Selling on the internet can be a very difficult process for those who do not know what to do. Because there are so many different methods of selling on the internet, a lot of marketers will spin their wheels trying to figure out the best method of selling their products. Sometimes we think that placing ads on social media will work, or putting out videos on different video sites will do something, but oftentimes, unless there is a good amount of saturation behind these ads, they don’t get seen.
What do people really want to see?
More often than not, people would like to see someone who is confident in their field and knows what they’re talking about. They might have a question such as “what is micro-investing?” Someone who has done these things before and has insight into how to go about doing the thing will get more responses than someone who doesn’t. People would rather pay for expertise than pay a fast-talking amateur.
You may not necessarily have to be the expert yourself, but if you can bring one into your program and speak with them, people will often find the information more valuable because you spoke to someone who is an expert in a field that they would not otherwise know where to start.
Once you have found an expert in a field, what do you do?
The best place for you to speak with this expert would be to host a podcast, a webinar, or a symposium. Each of these is similar but very different from one another due to the format in which they are presented.
Podcasts
A podcast is a regularly recorded audio show very similar to the radio talk shows of previous generations. A podcast allows the person running the podcast to speak on topics that are important to them, and they can also speak to people who are famous or in a field that most people have wanted information on for a long time. If you can bring on a guest that speaks on a topic that is related to a product that you want to sell, you would get more of a response than if you went and spoke about it yourself.
That being said, it is important for you to build your own audience with the podcast before attempting to sell products through it. Once you are able to do that, that opens the door for advertisers to contact you and offer advertising deals.
Webinars
A webinar is different from a podcast in the same way that riding in a limo is different from driving yourself. A webinar, which is a combination of web and seminar, is a video with a specific topic and usually has one or two experts discussing this topic for people who have previously signed up to attend this webinar.
A webinar differs from a podcast in that it has a set time that it will be broadcast as opposed to a podcast, which will be released at the discretion of the person recording it. Also, webinars discuss very specific topics for the purpose of education, whereas podcasts are more for entertainment and if someone learned something from it then that is a bonus.
Symposium
A symposium is different than both a webinar and a podcast both in presentation and purpose. A symposium is a meeting of the minds in which a group of people will get together and have a chat about a subject, or multiple subjects, depending on what the symposium was organized for.
The name is based on the meetings of the ancient Greek philosophers where there was food and drink and they would chat and discuss their feelings on certain topics. It was a choice whether or not people would attend, and viewers would often go in and out of the lecture hall at their own discretion. It is more likely that the organizers of a symposium will charge for it due to the fact that there is much more preparation and there needs to be a venue for the symposium, as opposed to a webinar or a podcast, that can be broadcast online and recorded to be played whenever the listener is ready.
That is not to say that symposiums are not recorded, but there is an emphasis on having an informal conversation that weaves through certain topics, as opposed to a webinar that focuses on one topic, or a podcast that focuses on whichever topics the podcaster wants to discuss.
