marketing.
Webinar Hero is a WordPress plugin that uses Google Hangouts to allow you to host unlimited webinars, with unlimited attendees. The plugin lets you quickly create the signup pages, thank you pages, live webinar pages and other pages.
Each page is fully customizable. You can have your own logos and graphics. Also the pages look clean, crisp and professional. The one thing I did not like about them (which was also one of my questions for the vendors) was that in the footer of the pages is a link to Webinar Hero that says “Powered By Webinar Hero”. It seems that the front end / lowest version of this plugin will have this branding on it. In order to get rid of it you have to purchase the OTO. Ill be honest, I was not super happy about that. However given the very low price that they are charging on the front end I can understand why they have this in it.
Besides letting you create your registration, thank you and signup pages Webinar Hero will also integrate your signups with your autoresponder so you can do follow ups as well as reminders for people to join the webinar.
It integrates with SendReach via their API which is cool. But what is even more cool is that you can enter raw HTML form code from just about any other auto responder into Webinar Hero and it will use that. What this means is that Webinar Hero will work with practically any autoresponder on the market. Also if you want you can even activate the “log in with Facebook” functionality and let people do a one click optin with Facebook. This will of course require you to create a Facebook app.
Because Webinar Hero uses Google Hangouts there is no load on your server from the video chat and there is virtually no limit to the number of attendees that you can have. But dont think that your webinar will just be a hangout. While it uses hangouts for the video functionality it is much more than that.
Your webinar will run in a professional looking page that has an overview of the webinar, links if you like and even a chat area for your attendees. The one thing I did notice though is that “Join Call” number. This was actually another thing that I needed clarification on. In some other more expensive webinar software people are given the option of joining the webinar by calling a phone number where they can listen to it, but obviously not see it. Webinar Hero has a section to put in a phone number like this but it does not provide the call functionality. You will have to find and integrate with a third party service if you want this.
Honestly though for me this is not a problem. I personally dont think many (if any) people actually use the call in numbers anymore. This made sense years ago when high speed internet was not that important but now its just kind of a dated functionality anyway. Also as a internet marketer having people just listen to your webinar is not so useful anyway because people on a phone just listening cant click your affiliate link (or buy link) at the end of the webinar.
Ok so what do I think of Webinar Hero over all?
At the time of testing there was no tutorial videos built into the plugin, they where in the members area only. Thats another one of the things I was talking to the vendors about today. While they where not in my test access the vendors have told me that they will be adding them to the actual plugin.
Putting that and the few other little things aside though Webinar Hero is a top quality software. It is super flexible and it offers a lot of functionality for not a lot of money. In fact I was a little surprised at how little they are charging given how much more traditional webinar services cost. Truth be told I think they could have set the price considerable higher and it still would have been a good value.
Webinars are a great way to make money online especially if your doing affiliate marketing or selling one of your own products. People in a webinar just convert better. More conversions equals more money. Its that simple. However traditional webinar software like GoToWebinar is quite expensive. So much so that many people new (or even slightly new) get turned off by the cost. However Webinar Hero is a viable, low cost alternative, that packs a lot of functionality for surprisingly little money.
A quick note about the reviews I do on this site. The product vendors give me access to their products for free in order for me to do my review. However I make no promises to them regarding the results of my tests or what I will write in my review. Should you click a link that takes you to a sales page for a paid product for sale this link will be an affiliate link and I will be paid a percentage of the sales price should you decide to invest in it.
About the Author
Hello Brett, do you know how this compares to Webinar Fusion Pro?
No I dont I have never used Webinar Fusion Pro (have never even heard of it until just now)
Thanks for that Brett. I have already bought the basic one but have yet to open it etc. I look forward to the cloud based version.
Cheers
How does this webinar wp plugin compare in your opinion to runclick which is also available through JVZoo ??
Im sorry I have not heard of RunClick. But I can say Webinar Hero works well, is very flexible and is very low cost.
