The Edge Marketing

Have you ever listened to a Teleseminar or live presentation and wished you had some notes to follow along with or at least to take home as a reminder of what you heard? Or perhaps you were listening to a talk and had trouble visualizing what the speaker was trying to convey. If only you had a photo, drawing or some other visual aid.

Don't make the mistake of leaving out visual aids when you create your Teleseminar. Here's why ...Visual aids can greatly improve learning. By some estimates, they can increase memory retention by 40-60%. Not only that, but they can make your presentations much more interesting. They allow you to significantly increase the amount of information that can be conveyed in a given period of time. If used properly, they can increase listener involvement.

Think about what this means for your Teleseminars. By adding visual aids, you can dramatically increase the value of your presentation. If you promote this added value properly, you can attract more listeners and (for paid events) charge higher fees for the Teleseminar or the information products you create from them.

Here are 13 things you can use to add visual support to your Teleseminar:

1. Outline Of Your Presentation/Talking Notes. You should create an outline for your Teleseminar anyway; why not provide it to your listeners to help listeners follow along.

2. Fill-In-The-Blank Notes. This is a great derivative of the above strategy which requires your listeners to pay attention to fill in the blanks. In fact, I strongly recommend you do this. Otherwise, people may leave the call or not even show up thinking they have all the information on the notes.

3. Drawings, Diagrams, Photos, Flow Diagrams. They say a picture is worth a thousand words ... provide visuals that emphasize key points.

4. Power Point Presentation. A power point presentation allows you to offer text support and visuals. You can have the listeners have the file open and ready to view when the teleseminar starts. If you don't want the client to view the material prior to the teleseminar, you can password protect the document once you have converted it to PDF.

5. Articles, Reports, Or Books. You can offer a report with your Teleseminar and refer your listeners to the parts that you want them to take note of while you are speaking.

6. Magazines And Newspapers. Magazines and newspapers can be great sources of support material for your presentation. Many publications offer free or low-cost access to their online archives. Often you can just send your listeners to the publication to access this material. Some publications are eager to have you pass their articles around as long as you don't remove the contact information.

7. eZines (online newsletters). You can find ezines that deal with just about anything. This can be a great way to find support material for your Teleseminar. Just look up "ezine directory" or "newsletter directory" in your favorite search engine. Check out some of the directories and find what you are looking for.

8. Resource Lists. Resource lists can be very useful for your Teleseminar audience.

9. Your Web Site. If your web site has content that would help illustrate your points, send your listeners to your site.

10. Special Pages On Your Web Site Just For Your Teleseminar Listeners Or People Who Are Given Any Information Products You Create From Them. You can create special subdomain pages on your web site with special information for your Teleseminar listeners.

11. Other People's Web Sites. There are web sites on the Internet which deal with just about every topic you can think of. If you don't have a web site with information to support your talk, look for someone else's web site. Just search on key words related to your topic.

12. Software. This can be great for illustrating various points you want to make. For example, you might want to use an excel spreadsheet to demonstrate financial performance.

13. Props. Sometimes it helps to have your listeners use props to demonstrate your points. For example, if you were doing a science Teleseminar and wanted to show how oil is lighter than water, you could tell your listeners to have a glass of water and a few tablespoons of cooking oil available. Then, during your presentation you could have them put the oil in the water and see how it floats.

A key issue for your visual aids is how to deliver them. First, lets consider format. Anytime you are delivering documents (notes, books, reports, etc), I recommend you use PDF. It is easily accessible to both PC and Mac users. Also, it is more difficult for people to copy and use, so you can protect your information.

Avoid sending attachments if at all possible. They clog up your listeners e-mail in-box and may not get opened due to concerns with viruses.

Where possible, set your documents up so they can be accessed by a download link. This will require that you have access to a web site to store and access the information for download. If you don't know how to do this, talk to your web developer or a computer savvy friend.

My favorite strategy is to create a resource web page with download links to the materials I want to provide. I often require the listener to sign-in (name and e-mail address) to get to the resource page. This allows me to capture contact information.

Now I can hear some of you saying "I don't have any visual aids and I don't have the time or desire to create any." Well, as you can see from some of the discussion above, there are lots of ways to get information without creating it.

Often you will be able to refer your listeners to articles, books, or reports they already might have or could easily get on the web, at a book store, or at their local library. You can send listeners to other peoples web sites. You have many options even if you don't have your own visuals or support material.

Make sure you let your listeners know in advance if they need to have visual aids available during your call ... and give them plenty of time. If you wait until the call to announce this, they either won't have the material with them or they may leave your call to find it.

When you do your Teleseminar, think about how you can use visual aids and support material to add content, clarify your points, and increase your value. Sometimes this can dramatically increase the price you can charge and often helps increase your attendance.

Try it, this is a killer Teleseminar strategy.

To learn more about how you can create powerful and very profitable teleseminars, visit http://www.TeleseminarSuccess.com.

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