Bigmarker versus Zoom:
Which Is Best for B2B Marketers?
Choosing the Right Digital Event Platform
The platform you choose for your digital events can make or break your pipeline and revenue goals for the year. No pressure, right?
From building beautifully branded events to engaging your audience to showcasing event ROI, there’s a lot at stake. Plus, you need a tool that fits seamlessly into your existing tech stack. It’s no easy order.
If you’re here, you’ve likely narrowed down your search and need help choosing between Zoom and BigMarker. Luckily, we’ve compared both platforms for you so you can see which one best fits your webinar goals. Let’s get to it!
BigMarker versus Zoom
Here’s a quick breakdown of the features and functionality offered by each SaaS platform and how they compare.
BigMarker
BigMarker is a browser-based online event platform for virtual events, webinars, and hybrid events. They were one of the early players in the webinar space. BigMarker is known for providing stable, reliable events with few issues.
While their age is great for reliability, BigMarker falls short in other areas, like beautiful branding and robust engagement. Marketers with revenue and pipeline goals might also find gaps with BigMarker’s MarTech integrations. And while BigMarker has added in-person features to support hybrid events, they fall far behind industry leaders in the space like Cvent. Let’s explore more.
Live and pre-recorded webinars
Pre-recorded? Live? How about both? Event organizers can easily host both live and pre-recorded event content on BigMarker
Downloadable resources
Need to host additional resources in your event? BigMarker allows organizers to easily upload and share documents, links, handouts, and more.
Polls, Q&A, and Chat
While they’re not considered best-in-class, BigMarker does support table-stakes engagement features like the ability to launch polls, live chat, and Q&A. These are essential to amp up the energy and interaction during online events.
Feedback surveys
Looking to get a pulse on event attendees? BigMarker offers built-in surveys, making it easy to solicit feedback on the fly.
Very few native integrations
Integrations can literally make or break your tech stack. Unfortunately for data-driven marketers, most of BigMarker’s integrations are only available through Zapier. This limits the amount of data you’re able to share across tools.Â
Steep learning curve
Many customers mention that BigMarker is quite difficult to learn and cumbersome to manage. This can make onboarding new users and speakers a hassle and limit scaling events across different teams.Â
Limited customization
One of BigMarker’s biggest downfalls is its customization—or lack thereof. Many users note that event branding, from registration pages to emails, to the overall look and feel of events, is limited.Â
The Details: BigMarker Pros & Cons
To summarize, here’s a simplified chart that outlines the top pros and cons of BigMarker.
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Zoom
Zoom is a popular cloud-based video conferencing tool that's used by businesses all over the globe for online meetings. It was widely adopted during the pandemic as businesses scrambled to adapt to work-from-home life.
Zoom also offers a webinar software product that can be used for marketing, training, and enablement events through live broadcasting. While Zoom is a solid product, marketers looking to host large, engaging events will find its functionality and engagement extremely limited.
Easy-to-use and familiar software
Most folks are familiar with Zoom, so there are no surprises. Both organizers and attendees know what to expect during live webinars, so there’s little to no training required.
Live stream on YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms.
Looking to reach a large audience? Zoom integrates with YouTube, Facebook, and other social media sites for easy live streaming.
In-house studio effects and filters
Zoom provides built-in studio effects, filters, and virtual backgrounds to enhance speaker video quality. These can be handy for remote settings and at-home recording.
Easy feedback process
Collect attendee feedback on the fly with post-event surveys. Zoom supports built-in surveys in a variety of formats, including single-choice, multiple-choice, rating scale, and open-ended.
Engagement options that include chat, reactions, and polling
Zoom offers webinar organizers table-stakes audience engagement features like live chat, screen sharing, live reactions, and the ability to launch polls.
Inability to embed CTAs
If you use webinars for lead generation, Zoom might not be the best option to support your goals. Zoom doesn’t allow organizers to add CTA buttons or embed additional resources within the platform.
Mobile users have to download app
Unfortunately, Zoom doesn’t offer an easy option for enjoying events on the go. Attendees have to download the Zoom mobile app to participate in events, which may be a concern for event accessibility. Â
Not built for highly interactive digital events
Zoom webinars aren’t built to be highly engaging and interactive. They cater more to 1:many broadcast-style events with large audiences. The website even mentions that typically webinar attendees do not interact with each other, which is not ideal for community or networking events.Â
Doesn’t cater to B2B pain points
Simply put, Zoom is not built for B2B marketers. It caters to small to mid-sized organizations and educational institutions. If lead generation through digital events is a goal, Zoom is probably not the best platform. Zoom also offers very few customization opportunities, video production capabilities, and limited MarTech integrations.Â
Breakout rooms aren’t part of the Zoom webinar package
The Zoom webinar package does not include table-stakes features like breakout rooms, which is limiting if you’re hosting a large community event designed for networking.Â
The Details: Zoom Pros & Cons
To summarize, here’s a simplified chart that outlines the top pros and cons of Zoom.
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Goldcast: The Revenue-Driven Event Marketing Platform
Goldcast is built for B2B marketers to run engaging digital events. Many leading B2B brands like 1Password, Mailchimp, Lattice, Drift, Salesloft, and others have chosen Goldcast as a key component of their marketing tech stack—and it’s not hard to see why!
At Goldcast, our goal is to make it easy to set up and run high-quality digital events while providing a seamless experience for attendees and empowering organizers to prove event ROI.
With Goldcast, your sales team can access actionable analytics and real-time insights through native CRM integrations. We make it easy for you to run pipeline-driving events.
Proven results
Rate
every month
That was the best part—we made the decision to pivot on a Friday, and I didn’t have to work or stress over it on the weekend. I knew that I’d be able to move the whole event into Goldcast on Monday. It wasn’t even a concern.
Goldcast was super easy to use compared to other platforms for both our employees as well as our guest speakers
Our MQL goals saw an increase of 20% through Goldcast’s video production capabilities. The experience was super engaging and very modern!
Goldcast enables B2B marketers to create incredible experiences and engage prospects and customers like never before
Supports a wide range of B2B use cases, which include community events, webinars, product launches, demos, field events, hybrid events, user conferences, and more
Ability to easily embed CTAs and resources in an event
Built-in engagement features like chat, polls, and Q&A in a fully customizable interface
Video production tools that include overlays, lower thirds, and tickers for an elevated attendee experience
Event templates that can be duplicated to scale any and all kinds of events
Accessible to a wide range of audiences — captioning, subtitles, and translation in 14+ languages to cater to a global attendee base
Actionable insights (including 16+ engagement points) that are synced into CRMs and MAPs
Deep, native integrations with popular MarTech tools like HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, and more
Slack + Salesforce integration sends notifications to sales teams when prospects engage in the event, which ensures timely and relevant post-event follow-ups
On-demand access to all recordings within 24 hours
Dedicated customer success team with live customer support for ALL your events
Generous pricing model that allows multiple teams to scale digital events
Frequently Asked Questions
Want to see how easily you can start scaling your webinar program?
