One of the most cost effective and proven ways to attract more customers, increase web traffic and build credibility is to offer free teleseminars or teleclasses to your target market. A teleseminar is when you provide valuable information to a group of people who call into a shared bridge line to learn what you are speaking about. When you chose a topic that is relevant and of interest to your target market, you will immediately begin to attract potential customers to hear your lecture. These same people will want to sign up and learn more about you from your website resulting in increased traffic and lastly, by teaching during a teleclass, you are positioning yourself as the expert in your field and allowing people to experience you before they make an investment resulting in a higher conversion rate.

But, to ensure a successful teleseminar, there is a process that you need to take to ensure you are optimizing this marketing strategy to its fullest potential. Here is a 9 step process for planning a successful teleclass:

Step #1: Determine your objective

It is important to determine your business objective for offering a teleclass before you even start the process. I encourage my customers to start with the end in mind and plan backwards. What are you trying to accomplish with this program?

Step #2: Decide on your format, topic and audience objectives

There are many formats to choose from and each format requires different planning and time structure. Are you providing education? Are you previewing a product? Are you conducting an interview? Is this a paid class or a free class? Select the right format and a topic that your audience is interested in and that aligns with your core competencies. Always keep your audience in mind and determine what your audience will get out of attending the program. What's in it for them?

Step #3: Develop your sales & registration page

Once you understand why your audience will benefit from your program, it is important to build a strong sales page that reinforces those benefits and compels people to register for your program. A strong registration process will accomplish two things: it will capture the information from your attendees so you want to think about what information you want to gather at this point and it will provide you another opportunity to communicate before and after the teleclass.

Step # 4: Identify & reach out to potential affiliate partners

To increase your reach, you need to leverage the good will of other marketers who sell into your same target market so begin to build a database of potential partners and contact them with an offer to support your program. Make sure you make an offer that not only benefits their customers, but benefits them as well.

Step #5: Promote your program

Now it is time to get the word out about your program so you want to use a variety of different marketing methods to promote your teleclass. A big mistake is only marketing to a few and not using every marketing tactic you have in your arsenal to build awareness to your teleclass.

Step #6: Develop your content and prepare for your call

The content you deliver is the most critical aspect of a successful teleclass and can cause of great success or great failure. Attendees tend to look at teleclasses as an opportunity for them to learn something new and how they can benefits from the topic. So start with an outline and decided what you want to talk about. For each point, be sure to focus on the learning aspect and the benefits so your customers remain engaged and be sure to provide your best stuff, so they will continue to want more.

Step #7: Deliver your teleclass

As with any presentation, prepare yourself to deliver an exceptional teleclass. Practice, practice, practice and use basic deliver skills to ensure your success. Your audience isn't in front of you so you need to master your voice and use it as a tool to keep your audience engaged and interested. Decide how and when you are going to handle questions and be aware of your audience's time and don't forget about your call to action- what do you want your audience to do with your information?

Step #8: Follow up with your audience

Success is always in the follow up. Typically people do not have a high retention rate so you want to reinforce your ideas and lesson objectives in a follow up communication. Depending upon your objective, you will also plan your follow up to ensure your call to action is being followed.

Step #9: Repurpose your material

Success marketers know to leverage all their content into multiple uses so think about what you have just prepared and delivered and identify three ways you can reuse that content in other ways. Perhaps an article, an e-Product, or a free giveaway?

Following these 9 steps consistently will ensure that you have as successful teleseminar and teleclass that will attract more customers, increase web traffic and position you as an expert in your industry.