AlanSills.com

An Informative Overview

Go To Webinar – one of the most heavily searched phrases on Google such that the cost per click is literally through the roof! Why? Well, many are discovering that webinars (web based seminars) are a great tool to use to communicate with your “list” and to well, errr, ummm, generate sales! 

When you search (Google) for “go to webinar”, you’ll find a company with just that name as well as “go to meeting” among others. These two companies, Go To Webinar and Go To Meeting are major players in this industry and charge rates that are just fine for most corporate clients – about $100/month. 

These tools allow you to conduct live events (often an hour or longer), record them, and share those recordings for as long as the information is relevant. What do webinar providers share? It could be information about their business; a promotion; or they could be teaching something – thus adding value to their following – who is all the more likely to appreciate the webinar provider and attend the next time they offer an opportunity to connect through this venue. 

For the webinar provider, an online meeting maximizes their limited time. Some of the major internet marketers in the internet marketing industry will have 1000 or more attendees at a webinar. 

But…what about small businesses and home based business entrepreneurs??

Do they have need for webinars? (Yes!) And is Go To Webinar’s fee (as well as Go To Meeting’s) going to work for them? My answer: most likely NOT! So, what solutions exist? Well, since most small businesses will have a relatively small number of webinar attendees (you’re doing great if you get 50+ if you are an online marketer), and since you won’t use your webinar tool more than once a week (or twice a month), paying Go To Webinar’s fees just don’t make sense. 

Some internet marketing folks have taken to “group” accounts – while this may or may not violate Go To Webinar’s and Go To Meeting’s “terms of service” – other concerns arise – namely, the account name most likely won’t be yours and since “prime time” for webinars (most suggest Tuesday – Thursday evenings at 9pm Eastern Time) is limited, there will be competition among those sharing the account. 

Where does that leave the small business owner and home based business entrepreneur? 

There are two solutions this author has found that I want to suggest now: 

anymeeting (click the name to access)   Is a FREE web conferencing (webinar) tool. I personally used it when it was called “Freebinar”. You are allowed to have up to 200 attendees and yes, you can record your webinars. It is up to you if this tool is as functional as the high fee based services, but do your own research and you make the call. 

IMToolSuite (click the name to access) is fee based, but you’ll save about 1/3 of the cost of the “corporate tools” AND IMToolSuite includes LOTS of extra tools (features). For example: IMToolSuite really can be (and for many is) a “one stop shop” From within this suite of tools, the user has access to:

• Create custom lead capture pages
• A contact manager
• e-mail autoresponder tool
• Create QR codes
• video email server (there is a service out there that charges $35/month just for that and they make you pay up front to join it!
• Webinars on Demand (the LATEST marketing tool that is used by the top dogs out there – including Mike Dillard and Jonathan Budd!)
• Much More… have a look for yourself – it might just be the solution you’re looking for to serve 98% of your marketing needs

Personally, I recently used this tool myself to conduct a webinar. I found it to be robust – the webinar tool includes the ability to show a powerpoint and switch live to webpages (and then back) – all while maintaining a video stream (on a wifi connection on a 4 yr old PC that is clearly getting dated!) Why do I tell you this? The webinar tool in IMToolSuite is not a “memory hog” and will allow you to do what you need to do – communicate with your followers – up to 250 of them! 

You can save your webinars with or without video and in a variety of formats. Overall, I’d give this tool an “A” and suggest it to you, especially if you see value in at least a few of the 15 or so additional tools provided by these folks in IMToolSuite – that combination makes the package worth far more than the “price of admission”! But, I’ll leave it to you to be the final judge…