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RainToday.com's Podcast: Marketing & Selling Professional Services

Virtual events, while similar to other online lead generation tactics, differ in one unique way: they allow you to generate and qualify leads early on, speeding up the sales process.

"You've got folks entering your virtual booth, and you're able to interact with them on the spot. I call it accelerated lead generation," says Dennis Shiao, author of Generate Sales Leads with Virtual Events. "So, rather than generating a lead and then having, say, telesales follow up with them a week later, with a virtual event you're generating a lead and you're interacting and qualifying them on the spot."

Compare that to producing a white paper to generate leads. You produce a white paper, and maybe you get a couple hundred leads to download the white paper. The thing is, Shiao says, you don't know for sure that they finished the download let alone read the paper. You must still follow up with them and qualify them.

Listen as Shiao discusses:

• Additional benefits of virtual events
• The process for generating leads using virtual events
• What a typical virtual event involves
• The cost involved with virtual events vs. in-person events
• How organizations have succeeded with virtual events

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