15
High Impact Ideas To Increase The Value Of Your Teleseminar Content
by Preston Campbell
When it comes to teleseminars or any other speaking events, high value content is king. When I say king, I mean the big KING ... king of the world.
You should strive to make your teleseminar relevant, interesting, and useful to your listeners.
Why? Because it will help you build a great reputation and put dollars (lots and lots of them) in your pocket.
Sadly, this doesn't always happen and the result can be a big hit to your reputation and lots of lost sales. Let me give you an example.
I was on a teleseminar a few months ago. Something I paid about $69 bucks to attend. I got on the call with high hopes of picking up some useful new information I could apply to my various businesses and boy was I disappointed...
The call started out with a lot of useless dialogue and I figured, "well, they must just be warming up." After about 30 minutes, they still really hadn't said anything useful. I began to get frustrated.
We took a break at about 45 minutes and they promised to get to the really exciting stuff when we returned. I was thinking "great, we'll finally get to learn some cool new marketing strategies", BUT ...
The second half of the call was even worse than the first. At least I think so, because I gave up 15 minutes into the second half of the session and hung up the phone since saw no use in wasting any more time.
To put it in plain english, THEIR CALL SUCKED! (technical term for having completely ignored the thought of providing any useful value to the audience).
Yeah, I was feeling a little grumpy and very ripped off when it was over. I will never again attend one of their teleseminars or buy anything from them. I took myself off their list and I want nothing to do with them.
When the CD-ROM recording of the call came in the mail, I just threw it in the trash. I spoke with a few other people on the call and they had the same reaction.
Why did this happen?
Their call was a total failure because they made several very common teleseminar mistakes relating to content:
They clearly hadn't planned their teleseminar. It was a stream of consciousness dialogue between two people who probably hadn't done much coordination.
The information was poorly organized. I doubt if they had a clear idea of what the listeners wanted to hear.
They didn't provide any useful ideas or processes that could be applied to the topic area. They spent a lot of time talking about what a great marketing tool their topic was, but never really explained how to use it ...
I'm still in shock that anyone could spend 2 hours talking and not say anything useful OK, OK, enough ranting, raving and complaining ...
I don't want to be guilty of delivering poor content too.
At this point, you may be asking ... What Can I Do To Create & Deliver High Value Content? Glad you asked ;-)
After consulting with many, many (many, many, many ... ) clients on their teleseminars, I've found the following list of ideas to be extremely useful in creating high value content:
Find out what your listeners want and need to know ... deliver it to them.
"Want" refers to what they feel would be interesting and useful. Need is what they "need" to know to reach their objectives. If you put "needs" in the context of their objectives, they should want the needed information also.
A great way to find out what your audience will want is to survey them in advance of your teleseminar. I recommend Ask Database for surveys.
You can also call some of your listeners and survey them directly (if you have a way of getting phone numbers). Find out what they want and ask if they are interested in what you think they need but might not know about.
Try and match the level of detail to the listeners level of knowledge and typical experiences. If possible, offer content that can't be found anywhere else. If your information is unique and useful, it will likely have high value.
Create a well organized outline that will allow you to present your information in a format that is easy to follow. Break it into key sub-topic areas that flow logically from one idea to the next.
Don't try to provide too much information, but make sure you do have a reasonable amount of useful data.
Avoid jargon, acronyms, etc. Explain your terminology. Start from simple concepts and move to more complex ideas. Summarize at the end of each major section.
Explain why the information is relevant. Tell them the benefits they will get by applying it. You should consider quickly summarizing the what, why, where, when, who, why right up front.
Use lists to give your listeners step-by-step processes that they can follow.
For example, if you were discussing copywriting you might include this list: "7 Steps To Writing Killer Headlines" and then describe each step.
Offer case studies to help the listener get a solid understanding of the processes you are explaining, how they can be applied in the "real" world, and benefits.
The format I recommend and often use is to state the problem, solution, and result. Alex Mandossian (Marketing With Post Cards, and Ask Database) is a master at using case studies. I strongly recommend you listen to any teleseminars where he is a speaker.
A great side benefit is that if the case study relates to one of your products or services, then it can be a strong endorsement of what you have to offer. Consider using case studies to illustrate each top-level point of your talk.
Provide interesting facts. Facts help give you credibility (sounds like you know your stuff), often substantiate your assertions, and give the listener tidbits they can go off and share with other people.
Use fun and useful quotes. They can reinforce your messages. If you are citing authorities, they give your message more credibility. As with facts, they also provide the listener with something to go off and share with their friends and associates later.
Use stories and metaphors to help your listeners internalize your messages. They can be real or fictional. The key point is that, if told properly, they can illustrate your messages at a conscious and unconscious level ... often creating a deep connection to your content.
Cite your sources. This helps substantiate your subject material and gives it and you more credibility. These citations can also be a useful references for further study.
Speaking of references ...
Offer resources that support your topic area. This could be products, services, related information, books, tapes, CD-ROMS, etc. You can mention these during your talk and/or offer a "rolodex" of related resources. If the resource also has an affiliate program, make sure to sign up and send them to that link.
Throw in high value "golden nuggets" of information. The idea here is provide "the big secret" that your listeners can use (immediately if possible) to get big results in your topic area.
Create audience involvement. Use curiosity, question and answer sessions, fill in the blank notes, and mental imagery. There is a whole school of thought on using accelerated learning strategies for presentations.
Unfortunately, not much is specifically applied to the teleseminar. This is a whole topic in itself perhaps for the next news letter.
Use visual aids, props, checklists, web pages and notes to augment your presentation. These add to the real and perceived value of your teleseminar.
They help illustrate your key points and they give the listeners residual or take-away value. That is, your listeners have something to use and refer to after the presentation is over.
Offer after event, follow-up content. This could be audio of the call (digital download, CD-ROM, cassettes), transcripts, answers to questions that couldn't be answered on the calls, etc. This is another way to offer take-away value.
One thing we haven't talked about here is presentation style. You need to be interesting to listen to ... not borrrrrrrring. That is a separate topic, but be aware that it is very important also.
The ideas above for increasing the value of your content work really well. Follow these strategies and combine them to a good presentation style. You'll increase your credibility, build a great reputation with your audiences, and sell more products and services.
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Preston Campbell has been a marketing professional for over 18 years. He uses innovative marketing strategies and proven processes to create marketing systems for his clients that achieve drammatic results.
He is author of the first comprehensive course on how to create massive sales with teleseminars even if you don't have a list or a penny in your pocket.
Learn more at: http://www.teleseminarsuccess.com
Preston is available for coaching, consulting, trainings, seminars, and teleseminars. Learn more at: http://www.profitzonemarketing.com