Coach Virtual Assistant Blog - View from The Edge

Teleseminars, or workshops conducted over a teleconference line, are one of the easiest ways to grow a business and leverage your expertise online. However, when I speak to clients about using this marketing strategy, many believe that they don’t have enough content to create a powerful 45-60 minute teleseminar. Do you share that same belief? If you’ve ever written an article, you’ve got enough information to create a teleseminar.

I love to repurpose content, i.e., create something once and use it again and again for multiple purposes. I’ve found the articles I write weekly to be the easiest to repurpose. The type of article that works best to launch a teleseminar is a tips article, or one that is written with numbered points as the body of the article, i.e., 6 Secrets to, How to Do … in 10 Easy Steps, etc.

Here’s how you can create a teleseminar from one of your articles:

1. Craft your description and learning bullet points. Write a one paragraph overview of your teleclass based on the content of your article and include 3-7 bullet points (very short descriptions of the bullet points in your article) outlining what the participants will learn as a result of participating in your teleseminar. This is the description you’ll use to help you promote your teleseminar.

2. Expand your article bullet points. Participants like concrete examples, so in your planning process come up with stories or examples you can share about each point, point out mistakes people make with this point, and discuss better strategies to use instead.

3. Craft your introduction. The easiest way to create an introduction to a teleclass is to tell your participants what caused you to create it, and then give a synopsis of what you’re going to cover during the teleseminar.

4. Determine your call to action. Typically teleseminars are part of a larger marketing strategy for an online business owner: to sell a product or program, to grow a list, or to create content for an information product. Determine what you want your call to action to be for your listeners, and make plans to insert it into to your teleclass script. Share this call to action with your participants at the beginning, middle, and end of the call.

5. Format your conclusion. Here’s where you again summarize what your said during the teleseminar, remind participants of your call to action, and ask for any questions before closing the call.

6. Develop your script. Now, you have all of the pieces developed, and it’s time to put them together in an outline or script for yourself. Note your introduction, expanded bullet points with examples, insert your call to action several times when appropriate, and end with your conclusion.

7. Draft a handout. Help your participants remember you and your presentation. A handout with your contact info is the best way for them to refer to the material presented. You can create a study guide which permits them to fill in the blanks during the course of the teleseminar, a handout that you send with notes from the teleseminar, or a PDF of a PowerPoint presentation that you provide before the seminar. Remember to include your contact information in your handout as well as your call to action from the teleseminar.

Now, you have a complete teleseminar that you can use again and again with different target markets to help you grow your list, sell your products and services, and establish yourself as an expert in your chosen field. Take a look at your article bank and determine what you can repurpose into powerful teleseminars for your business.

Copyright (c) 2008 Donna Gunter

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com

Teleseminars are a great way to make some quick cash, or give one of your current offerings a boost in sales. Of course, in order for that to happen, you need to fill them!

Here are 6 ways to fill your teleseminars, each and every time you hold them, even if it’s on the same topic.

1. Your list

The best place from which to fill your teleseminars is your own email list of potential clients and customers.

And just a tip here: People buy when it’s the right time for them, so just because you’ve offered a teleseminar before doesn’t mean that you can’t offer it again - as your list grows, you’ll have a constant flow of new people to offer it to.

2. Use teleseminar listing services

Use whatever listing services are available to you to promote your teleseminars. This is something you can have your virtual assistant do for you as part of your standard marketing procedures for your teleseminars.

Here are some of the ones that are the most effective at filling classes for teleseminars:

a. teleclass.com An offshoot of Coachville, this listing service is mainly focused on the coaches/consultants/personal development market. It’s $39 to list a single class (with one or two sessions) and you must be a certified teleclass leader to do so.

b. seminarannouncer.com This listing service hosts a mix of both personal and professional offerings. It’s free to list a free class. If you want to list a paid class, they will take a small percentage of the fee.

c. niche announcement services Google for announcement services specific to your niche to find other locations where you can list your teleseminar.

d. solo-e.com Directly targeted at solo professionals, your teleseminar must be of value to that market. As a highly targeted listing service, if you are servicing solo professionals, I highly recommend this service (and please tell Terri Z I sent you :)).

e. planetteleclass.com Based on Coachville’s model at teleclass.com, this listing service is free. You can have a featured listing (which means you can have a longer description of your class, a photo, and some other features added) for a small fee.

f. cculearning.com Conference call University hosts this listing service, which has some heavy-hitters in the online world listing their teleseminars, and it’s free.

3. Joint venture with a person of note

To implement this strategy, you’ll want to find someone who already has a following in your niche and who has a specialty that complements your niche, and offer to interview them.

You’ll do all the work (set up the bridge line and recording, write the interview questions, etc.) and they get free exposure. You’ll want to ask them to promote the teleseminar to their list and networks as well, which will help you fill it.

