Teleconferences, Talk Your Way Web Traffic

Another way to gets lots of traffic to your websites is via teleconferences.  Teleconferencing is where you can have visitors call in and as group listen to your message, interviews, etc via a normal phone line.

Additionally there are also special virtual rooms on the Internet where you can invite people and the conversation occurs over the Internet rather than on the phone).  I collectively refer to both these types as teleconferences for simplicity however you will note they are often referred to as Webinars (Web Seminars).

Now the thing to think about is what the teleconference will be all about, obviously it has to be of relevance to your listeners otherwise they won’t bother attending at all, so ensure your subject is one that is relevant to them and that they would have an interest in.  Perhaps an obvious thing, but you would be surprised at the number of people would assume people in a completely different market would have an interest in their particular subject (whilst it is possible that a percentage of people here will have an interest, you probably far better off targeting people with a specific interest in your market/products first).

I would recommend you not treat a teleconference as a full on selling opportunity where you spend all your time promoting your product(s) and service(s) as this will most likely turn people off.  If your like me full on sales are a big turn off, and I am very unlikely to buy a product from a company doing this, particularly if this is my first introduction to their products and services.

Remember the golden rule is to ensure you have something of use for the teleconference attendee, something of value to give to them.  You need to give them a reason to attend your teleconference, so ensure that you attack it from this angle.

A good example of a teleconference would be an introduction to a particular product you are using, and the problems that are solved by using the product.

In this example you would probably make the actual problem the focus of the teleconference, and talk about other possible solutions including your product.

Pick a real problem that it’s likely will be faced by lots of people with an interest in your niche market.  For example in web traffic, a good teleconference could have simple premise.  “Real and Practical ways to gain traffic to your Website in hours, not weeks!”.  Hmmm I must remember to use that one down the track!

Make the discussion very informative, very interesting, and actually make sure you can solve the problems you are discussing!  Of course there is no reason why you can not follow up with a URL and promote your website, if your truly going to be able to solve a particular problem it can slot into the presentation quite well.

There are different options available to you in teleconferences, for example you can decide whether to have listener participation or not, whether you should charge for the teleconference, and whether you should record the teleconference and make it available to those people who missed the event.

Thinking laterally, there is no reason why you can not just record the teleconference and then sell it as a product on your website afterwards, it’s certainly been done before!  Alternatively you could use the recording as a free bonus for purchases of your products, etc.

Good online conference software will actually allow you do the following: -

1. Have a password, so that only people you have invited can attend (or it could be only those that have paid for the conference, etc).
2. A mute button so that you can silence all other listeners.  This is useful when you are talking to avoid other people talking over you, etc.
3. Video capability – So you can display a video, webcam image, etc.
4. Internet Browser capability – This is very useful where you can at your computer enter a URL and all the other conference attendees see that URL on their screen – This is great for presentations i.e. Powerpoint, etc where you can bring up information and show this whilst talking at the same time.  This is also very useful for software demonstrations, etc.
5. Private and Public message – Private messages to a selected person, or a public message that all participants can see.

My web host, the guys from Kiosk have a product called hot conference.  This product has all the above capabilities and a lot more.  You can use this product for your online conferences.  Setup is very easy as well.

Not only can you use it for your own online conferences, but they also have an affiliate program for it, where you can sell the “conference” solution to other people.  Better yet it’s a 9-tier affiliate program.  What I found particularly cool is that they do their affiliate training for hot conference (the name of their conferencing tool) using.. Yes you guessed it hot conference itself.  In fact I was not even aware of this package when I first signed up with the web host.

Another good thing to note is that you get a three person conference room (maximum of three people connected at once) for free when you sign up for their web host, so this could be a good solution for you if you don’t need the ability for a large number of people to be connected at any one time.

Check out the tool of the trade chapter for specifics on the actual website, etc.

http://www.overwhelmingtraffic.com/links/HotConference

Of course there is a multitude of options with online conferencing, another popular choice is GotoMeeting.  This is more expensive than Hot Conference but is a very well known and popular option.  Some of the big Internet Marketers use it.

http://www.overwhelmingtraffic.com/links/GotoMeeting

My advice to you would be to start off with the online conference tools, and try that out before deciding which way to go in the long term.  It’s very important to fully test any solution you decide to proceed with before committing to it.