Welcome back to How to Bring Multimedia Into Your Online Business! Today we’re going to talk about Hosting Teleseminars for Leads and Profit.
Hosting a teleseminar is a great way to attract attention for your business. It can bring you new leads that you can market to over and over again. It can gain you new customers, and it can create valuable connections with other marketers and business owners.
Why Teleseminars Work
I want to share with you an experience I had a few years ago that proved to me why teleseminars work. I was looking for a business coach and had joined an email list for more information.
Shortly after I joined the list I got an email about a free teleseminar. I attended the teleseminar and immediately after signed up to coach with the featured speaker. Why? Because she had allowed me to get to know, like and trust her by offering up more value and information than most of her competitors. Most people only offered a page on their sites about their coaching products, but this savvy businessperson offered much more, and that convinced me to hire her above anyone else.
I’ve seen this scenario play out over and over again. But what if you have no clue where to start or how to set one up on your blog? Well, let me teach you!
Planning Your Teleseminar
When you decide you want to host a teleseminar, as with so many other marketing methods your first step is to decide WHY. Just saying “I want to host a teleseminar” isn’t enough! You need to know WHY you want to host it and what you hope to gain from the effort. Do you want more clients? More prospects? To record an audio you can use as a product to sell? Decide your primary and secondary reasons for hosting a teleseminar before you do another thing.
How to Host Your Teleseminar
Once you know why you are planning a teleseminar, you can consider how to host it:
- Free Conference Call Lines – Go to Google and search ‘free conference call lines’ and you’ll find a number of options. One I’ve used personally is FreeConferenceCalling.com. Be aware, however that not everyone can access these lines. If you are doing any kind of paid event or just want to present the most professional demeanor possible you’ll want to consider the next option, paid lines.
- Paid Conference Call Lines – One of the most well-known paid lines is InstantTeleseminar.com. It’s more than just a conference call line. You can also use Instant Teleseminar to host webcasts, do online presentations via PowerPoint, and to allow chat sessions between guests. This program creates a more powerful teleseminar than just operating with a phone line. The interactivity draws people in, and increases audience participation and turnout.
Preparing Your Teleseminar Content
What are you going to talk about on your teleseminar? Here are some options:
- Overview of your products and services.
- Directions on use of a specific product or service.
- Advice on a common problem your potential customers face.
- Answers to questions that your potential market may have.
You could choose just one of these, or create a teleseminar that is a combination of one or more. You could even solicit questions from your audience members, and then respond to them on the call!
Creating a Follow-Up System
The next step is putting a follow up system in place so that you can send reminders of your upcoming teleseminar, send out the recordings and follow-up after the call.
To do this, use an email service provider like AddressTwo.com. Email services allow you to collect names and emails of those who register to attend. After registration you will then use your email autoresponder system to automatically follow-up via email — very important so that people don’t forget to attend your call. You can also use your follow-up system to keep in contact with your attendees after the teleseminar, allowing you to create an even stronger relationship.
Pulling It All Together
I’m a true believer in the philosophy that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be profitable (a la Nicole Dean of http://www.nicoleonthenet.com). I’ve given you the tools here to put together your first teleseminar in a matter of days. Don’t over think it, don’t overdo it, just get going and fix it later. Pull together a plan, a hosting system and a way to follow-up – then get talking about your business, your products and your services over and over again until the profits start to flow!
See you tomorrow when we talk about hosting webinars.
Joanne
