Free Teleseminars - How do I set one up?

I know that many people have been using free teleseminars as a marketing tool for quite a while now - with much success. One of the most frequent questions I get asked is: "How do I set one up, so it is easy for people to sign up for my free teleseminar AND I can capture their contact info for future marketing?"

And I always say, "There is no ONE right way, but several options to choose from."

If you already have a shopping cart system in place, with a little guidance, or assistance from your friendly Virtual Professional, it is relatively easy to do. The first step is to create a list (or in some cases the cart calls this an autoresponder) where the names will be captured (and an automatic email will go out when they sign up, with all the details). The next step is to create a $0 product, in your cart - and associate the autoresponder with that product. Finally, you will need a way to 'distribute' the product to your target market. Most often, people will send both a marketing email to a current list, with a link to register and/or a link to their website where folks can register. In this case, you may want a custom opt-in form, but it is not necessary. This is boiling it down to the very basic steps, but you get the idea, right?

If you don't have a shopping cart system, but perhaps a email system like iContact.com [http://www.icontact.com], that has an autoresponder system, you can set up the list to capture the names. Next, create the automatic email that folks will get when they sign up. Then, create an opt-in form that can be used for folks to register for the free teleseminar. This opt-in form can often be used in emails to your target market and it can even be placed on a page on your website.

You can even go more 'low-tech' with having a separate email address for folks to RSVP to, but you will have to manually confirm that they are registered and make sure they get the details for participating in the class.

There are also some really 'slick' new technologies - one is called Event Brite [http://www.eventbrite.com/] that is free for free teleseminars - you pay a nominal charge for paid events, too. You can put some great custom HTML in their system to give a super polished and professional look to your event registration.

So, there are always many great options for most any budget. If the technology end scares you a bit, contact a Virtual Professional, like me, to help you pull it all together and have a great marketing tool up and running in no time.