One of the things I love about teaching marketing programs is the
great questions we get from participants. On the discussion forum for
our Law of Action program that wrapped up today, there was a great question that bears posting here.
What
would be the advantage of InstantTeleseminar over Audio Acrobat? If we
are able to access free bridge lines at places like
FreeConferenceCall.com, why would someone pay $47/month instead of
$19.95?
Good questions. We use both InstantTeleseminar and AudioAcrobat for totally different purposes.
In my view, they are apples and oranges. Yes, there is some overlap
in features but for the most part they offer different functions.
InstantTeleseminar (IT) is about setting up and delivering teleseminars with the option of streaming live on the web for up to 2000 people. AudioAcrobat
(AA) doesn't do this at all. You also get a 200 person bridge line with
IT. Again, you don't get a bridge line with AA, but you can record
though you have do three-way calling. We also love the IT feature of
giving your audience the ability to submit questions that you manage
behind the scenes. Keeps the lines quiet and you can control what gets
asked and answered.
IT creates the pages you need to broadcast the teleseminar plus
other features like providing a way for you to set up links to direct
people to offers or special web pages. You can also use the replay
page, but I don't do that because I want to clean up the audio before
it gets distributed.
Yes, you could build this all your self (without the live streaming
audio function). But with IT, the recording is automated and the files
are created immediately after the call is complete. You get an mp3 file
and an uncompressed .wav file which is higher quality.
AA is a great way to store and share audio files, create podcasts and
have a testimonial line. But I would not use it for recording a
teleclass -- too convoluted to set up. I do like the testimonial line,
the podcast feature and the audio postcard, but don't use that very
often.
We have numerous free bridge lines we use since we deliver a lot of
teleseminars and meet with our clients on bridge lines so yes, we use
free conference lines, but most are limited to 99 callers, which for
most people would be fine. However, we consistently put 200+ in many of
our teleseminars and recently had 1,000 people register for a call. The
InstantTeleseminar system was perfect to handle that many callers.
IT is simpler and more powerful in my opinion, for delivering teleseminars. AA
is great for hosting audio, because audio files have to be hosted on a
server somewhere in order to be played and downloaded. Also there are
additional charges if you go over the basic bandwidth allotment for AA.
So if you creating a lot of audio and a lot of people are downloading
or playing the audio only, it can eat up your bandwidth pretty fast and
your charges will creep up.
I'm sure there are some people who will disagree with me or
challenge my brief overview, but this is what works for The Blog Squad.
How about you? What systems do you use for hosting audio and hosting
teleseminars?
