WebinarJam Quick Start Guide
This tutorial will walk you through each setting available in the full configuration of a webinar.
Start Setup
Start by clicking “Add Webinar” from your dashboard and select Full Configuration (shown below). You can click Express and it will limit your options, but you’ll be able to get going in less than 60 seconds. In this tutorial we’re going to take probably a little more than 10 minutes because I’m going to be explaining every step. Let’s click next.
Webinar Configuration
We have a few options here:
- Right Now. This is if you want to just get a one-off webinar done quick. You’re not going to have any notifications. You’re not going to have any schedule. You’ll send the webinar room link directly to your presenters and your webinar attendees.
- Schedule for Later. This is when you want an actual date and time for your webinar. If you also want to set up notifications (including an automatic email to send out the webinar links), you’ll need to select this choice.
- Always On. This is a webinar room that can be used repeatedly. This could be used for meeting rooms, on the spot training, and can be used over and over again. Like Right Now, this has no notification emails or schedule.
We’re gonna select Schedule for Later so we can see the schedule settings that don’t appear in the other two options.
Basic Settings
The first box (shown below) is filled with Basic Settings; click the pencil icon to open it. You’ll find the following:
- Webinar Name (for your reference in the dashboard)
- Webinar Title (for your potential registrants to see)
- Webinar Description (also for your potential registrants to see)
- Webinar Language (for the registration fields and buttons)
On Demand
You can also list your webinar in the On-Demand section, so let’s take a look at that real quick. Shown below is our On-Demand portal. There’s a lot of webinars available and they’re coming up real soon. You can choose by category (cooking and food, for example) and you can take a look at what’s available.
Directory Category
Back in the Basic Settings (shown below), we can choose the directory category (like internet marketing e-commerce) and then you can click the circle to upload a thumbnail image.
Webinar Presenters
Next are the Webinar Presenters (shown below). This is where your information is entered by default (it’s already here!) so if you are the only one you can just click confirm and move on.
I’d like you to know two things though about this side profile here. First, “Webinar Host & Presenter” indicates you are the creator of this webinar (shown below).
You can add people without them being a presenter but instead as a moderator. So for example, let’s say I want Tammy to moderate my webinar. As shown below, I’ll add her name and email to the fields, select Moderator, and choose Save.
Once I’ve clicked save, her information will appear on the right. This time, “Webinar Moderator” will be visible by her name (shown below).
If you want to edit details of either person, you’ll need to select the pencil icon to the far right. You can change any details including adding a different profile image by clicking the profile circle on the left. Make sure to click Save before moving on!
Streaming Service
Finally, in Streaming Service (shown below) we have three available options for you to use:
Webinarjam Live (selected above) is our streaming service. It means that you’ll be streaming through our servers which are pretty darn fast and private.
YouTube Live (selected below) will stream using YouTube’s servers and will stream both in your webinar room and on your YouTube account simultaneously. You’ll need to connect your YouTube account to use this however (you can find full instructions here).
Facebook Live (selected below) will stream using Facebook’s servers and will stream both in your webinar room and on your Facebook profile, group, or page. You’ll need to connect to your Facebook account (you can find full instructions here).
Webinar Schedules
The next step are the schedules. There are three options:
- One single session
- Multiple sessions
- A recurring series of presentations
One Single Session
Think of a One Single Session (screenshot below) like a movie. There may be multiple sessions you can go to, but it will be the same content each time. Therefore, you would only buy a ticket to one session, not to all of them.
Let’s say that you want to run a morning and an afternoon run, just to give your users more flexibility to attend whichever of the two (and only one of the two) fits their schedule best. In this case, you could configure a session at 9:00AM and another one at 1:00PM. Remember to click the blue “ADD” button!
Multiple Sessions
On the other hand, Multiple Sessions (screenshot below) are like a mini-series that span through a few days, every day screening a different episode. In this case, you subscribe to all the individual events.
You would configure multiple date/time combinations, and they will all be bundled as an indivisible multi-event presentation.