Once the teleseminar is over, they can do whatever they want with their copy of the recording. For example, they can use it as another lead-generating tool or create a paid product from it.

4. Offer teleseminars through associations, organizations, and agencies for free

Contact those groups that are comprised of your target market and offer to hold a free teleseminar as a valuable benefit for their members. They help you fill it by promoting it as one of their member benefits. This is a great win-win strategy to use.

5. Post to discussion lists within your niche, with permission and on the appropriate day

Seek out those forums made up of your target market, join, listen in to the conversation and add valuable comments when you can. If the forum allows a short signature line for your posts, point people to your teleseminar there. And if the forum invites promotions on a certain day, take advantage of that by advertising your teleseminar.

6. Google Adwords - for fresh traffic

Running a Google Adwords campaign will bring fresh traffic to your teleseminars. Create a single page website where the only choice your visitor has is to sign up for your teleseminar, and point your Google ad to that page. This is a very effective way to fill teleseminars.

Now you have 6 very effective ways to fill your teleseminar. Put them into action for each class you hold, and you’ll increase the number of registrants for sure.

Alicia M Forest, MBA, Multiple Streams Queen & Coach T, founder of ClientAbundance.com and creator of 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success SystemT, teaches professionals how to attract more clients, create profit-making products and services, make more sales, and ultimately live the life they desire and deserve. For FREE tips on how to create abundance in your business, visit http://www.ClientAbundance.com .

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com

I love being a guest on other people’s teleseminars. What I love best is the fact that all I have to do is show up and talk when someone else is sponsoring them. I’m responsible for none of the marketing and promotion and registration involved with sponsoring a teleseminar. Best of all is that I don’t have to schlep all over town to do these guest speaking gigs. I’m presenting my expertise to my target market from the comfort of my own home office.

How can you add a signature teleseminar to your marketing mix? Here’s my 10-step process for creating and profiting from your own signature teleseminar:

1. Create 3 info-packed 50 minute teleseminars. Have at your disposal at least 3 information-packed signature teleseminars that you can present at a moment’s notice. So many of the teleseminars and webinars that I have attended recently are nothing but thinly disguised sales pitches for a very expensive live event, product, or mentoring/coaching program. I don’t object to being sold to — after all, I’m a business owner and I realize that others can’t simply give away their time at no charge solely for the joy of doing a presentation. However, what I do resent is wasting my time listening to 45 minutes of sales pitch and 5 minutes of questionably valuable information. Ensure your listeners great value each and every time that you present a teleclass, and provide information that they use today in their businesses.

2. Craft your description and learning bullet points. Write a one paragraph overview of your teleclass and include 3-7 bullet points outlining what the participants will learn as a result of participating in your teleseminar. Your host will love you, as you’ve just provided the bulk of the text she’ll need to market your teleseminar.

3. Write your bio and have your headshot available. Teleseminar hosts like to begin with a short introduction of the guest and often post the guest bio to their websites or send it out as a part of the teleseminar promotion to their lists. In this version of your bio, craft a succinct description of who you are and what you do that includes any certifications you may hold, authorship of books, and your unique selling proposition. Then provide a very short overview of your background and your current company. The goal is to have a short, compelling bio (around 150 words) that takes the host about 20 seconds to read to introduce you. Include a small version of your headshot and logo to help your host add graphical interest to the teleseminar promotions.

4. Determine your call to action/sales pitch. Prior to the call, determine your most desired action from the participants. Is it to buy a particular product? Sign up for a complimentary consultation? Send for your free gift and be added to your newsletter list? Ideally, you should offer participants the ability to buy into your business at 3 levels: free, low-cost, more expensive. You’ll then have a wider appeal to the audience to capture them at wherever they are in terms of price point. Include your call to action in the promotional emails as appropriate, in your handout, and within your PowerPoint slides. In order to create a sense of urgency, you should set a deadline that falls 24-48 hours after your presentation that serves as the cutoff point for your special pricing offer. If participants are encouraged to register even if they can’t participate on the live call (i.e. all registrants can access a recording of the call), create a special offer available only to those on the live class to increase live participation numbers.

5. Create a landing page on your website for participants. If your call to action involves special pricing on your product or service, create a landing page on your website that greets the participants by name, i.e. Welcome XYZ Conference Participants. Customize your page several more times to refer to the participants by name, and be sure to include the deadline for the special pricing offer in the text of the page as well as in the PS of your sales page. I simply take my traditional sales page and customize it for the group for which I’ll be speaking and update the deadlines for special pricing. In order to make this most effective, you have to remember to remove the sales page on your designated deadline and replace it with a page that indicates the visitor has returned after the deadline but can still purchase your product or service at its regular price.

6. Design a PPT and handouts. Even if I’m doing a teleseminar with no visual component, I still put together a PowerPoint file of my presentation. I provide that to the host if I’m doing a webinar or presenting in an audio conference room. For teleseminars, I turn my PowerPoint file into a PDF that serves as a handout for the participants. I add a first page that contains my contact information as well as resources mentioned during the call and my call to action. Talk to your host to determine if she will be distributing the handout via email or on her website prior to the call or if you need to have it available for download from your website.

