If you want an effective way to communicate with hundreds, even thousands of people, look no further than a webinar. This modern tool enables you to present your ideas, products or services to tons of people all at the same time. All it takes is a few simple steps to plan out a webinar.

Step 1: Design a presentation with a strong call to action.

No matter the goal underlying your webinar, make sure you include a clear call to action. This should direct your attendees to go to your website, call and schedule an appointment, or even buy your product immediately after the webinar. Whatever you do, get your attendees to DO SOMETHING right away. This is critical!

Create a powerpoint presentation that educates and engages your attendees. Tell them exactly what you want them to do and how to do it. This is the most fundamental rule of webinar planning.

Step 2: Choose a webinar hosting company.

As you think about your needs and your budget, you will want to pick just the right webinar hosting company. There are lots of options. If you think you will have no more than 1000 people and you are going to host lots of webinars in a year, your best bet is GoToWebinar.

Step 3: Set up your webinar.

Once you have chosen a webinar host, you need to know how to set up your webinar. The webinar host will have a set up page that will ask you for a webinar title, description, date and a time. It will also ask you to set up any polls or surveys.

Polls are a great way to generate interaction with your attendees. A good poll question would be, “What is stopping you from achieving success in (your topic).” You would show four obstacles and allow them to choose the most important obstacle to them.

This is a great way to get your attendees to admit they have a problem that is not easily solved. And when you show the results of the poll live on the webinar, it is great social proof that they are not alone and that many also struggle with this problem. They are also in a better place to ask for help by purchasing your products or services!

You can also use an exit survey when conducting a webinar. See if your attendees enjoyed your presentation, and ask them what helped them the most. You can use their responses as testimonials for your next webinar or webinar replay.

Also, ask them if they would recommend your product or service to their friends and family. If they answer “yes,” then pick up the phone and call them after the webinar because they have indicated they are a hot prospect and warrant a phone call!

Step 4: Upload your registration web page.

Once you have set up your webinar, invite people to attend. Your host company will provide a generic registration page, or you could make you own. I like to make my own because that way I decide what it looks like and how it feels. My page is unique and memorable.

One million dollar tip: ask for full-contact information on your registration page. That way you can send them an automated phone message right before the webinar to remind them (they will thank you for this!). And if you have their mailing address, you can follow up after the webinar with postcards or sales material.

If you feel up to it, you can even offer a special price or package to encourage more sales.

Stephen Beck teaches individuals and small businesses how to grow their sales using webinars! He invites you to an amazing FREE weekly webinar to discover tons of tips for creating webinars. Hurry, these fill up fast! Lock in your spot here: http://www.WildlyWealthyWebinars.com.