With gas prices sky high and everyone pressed for time, more and more professional training and skill building course work is taking place by phone and online.

Teleclasses provide audio-only, and can be difficult for visual learners. Webinars incorporate audio and visuals, making it possible to view a slide show in real-time and participate in online Q&A with other presenters and the speaker.

#1: Sell what you know

If you are in a knowledge-based or information-based business, consider Webinar Marketing as a way to connect with prospects, build relationships with customers and future-clients, increase your online visibility and grow your all-important opt-in email list. It's also a way to expand your business by making it easy to provide valuable information for people who live anywhere in the world.

#2: Increase your scalability

Service-based businesses can also use Webinar Marketing to make the shift from pay-per-project to becoming a content provider. As a service provider, your time is limited. If your income is completely linked to an hourly rate, your company will hit a ceiling based on your inability to do more work. Webinars enable you to earn money for your expertise instead of your output, making it possible to become an expert resource and multiply your earnings by simultaneously serving dozens or hundreds of people instead of one.

#3: Create relationships and sustain loyalty

Even product-based companies can benefit from Webinar Marketing by using webinars to help customers learn to demonstrate products, use advanced features or get better results from product usage. Webinars can provide helpful information that make buyers feel good about their purchase and keep them in touch with you between purchases.

#4: Create information products and multiple streams of income

Webinars also are a great way to create information products and a stream of passive income. Your webinar recording is an audio you can sell, and the transcript becomes another product. Turn the transcript into smaller articles and post them to online directories to drive traffic to your site and build your list. Combine transcripts on related subject matter to create an ebook. Offer a CD-transcript-workbook package as a multimedia home study program. The possibilities to build your professional reputation and your passive income are limited only by your imagination.

#5: Increase marketing productivity with virtual collaboration

New webinar programs like GoToMeeting.com make it affordable for small businesses to harness the online collaboration tools once only available for huge companies. That means that webinars can also be used to collaborate in real time with team members anywhere in the world. Documents or slide shows can be presented with live commentary and discussion.

Today's webinar technology is available to anyone with a reliable phone line and high speed Internet connection. Webinar software platforms range in features and price, but there are good options available starting at less than $100/month. A web audio product, like AudioAcrobat.com, is recommended for recording the audio portion of the webinar. And programs like FreeConference.com make it possible to hold phone conferences for hundreds of people for free. That means that webinars have become an affordable way to reach a global audience and establish your professional credibility in the world marketplace even for small businesses and solopreneurs. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Author:  Gail Z. Martin@EzineArticles.com