7. Determine your guesting requirements. When I’m a guest presenter, at a minimum I request a recording of the teleseminar that I can use in whatever way I want in my business. I may place it on my site as a free download, send it out as a podcast, make it a members-only benefit, or sell it or include it as a part of another product available on my site. If the host is providing a transcript of the session, request a copy of that as well to use in your business. Lastly, inquire if the host is sending out a followup email to participants after the teleseminar. If so, ask to have your contact info and special offer sent to them again.

8. Research venues offering teleclasses and request to be a guest. Most of the invitations I’ve received to be a teleseminar guest have resulted from articles I’ve written in professional and trade publications, from someone visiting the speaking page of my website, or from having been heard speaking to another group. However, don’t wait for people to contact you. Start to research companies sponsoring teleclasses or workshops for your target market and ask to be a guest. In your request, be sure and provide detailed info about the topic on which you’ll be speaking, as well as a copy of your handout. You want to make it as easy as possible for the host to pick you as the next teleseminar guest.

9. Repackage your teleseminar for different markets. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you speak to a different target market. With a few changes in your materials, you can usually change the focus of your presentation and make it appear customized for the target market to whom you’ll be speaking. Many times just changing the title and inserting the name of your target market is all you have to do to create a seemingly customized presentation.

10. Ask for a testimonial to add to your website. Once you’ve completed your presentation, don’t forget to ask for a testimonial from your host that you can place on your website. In order to be valuable to you, the testimonial should include info about how much value you provided in the presentation, sample of positive feedback from participants, or how your presentation enabled some type of change or ability to take action from the participants.

Spend a few hours designing your signature teleseminar and begin to offer to present it to various groups. You’ll see your both your list and sales numbers grow from this easy-to-implement marketing strategy.

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com

- A Strategy for Exploding Your Internet Marketing Results

Teleclasses also called Teleseminars are one of the most powerful ways to build rapport with your target market, establish expert credibility and make your bank account grow!

Combined with Internet marketing methods, teleclasses will allow you to build a list of loyal subscribers who become your life-long customers. Think about how effective you are when you are talking with your clients - it is your warmth, helpfulness, knowledge and interest in helping them that makes them sing your praises and keep coming back for your products and services. Now multiply that response by 100 people or more on a call. You can make money by charging a fee for your teleclass or offer it for free.

Consider recording your teleclass and using it as a bonus gift with other products or services that you sell. Most bridgeline companies offer recording services. Consider having your recorded audio class transcribed into a written document. This can serve as articles for your e-zine or your free report that you give away when someone joins your list.

Teleclasses for Lead Generation

A free teleclass can be extremely effective for building your subscriber list. The free information you provide is not going to send someone shopping for your competitor’s services. Quite the contrary. The fact that you took your time to prepare and present an informational call impresses the heck out of them. They figure out really fast that you know what you are talking about and most importantly, that you really care about them. Just like you want to do business with people you know and trust, they do too. Be sure to give your callers some incentive to join your mailing list. A free report or another call can be a great enticement. Once they join, you have a hot market to get in front of again and again.

Teleclasses for a Fee

Teleclasses can be a product that you sell. You might offer a single class or a series of teleclasses that provide information on a topic of great interest and demand. For example, if you are a financial planner and have hot tips for a plan that allows anyone to retire in 5 years, you are not going to have a bit of trouble getting people on your call. Teleclassses can also be used for motivation or coaching purposes. You can also use them to promote a front end product that allows you to market a more expensive back end product, seminar or service later on.

Free and Low Cost Bridge Lines

At http://www.webpuzzlemaster.com/links-resources.htm you will find companies that provide free and low-cost bridge line services.

Start including teleclasses in your Internet marketing tool kit and watch your sales go through the roof. Don’t be afraid to set yourself apart from others - that is what attracts customers and the media to you. It is what gets you recognized as a leader, an expert in your field and known as the best choice to do business with. Your success on the Internet is all about the marketing.

Online design and marketing specialist, Ruth Kuttler, “the Web PuzzleMaster,” is the creator of “Winning Marketing Secrets” E-zine. Get my FREE SPECIAL REPORT, “10 Simple Secrets for Making your Website into a Selling Machine!” at http://www.WebPuzzleMaster.com/newsletter.htm

Recently many of my coach clients have launched teleclass programs, some have been doing these for ages, others have just recently started. There is so much that a coach needs to know about setting up a teleclass. Many prefer to let a Virtual Assistant, such as myself, handle it all for them, while others like to be more hands on in the set up. For those of you who wish to know more, this month we are going to focus on teleclasses; the set up, the promotions, the format, the follow up.

I hope that you enjoy!