Recurring Series of Presentations
Finally, a Recurring Series of Presentations (screenshot below) is closer to a TV show with each episode providing new information (maybe even building on previous webinars), and the show will have a rather fixed and recurrent scheduling over time.
Users registering for a Webinar Series will register for the whole daily/weekly series, for as long as it lasts.
To add a schedule as a series, select a day of the week, a time, and whether the series has no stopping date (Unlimited) or has a set number of sessions (Limited, in which case you type the number of sessions), and finally the timezone. For example: say that you want to set up a weekly session, running every Saturday at 5:00PM, for a whole year (52 weekly sessions). Take a look at the screenshot below to see how you’d configure that.
The last step is clicking “ADD”. In the above below, only one recurrent series has been added, and of course you could configure more series if you wanted.
Registration
Third step contains your registration settings. The registration page (shown below) is the first page that people are going to arrive at to register for your webinar. This is the first inkling of your webinar that they’re going to get!
Edit a Registration Page
Select a template and you will be brought into an editing window. Anything with a pencil icon can be edited. This includes images, text (as shown below), and even videos (provided they are from YouTube or a direct link to an .mp4 file).
In the above example, Tammy (our moderator) has been added to the page. If I don’t want her name visible on this page, I’ll edit those boxes and delete her from the list of presenters (as shown below).
Once you save and exit (using the green Actions… menu in the upper right), you will be returned to the main settings. Split testing is also available here (shown selected below). You will need to choose what percentage of visitors should go to each page before Confirming.
Your Own Design on Your Own Website
You also may have noticed the option titled “Your Own Design on Your Own Website”. Choosing this will skip the design stage and give you a code to embed a button on your own webpage. This will be addressed later.
Registration Form Fields
For now, move on to the Registration Form Fields (shown below).
Here you can choose what details are requested from registrants when they register. At a minimum you must request first name and email (these are required for signing in to the webinar room). However you can switch the toggles to make the others not mandatory, or click the ‘X’ to delete them.
Auto-Subscription to Future Webinars
The next step, Auto-Subscription (shown below), gives your registrants an option to be automatically registered to your future webinars of your choice. They will only be subscribed to the webinars you choose, when you choose to do so.
Free registration vs Paid registration
Following this is “Free registration vs Paid registration” (shown below). If you choose to charge a fee, you’ll need to use a separate checkout platform to process the fee. Type in the amount in the first box and enter in the URL of your checkout page in the second one.
WebinarJam will redirect users to the checkout page when they choose to register. Once they complete the purchase, however, your external payment processor will need to send them back to WebinarJam’s Port-Payment Redirect URL. It is the final field listed in that setting and should be used as the product’s Thank You page (in most systems).
Password Protection
The final setting in registration is Password Protection. You can add a Master Password as shown below. In this case you will create a password that is the same for every registrant.
Alternatively, you can generate unique passwords for every registrant. In this case, WebinarJam will generate the passwords for you.
Notifications
Notifications can be found in the next step (shown below). WebinarJam allows 10 notifications before and 10 after your webinar.
Before you add/edit these you will need to choose an email gateway. If you do not have your own preferred SMTP service, we recommend just using WebinarJam Mail.
In addition to emails (as shown below), you can SMS, and recorded messages via phone calls, however those require further integrations.
Add Email Notification
For now, let’s walk through the included email system. Click the blue “Add Email” link (shown below along the right) to begin.
Edit Email
Clicking “Add Email” will open an email editing window (shown below). You can set the email timing (in relation to the webinar start time), the email subject, and the email body.
Something you’ll notice already in the body of the email (as well as listed on the right sidebar) are the Shortcodes {contained in curly brackets}. These are codes that are automatically replaced with the relevant information. You can learn more about these in our article about Notifications.
Finally, you can enter in your email address at the bottom to send a test email to yourself. This email will not replace the shortcodes, but will display everything else properly.
Integrations
With that done, you can move on to the next step: Integrations (shown below).