Hi Brett,
This plugin looks very similar to WebinarExpress and WebinarIgnition . Both are WordPress plugin created by Mark Thompson. I owned both too. What do you think? Is it white-label version of them?
Not that Im aware of.
Yes, this is 100% like WebinarIgnition. Maybe they white label it 🙂
Not sure if they did. Looks like they may have. If they did that’s not a bad thing. It means you in effect get a software for 1/10th the normal cost.
Thanks for the review Mr Brett. As I see you spend a lot of time and effort going through all the different components of the software.
I’ve received few emails about this and I didn’t open any of them, and now I have a different opinion after reading this review…..in a positive way…thank you and have a great day.
kami
Sorry my review came out so late. I needed to wait until my questions where answered before I could write it.
To answer Heru’s question Neil Napier purchased the rights to Webinar Express and added a few tweaks and reskinned it to make it the Webinar Hero as it’s called now. So if you have Webinar Express this is almost exactly the same with just some minor changes.
The only thing I don’t like about programs like this that use Google Hangouts is that most all of them are a wordpress plugin. WordPress is already bloated enough and I have yet to see one of these wordpress plugins that do webinars perform efficiently under a load.
Of course Neil is saying that Webinar Hero is coming out with a SaaS cloud based version soon so hopefully that will make this program better than the rest.
For things like this I would make a WordPress site that has nothing else on it and is just for webinars. I can understand why a lot of people make WP plugins. WP becomes a standard platform for them to develop on. A lot of people cant create a database or use FTP to install a stand alone PHP script.
So currently it is a WP plugin but soon it will be SaaS? Did they mention whether those who purchase now will get the SaaS option?
I went through the videos on their salespage and I don’t think they mentioned it was a plugin …in fact just looking at the SP now and at the top of their checklist is that it is cloud based…
Are they splitting hairs since Hangouts is obviously cloud based?
Hmmnnn….otherwise it’s no different than the products mentioned above…
Well no difference other than the $150 or so price difference 🙂
Great suggestion to do a stand alone WP site. And a simple solution. That actually takes any fear away from me, as far as the “bloating” issues..lol. And it’s really a can’t miss price, even if you’re not quite up to doing webinars yet (ahem) but you know you’ll have to. Cause you will!
I had to do my first webinar a month or so ago, I was really nervous, but actually it was not so bad. In the end the guy I was doing it with could not get me to shut up. He kept saying thanks for coming .. etc .. and I just kept on chatting away because I was having fun 🙂
Thanks for the detailed and honest review that’s not just a copy of their sales page. One thing I’m confused about is that the sales page explicitly says:
“this is not a cheap WordPress plugin – it’s a fully fledged cloud platform”
But you’re saying that it _is_ a WP plugin? Are they being misleading, or has a new version already been released (I don’t see how, but…)?
The interface is done via a WordPress plugin. The plugin connects with their cloud servers to do all the ‘heavy lifting’.
I did not purchase, but Id be interested in what platform the webinar they did today was held on?
I bought this product plus one of the OTO’s (if I remember correctly) and I think the tutorials are absolutely terrible. There are several but I don’t think they were carefully planned and the first ones are so crappy they don’t even have a voice.
I had some questions and I’ll admit I’m not a techie for set-ups. I initially got some answers but the answers were never totally clear, I got no kind of special help whatsoever (which you would think they could afford considering how much money they make on the launch), and in the end they just said, “Well, we can’t understand why you can’t do it…everybody else likes it.”
I’m still struggling with it because I love the idea of webinars and I do have a need for it. In the end I might wind up just paying somebody to answer some simple questions.
Regards,
Art
Hi Brett,
I would like to ask if webinar hero is capable of screen sharing so you can present your powerpoint presentations or videos to your guests? if available, is it available only for Pro version?
Thanks. Hope for your reply.
Yes you can do screen share.
Hi Brett,
Do you know how to access their support page? Or what is their email to ask for support? Thanks.
This was sold on JVZoo. Every product on JVZoo requires that the vendor enter a support email, which is sent to you by JVZoo with your receipt ID when you purchase.