Sound Solutions: North Bank Audio Solutions

If you want to attract more clients, establish yourself as an expert and capture the valuable knowledge that you already have in your head, you should be hosting teleseminars.

A teleseminar is simply a way of distributing your knowledge to your audience. They are virtual events hosted on the telephone via a bridge line. Because of how simple they are to set up, they are usually the easiest way to get started in information marketing.

Very few of us are effective writers and even less of us actually enjoy doing it. If you are a coach, consultant, speaker trainer, teacher or service professional, it’s almost a given that your primary mode of communication is vocal. This is the beauty of a teleseminar.

Instead of speaking only to your clients, those who call your office or that you call, you can reach large audiences during and after your teleseminar. And instead of having to travel to high pressure speaking engagements, you can host teleseminars from your home or office.

Here are the 9 simple steps to launching your information empire with teleseminars:

Step one: choose a topic. This is a major roadblock for some people. Remember to focus on the benefits of the concepts you are teaching and that you pick a topic that your target market is actually hungry for - not just something you like to talk about.

Step two: create an outline. Don’t waste your time by writing out a word-for-word script for your teleseminar. Not only is it time consuming, but it will make you sound unnatural when you are hosting your event.

Step three: host and record a teleseminar. Use a free bridge line service like www.freeconferencepro.com or better yet, use www.handsfreeteleseminars.com, an online tool that allows you to host, record and promote your event at a very low cost. Simply invite your list, your friends or anyone who you know who might be interested in the topic you are covering. Don’t worry - even it if it’s just you on the line, still deliver the teleseminar.

Step four: distribute the recording. Send out the recording to your teleseminar attendees.

Step five: transcribe the teleseminar. Have a professional transcriptionist convert the audio recording into a text format. This can then be distributed as PDF to your teleseminar attendees and sold or given away as a free report or white paper.

Step six: set up an opt-in page with your recording and transcript as a free or low cost lead generation product. It can be in the form of digital files or a CD and a printed transcript. You will then drive traffic to this page through your online and offline marketing campaigns. Your goal is to get targeted people in your target market to exchange their contact information for your valuable recording and transcript. Then you can be in touch with those people and help transition them into customers and clients.

Step seven: repurpose your teleseminar into marketing materials. The audio can be redistributed as podcasts and submitted to directories. The text can be edited and redistributed as online marketing articles, blog posts, ezines and e-courses and press releases. The audio and text can be combined to create online video which can be submitted to YouTube and other video sites. All these pieces can be promoted through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, blogs relevant to your target market and social bookmarking tools like Digg.

Step eight: repeat the process. Tweak as you go. Notice which topics and approaches get the best response and focus on those. Pay close attention to which questions are asked the most.

Step nine: archive and repurpose again. Consider repurposing multiple free or low cost teleseminars into a book or a big ticket item (live event, high-end info product, home study course or coaching program.)

Even if you don’t complete all nine steps for your first few teleseminars, keep creating and moving forward. By simply getting started with information marketing and list building will help you refine your message, grow your business and differentiate yourself from your competition.

And now I’d like to invite you to learn out the 5 simple steps to turn one hour into a successful marketing plan at http://www.northbankaudio.com/teleclass

Caleb Scoville helps consultants, trainers, coaches and service professionals, multiply their impact with information products and audio and video online marketing strategies.

Many people are turned off by how fast technology moves. I recently got a question from someone who wanted to get into using video more to market her business and monetize her knowledge, but was puzzled as to how to get started.

She didn’t want to spend a bunch of money only to have her gadgets become obsolete a few months later. We’ll call her “Technophobe” for the purposes of this post. I don’t use this term in a degrading way. I think her anxiety around fast-moving technology highlights a common thread through the psyches of many people who want to get into info marketing, but aren’t sure how to get started. It’s also something I’ve noticed is very common with people who aren’t quite young enough to have grown up in the age of 1,000 mile-per-hour computer technology.

Here was my advice to her. I hope you find it helpful as well.