Here you can add integrations with various Email Autoresponders (such as Kartra) as well as add any tracking system you may have (such as Facebook Pixels).
Thank You
For now, move on to the Thank You step. There are two options here, the first being “Survey Your Registrants” (shown below).
Survey
You have four options for survey questions:
- Poll allowing only one answer
- Poll allowing multiple answers
- Question for a short answer
- Question for a long answer
Click the plus icon, next to a question type of your choice, to add it to your survey. Then fill out the question details on the right (clicking the ‘+’ to add each possible answer).
Thank You Page Design
The next box is for your Thank You Page Design. Just like the registration page, you’ll select a theme and edit whatever element you choose by clicking the pencil icon.
Live
The next step has the most options, all of them dealing with your live webinar (shown below). Let’s go through them one by one.
Autoplay
First up is Autoplay! You can choose whether to use one of our splash pages with autoplay disabled, or choose to enable autoplay for most browsers! Please note that autoplay will usually have to start muted.
Live Room Design
Next up is the live room design! Here you can choose several neat options to add some branding to your webinars.
You can choose options from the above as follows:
- Select one of our pre-designed webinar room themes
- Pick which color scheme
- Choose whether to display presenter social media information
Polls and Quizzes
Next is the Polls and Quizzes option (show below). Any poll you set up here will be available when you are live, however you can set it up on the fly in the webinar room itself. The same can be said for all the following options (if you forget something, you can create it inside the live webinar).
Product Offers
Product Offers (the next option, shown below) are popped up in the chat box area and provide a button for attendees to click. Click “Add New Offer” and the below window will pop up for you to create the offer. As you edit the options, the preview on the right will change. Once the required fields are filled, you can click to save.
Broadcast Sales in Real Time
Note that the option to “Broadcast Sales in Real Time” will require adding a tracking code to your product’s Thank You page. This tracking code can be found on your dashboard for the webinar’s Advanced options.
Video Injections
Video Injections (shown below) are a way to play a pre-recorded video clip directly to your audience. All you need is a link to a YouTube video or a direct link to an .mp4 file.
File Handouts
You can also share files (of any kind up to 80mb) directly with your attendants (shown below).
Slide Presentation
Also, you can add your slide presentation to your webinar (shown below). PPT, PPTX, KeyNote, and PDF (up to 80mb) are acceptable file formats for this option.
Bad words filter
You can also prevent your users from using particular words. Simply go to your Profile (1) and then Settings (2) to add any words you don’t want shared during your webinar.
Autoplay
You have the choice to enable autoplay for your webinars! If disabled, you can choose your call to action text displayed on the video as well as the thumbnail that is displayed behind it!
Replay
In the next, and final, step we’ll be deciding what to do about the webinar replay. If you choose to enable the replay in the first box, 4 additional options will be available (shown below).
Webinar Replay Contents
The first option is deciding to what the Webinar Replay link will lead; there are three options (shown below). First is the Replica Replay. This is a recording of your webinar as it happened, including chat, surveys, offers, etc. It cannot be paused, but instead closely mimics the live experience.
Custom video allows you to replace the video stream with your own video source (other than the recorded webinar). You can use a YouTube link or a direct link to an .mp4 file. Below that you’ll need to enter the exact duration of the video so the system knows when to close the room at the end.
Finally, you can redirect the replay link to any URL you would like. This is particularly helpful if people arrive after the webinar is over and you want to lead them to a specific page that isn’t the replay (such as a sales page or otherwise).
Replay Controls
Next up is the option to either enable or disable replay controls. You can choose to allow your replay viewers to fast forward, rewind, and scan through your replays!
Replay Page Expiration Date
Next is the Replay Page Expiration Date (shown below). You can set a number of hours for the replay to be available. After this time, the Replay link will redirect to an expiration page (telling the visitor that they have arrived too late).
Allow Users to Submit Questions
The final option is whether to add a “Question Box” (shown below). By activating this, you enable the chat box for visitors to type into. Any messages they enter will be sent to the email address of your choice.