We’ve all heard the expression “The money is in the list.” It actually takes more than a long list of subscribers to make money online, but your list of subscribers is important and is definitely a factor in increasing your subscriber-to-customer conversions. One way you can start growing your subscriber list is through webinars.

Short for web-based seminar, a webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop, or seminar that is broadcast over the web. Some of the most popular online webinar services are GoToWebinar and DimDim. A great webinar service for Christian women is through Christian Women Affiliate, which uses Adobe Connect software.

To grow your list with webinars, you need to make sure your audience enjoys the experience, learns what you’re teaching, and finds it easy to use. You don’t want them to walk away saying, “What was the point? I didn’t understand anything you were teaching!” or “That was so pathetic! I could have done a better job!”

Your initial signup page and especially your follow up after the webinar are crucial to having successful webinars. Receiving 25 emails requesting a copy of the webinar four weeks ago is not the best practice for having successful webinars.

Offering a replay of the webinar after this one for at least a short period of time and giving extra gifts for attending the webinar will make your audience want to attend your future webinars! It is a good idea to have free bonuses related to the topic of the webinar from Earn your first $1,000 with webinars as an ebook on how to use Power Point with webinars, instead of a bonus that is a video showing how to kite surf or how to dye Christina Hendricks’s hair-tomato-red.

The type of webinar service you use is vital. Compare different types of online services and make sure it has the benefits and features you need (such as the ability to record, make videos, show PowerPoint, or take surveys).

It has to be simple and easy to use for you and your audience. If they don’t even know how to use the chat box or get frustrated during the webinar when you ask for a response (for example, by polling the audience for engagement and feedback), they may leave quickly and have a bad impression of you. . .

New technology scares most people, so you want to help them face and overcome their fear of technology as much as possible with a webinar service that is simple and easy to use. Most of the time, your audience can just listen and watch the webinar without doing anything. But if it’s too hard to get into your webinar room, they may never come back!

Sometimes people multitask during the webinar and click on other websites, check email, or perform other tasks while listening to you speak. Let’s hope they’re not playing Farmville as you speak. You want them to pay attention to you. GoToWebinar actually allows you to see if people are clicking through to the webinar. This audience feature actually helps you understand what you may need to improve on and how to stop being boring!

A webinar service that is difficult or complicated to use, takes a long time (audience doesn’t know how to answer the survey), or intimidates or frustrates your audience (they can’t see the video, PowerPoint is microscopic in size) , there’s an echo when you’re talking) won’t help grow your list, and may cost you sales and subscribers.

Your audio and video quality is extremely important. If your audio and video quality is poor, people will click and go elsewhere. During my first few webinars with additional presenters, we had issues with audio echo and background noise, which was a bit stressful for me and may have been annoying to the audience. In fact, one person left the webinar room.

In a webinar I attended this week, when the presenter opened the audience’s microphones to hear their thoughts on what she was sharing or for them to ask questions, the presenter’s microphone suddenly turned off and she completely lost the sound!

In another webinar I attended, the sound would fade in and out. The chat box was filled with the same comments, “I can’t hear!” The audience was frustrated, something you want to avoid!

Make sure you have a good microphone and plenty of light for your video. Light is very important for video. People want to look you in the face and look you in the eye, not you in the dark shadows of your room. Seeing you and looking into your eyes helps them connect with you. Please dress appropriately if you have a video. (We really don’t want to see you in your underwear!)

Also, please don’t knock over food or gum while speaking on your webinar (but having water or a cold drink is important, in case your throat gets dry), and make sure Arnold the dog , is not barking ferociously in the background. .

Background noise (refrigerator humming, music, people talking, kids running around the house screaming) can distract the audience. However, I must admit that listening to a cat meow at the beginning of a teleseminar was quite amusing – it is now the “pet” of that speaker’s teleseminars. However, in most cases, animals are a no-no for webinars or live events!

Practice, practice, practice until you know how to do webinars well!

People take time out of their day to attend your webinar, so it needs to be easy for you and your audience to use and have a high quality. You want to stand out from the crowd with a standard of integrity and excellence.

Of course, there is a learning curve when you start hosting webinars, so be sure to practice first with Sister Sue and Grandma Pearl in your audience before you enthusiastically blow up your webinar signup page on Twitter and Facebook. . You don’t want hundreds of people showing up at your webinar, while you’re still trying to figure out how to get your microphone working or how to record the webinar.

One of the best and fastest ways to learn how to do webinars well is to attend as many webinars as possible on a variety of topics. Observe and study how speakers handle problems and what they do well.

You want your webinar to go as smoothly as possible to make a great impression and connect with your audience. Webinars will help them learn to know, like, and trust you. Connecting with your audience is especially important if you’re using webinars to teach something, to build your business, grow your list, and introduce your information products and services.

Make sure you don’t make the mistake of participating in webinars 90% of the time and only giving your audience 10% good content (or no good content at all). Be a generous donor of good content and then offer your valuable offer to the audience if they would like to learn more from you.

The webinar should leave the audience a bit thirsty. As entrepreneur Jimmy D. Brown says, give them valuable but incomplete information, and you’ll build your list. Give them and give them some more, but don’t give them everything you know! Your knowledge, skills and abilities are a gift to share with the world that will harm others. One of the best ways to do this is through webinars. A webinar can be a powerful tool for your business.

Things will go wrong sometimes, no matter how prepared you are or how much you practice. Technology – I love it! But the more informed and prepared you are, the better your chances for a great webinar, resulting in an audience that feels like it was a good investment of their time. They will come back for more, sign up for your website, and your list will grow. Now you will have new friends!