GoToWebinar is the most popular webinar hosting platform out there for internet marketers. So I should probably give it some time.
This episode is a review of the features for GoToWebinar.com. At least, what they are as I see it.
We talk about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. What works, what doesn’t.
GoToWebinar is the most reliable webinar hosting service I have used. It just plain works.
Webinar Marketing Podcast review of the GoToWebinar hosting platform
Plus it is a fully contained system. Host the webinar, host your recordings, build your registration page, send out your reminders, send out your follow-ups. It’s all here.
You can say that for some of the other services, too. But none of them are quite as intuitive as GoToWebinar. It’s great for your first time through.
The big issues are that there is no chat room for your guests. They can message you, but not each other.
I used to not care about that. But I love the idea of Social Presence and have pushed for more interaction in recent months.
GoToWebinar does not integrate directly with your mailing list, either. But there are some solutions. I’ll present a couple in the podcast.
The conclusion of the GoToWebinar review? If you want a reliable service for webinars… GoToWebinar is for you.
But if you are bootstrapping, the costs can be prohibitive. Still, your 30 Day Free Trial is worth using anyway.
What is a Webinar? And how do webinars fit into this great big online marketing journey?
You may have heard that webinars are a great way to get new leads for your business. Make new sales. Conquer the world.
Great… if you only knew what the heck a webinar is. No one will step back to explain that to you.
Put simply, a webinar is an online presentation. It’s any corporate meeting, faculty meeting, briefing, whatever you want to call it – but presented online.
Oh wow! An online meeting! All the part-time online entrepreneurs who have a 9-5 job just left. Shuddering at the thought of coming home to ANOTHER meeting.
When used in marketing, webinars are all about training. Teaching. Helping people learn something they actually want to learn.
And you can host or attend a webinar from home. In your pajamas if you choose.
When you use online webinar presentations as part of your marketing plan, your whole goal should be to teach. And to inspire.
And as part of your marketing, you’re doing this for free. You can use webinars as part of a paid training course (and I do). But when we’re talking marketing, you are delivering an extremely valuable and FREE training.
What’s In A Webinar?
Webinars are usually centered around a PowerPoint presentation (or Keynote for Macs). Nothing fancy.
All you need is a computer, a microphone, the presentation, and a webinar hosting service (oh and guests… that’s the tricky part).
The webinar hosting service you choose will share whatever you show on your computer screen and anything you say into your microphone, with all of your webinar guests.
Webinars are usually in real time, or with a few seconds of delay.
In recent years, webinar hosting services have been in a race to come up with the newest, shiniest new toys for webinars. But most of this is not necessary. Or even good for you, as the presenter.
The only component you need from your webinar service, besides screen and audio sharing, is a chat box. Some way the audience can communicate with you (and with the rest of the audience, in some cases).
That is a necessity. If guests cannot communicate with you, you might as well not be live (we call that a video, not a webinar).
You’re an expert in your field. You have tons of knowledge.
Why on earth would you teach it for free?
Because you are a good person. Or a good business person. Take your pick.
Most of us are a little bit of both. We like to help people, but we need to make enough money to buy groceries and pay rent too. And a yacht should circumstances permit.
Free webinars help to establish your expertise in the minds of your attendees. To show that you are a smarty pants.
And to initiate a value for value exchange. The law of reciprocity – you give others something, they feel a strong need to give you something back.
Your webinars will teach, and inspire. And then you tell the audience how you can teach and inspire them even more! With your special widget. Or training course. Or consulting. Or anything else you want to see.
Why should you be working toward building an online business? Because it’s great.
Here’s a little example. I went down to the beach for about 20 minutes today and created a new video.
In this video I’ll even tell you the tools I used to do that (it’s not much). But the best part is, I was able to do this on my vacation. Without much fuss.
You might get bogged down and frustrated as you struggle to learn a lot of the tools and concepts you’ll need to build your online business. It takes time. There are set-backs. Building a business online is hard!
Setting up those systems seems tedious. You could just keep working, plowing ahead. Never stopping to write down what you did. The stuff that creates systems usually seems like something you could easily put off.
I hope this video will give you a little inspiration to push forward. And to slow down. So check it out!
What’s the secret? What are the real tools of the trade for profitable webinars?
Not much, really. Some hosting, a cheap mic and an internet connection.
You could do this thing for practically nothing. At least when you get started.
But when you get rolling, there are a few more tools you can add. The toolbox gets a little bigger when you start to really focus on webinars.
In this episode, I’ll tell you 8 tools (more really, but that’s OK) that I’m using for my webinars right now, including…
WebinarJam for hosting larger, free web clinics
GoToWebinar for hosting private, paid webinars
PowerPoint for… well, powerpoints.
Infusionsoft for all of my shopping cart and mailing list needs
Logitech USB Headset for a microphone, because nothing else works here since the aliens came
Bamboo Tablet for drawing diagrams (particularly in football webinars)
Facebook for my advertising… and my thoughts on some other platforms
LeadPages to handle my opt-in pages. I should have mentioned, I use it for my sales pages as well!
Photo by Tom Williams / CC BY 2.0
Are these all the tools that I recommend for you? Probably not. Depending on where your business is, and how many alien invasions your house has had, there are probably better tools.
You can find out exactly what I think you need to have to when you download my 5 Must-Have Tools for Creating Webinars (it was what I was using, at time time).
You’re also going to get a T.M.I. re-cap of one of my most recent webinars. It’s not the 6-figure blowout you hear from the top gurus, sorry. But it’s a pretty good profit for a few hours of work!
I really want to hear your feedback. What tools did I leave out? Which tools seem a little intimidating to you? Leave a comment below!
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