Dear Technophobe,

Don’t be discouraged by fast changes in technology. Much of that is simply marketing tactics to create perceived obsolescence so that people will buy more products. (The ironic thing is that this kind of marketing often discourages people like you - and myself - from buying anything.) The truth is, if it does the job now, it’s probably going to do the job just fine for years to come. It mantra doesn’t always work for things like computers, but now that we’re in the digital age, I wouldn’t worry too much about making a bad investment in a camera. Now is a good time to buy one.

I would go to an electronics store and try out a few cameras and just pick which one you like. I don’t have a specific suggestion. Simply find one that fits within your budget. Generally, with cameras, I would say don’t buy the very cheapest one available, but maybe a step or two up. You can find very decent video cameras for around $200.00. The cool thing about technology moving so fast is that these same cameras were five or ten times more expensive a few years back, so you’ve actually saved money by waiting.

Some specs to look for are:

* Buy a camera that uses miniDV tapes. I would avoid the cameras that export to a proprietary format because you can run into problems when you try to edit and produce them.

* Make sure it has an external microphone input. Audio quality is at least as important as video quality. This way, you can always upgrade the audio without buying a new camera.

* Pick a camera that isn’t too noisy. It’s always a bummer when you play back your recordings and there’s an annoying buzz or hum over the whole take.

Probably more important than the camera itself is that you have proper lighting when you record and that you use a tripod. Natural light looks the best, so if you can record in a space with lots of windows, that is ideal. You can supplement by placing lights (sometimes household lamps will work just fine) behind the camera as you record.

To edit your video, it all depends on your level of tech-savvyness. If you use windows, sometimes the free Windows Movie maker will work just fine. If you use a mac, iMovie will do the job. A step up is Sony Vegas Video Studio (about $100 I think) and if you want to use what the pros use, go for Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. I use Adobe Premiere, but going that way will set you back quite a bit.

If you’d rather delegate the editing, there are lots of people who can do that for you. My business offers video production (http://northbankaudio.com) but we are by no means the only show in town. Shop around locally and online or ask colleagues for a recommendation.

To get your stuff online, there’s a nifty tool called http://tubemogul.com/ that will help you upload to about a dozen of the top video sites (including YouTube) in one swoop, for free. This is one of my favorite tools.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I brought up any other questions or ideas along the way.

~Caleb

One way to leverage your time and propel you to expert status is by creating information products. A CD is an information product. This is something that can be free or for a fee. The free option is opt-in bait for a website, the ethical bribe, or the “pink spoon” as it is sometimes referred to. CDs are extremely easy and inexpensive to create and market.

This article was harvested from a transcribed teleseminar I hosted which can be part of a teleseminar. It may not be something that I’ll sell, but it’s something that I can use as opt-in bait. Then I don’t have to deliver this teleseminar every week or month. I can just say, “Do you want to learn these things?” and I can use the same sales or opt-in page I use to get people to opt in to this seminar. I can send them directly to the recording.

It can be just as effective as a teleseminar. The only reason it might not be quite as effective is there’s not a specific date attached to it, so there’s not as much urgency for people to opt in. There’s nothing that it has to go into once you put it up there. There’s no reason not to take advantage of this kind of thing.

Also, the recordings can be sold as bonuses along with other programs or products to add value. If you have some sort of coaching or higher-end program, you can include a recorded teleseminar, for example, “The Seven Deadly Mistakes” or “Six Essential Pits.” This is a great way to leverage that if it pertains to your target market and the problems that they have.

The recordings are also an instant legitimizer. Once you become a publisher of an info product, things will start to happen differently for you. Obviously, it’s not going to happen overnight, but you will have more opportunities if you have some sort of product to sell or give away.

If you have hosted a teleseminar, you already have an info product. There are a couple of different options. One could be a digital download, which is easy to set up. I suggest doing that no matter what.

There are also the CD and print material. There’s usually a higher per CD value with these, but it really depends on your niche market. You will just have to look into that to see which one is more realistic for you and a better deal.

I definitely encourage you to get started with this. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Even if you just record and do not edit or spiff it up, your content can be a great legitimizer to give away to your prospects.