Teleseminars vs. webinars?

“Which one should I do…” is one of the most common questions I get asked. Maybe you have the question, too.

If so, I’m going to begin to clear things up for you today.

But before I give you an answer, I want to point out that the question is flawed: there’s no “magic” in either a teleseminar or a webinar, so deciding between the two isn’t the key.

Anyone who tells you one is, hands down, better then the other, is probably trying to sell you whichever one they are selling.

Here’s why.

In most markets, you get the best results by doing a combination of both.

There are two simple reasons:

  1. Different people prefer different media; so you get different people on each session and more people overall when you do both.
  2. Novelty attracts attention; meaning if you have been doing teleseminars forever and throw a webinar into the mix (with a REASON WHY) … it’ll grab major attention the first few times just because it is different. The same effect, though less so, happens in reverse.

You see, people think webinars outperform teleseminars because the technology is more advanced.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, because of the technology, it’s much easier to “screw up” a webinar; there are more things that can go wrong.

Now think about this: if you’re selling dandelion seeds to 70-year old garden enthusiasts, a webinar is probably not your best bet. This market can wrap their heads around the idea of a “telephone seminar.” But an interactive Internet seminar? You’re going to lose people. And in this instance, a teleseminar will pull in a bigger crowds and bigger numbers.

On the other hand, there are cases where it makes more sense to use a webinar. If you’re selling, let’s say, software or anything the needs to be demonstrated visually, a webinar will typically perform better when done well. Or if you are marketing to “internet marketers”

And these are just a couple of examples which illustrate that one isn’t definitively better than the other.

Most businesses aren’t on those extremes, so I’ll tell you what I’ve learned after thousands of teleseminars and webianrs delivered by myself and my clients.

Ultimately, you’ll make the most money by learning to do and delivering both teleseminars AND webinars.

In fact, my best performing sales sequences have always included both (in a very specific order).

Don’t worry; it’s less work than it sounds.

If you learn how to run profitable teleseminars, then you know 90% of what it takes to run profitable webinars … and vice versa. Learning them separately does NOT make sense.

Now, the word “profitable” in the sentence above is the key.

Simply doing a teleseminar or webinar guarantees you nothing. In fact, most people don’t make any money because they don’t know the secrets of a session that sells.

You have to learn how to run you sessions … teleseminar and webinar … in a way that gets people to open their wallets and give you money.

So in the end, the question isn’t figuring out whether to do a teleseminar or webinar. It’s figuring out how to do them both well and combine them effectively so you attract the most callers and make the biggest profits.

by Michael Cage in Teleseminar Marketing & Webinar Marketing