Planning a Teleseminar
As with anything important take the time to think about what you want to do and why.
Below are some of the thing you should be considering
Who |
Who to invite (do you have a list already or will you be renting one?) |
What |
What will you talk about and will it be compelling enough to get people to remember to join the meeting. No matter how excellent your content, assume that many of the people that say they will attend, will forget or be distracted by something they believe to be more interesting. So you need to assume a low attendance versus invitation ratio. For instance if 50 people say they will attend, perhaps only 20 really will. |
Why |
Why are you doing this? What do you want or need to achieve? Are you doing this to make money or promote something else? Why will people want to attend, what’s in it for them? |
When |
Make it easy to join by choosing a time when the majority of your invitees will not be busy. For instance, if you were doing a teleseminar for accountants, you wouldn’t do it at the end of the month or start of a quarter. What do you know about your potential participants? When is a good time for them? If the call is in the evening, will people arrive home late because of commuting? Do they need to put the kids to bed? Are they all in the same time zone or spread around the world? Is the date during a school holiday or the day before a public holiday. |
How |
How will you deliver the presentation? For up to 50 people, teleseminars are great because they are easy to do and allow real time interaction with the audience. When you get above 50 people you need to consider just putting a recording on your website. |
Gaining interest
The teleseminar needs a punchy title that makes people want to attend.
Your content needs to clearly deliver on this or people will disconnect during the presentation.
How Long
With attention span issues, it is rare to see teleseminars that last more than an hour. If someone is paying to attend you will also need to consider that they need to feel they have had their money’s worth.
If you are planning for the meeting to last more than an hour, you should consider either having a second presenter or someone you can use as a foil. This will keep the presentation sounding more alive than is normally possible with just one person.
When
No matter how compelling your content, if it is not easy to join you could find yourself with a small audience.
For out of hours seminars the most popular times for teleseminars are between 6:30PM and 8:30PM Monday to Thursday. You should have a look at your audience profile before locking in a time. If all of your attendees will be attending from home but may have to travel commute a long distance, then you should aim for a later start. If you target audience is likely to have a young family then you may need to set you start time after the kids have gone to bed.
<< Previous | Teleseminar homepage | Next >>
