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How to Market Seminars and Workshops 15

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© 2011 Hamby Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 2: Research … the Critical (and Overlooked) First Step

You’ve reserved a room at a local hotel. You’ve picked your topic. You know, perhaps just vaguely, who you’ll be marketing to. Now it’s time to sit down and get started on the marketing. So you pull a chair up to your computer, plop down and start typing, right?

Not if you want to minimize your risk and maximize your results. Because the marketing process – at least when performed correctly – starts a couple of steps before the actual writing process begins. It starts with research. Spending just a few hours on research can make a dramatic difference in your marketing results. It will help you develop a seminar offering that appeals to your audience and then present your event in the most compelling way. It will help minimize your risk and expenses, as well as the time needed to develop effective materials. And it will help maximize your results and profits.

Five Critical Research Areas

There are five main areas you need to research when promoting your seminars, workshops, and other events:

1. Your target audience

2. Keywords

3. Your competition

4. Historical data

5. Your marketing opportunities

Let’s take a closer look at these five elements and exactly what you need to research in each area.

Research Area #1: Identifying Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is critical to your success because if you don’t know who you are marketing to, it’s nearly impossible to design a seminar offering that they’ll pay for, create a marketing message that will resonate with them, motivate them to reach for their wallet, or even feasibly get in touch with them. The world is a mighty big place, especially for a seminar promoter working with a limited budget.

I frequently talk to new seminar promoters who describe their target audience with the words “Anyone who ….” But when you stop to think through the logistics of marketing, you soon realize that it’s awfully hard


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to market to “Anyone Who.” Good luck trying to find a magazine read by “Anyone Who” or a mailing list of “Anyone Who.”

Even if “Anyone Who” is a satisfactory description in terms of who might be qualified to register for your event, understand that you must get more specific if you are to successfully market your event. If you must describe your prospects as “Anyone who …,” do so. Then sit down to start spelling out exactly who might qualify as “Anyone,” even if that creates a list of one hundred possibilities.

One step better, but still far from ideal, are descriptions like “small-business owners who …,” “home owners who …” or “parents who ….” Technically, yes, you can rent a mailing list of homeowners or parents. Technically, yes, you can advertise in a magazine read by small-business owners. Unfortunately for your budget, though, using vague descriptions leaves you with a target audience often numbering in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.

Let’s take a look at my business, for example. I can say that I’m marketing to “anyone who markets seminars, workshops or bootcamps.” Getting more specific, I could say that I am looking for speakers who market their own seminars, workshops or bootcamps … or training companies … or colleges, universities and associations that offer continuing education programs … or even craft supply stores that offer how-to courses for various crafting projects. Getting slightly more specific with my descriptions makes it possible for me to start finding my prospects when researching magazines, mailing lists and other media. It would be impossible for me to find a mailing list of seminar promoters specifically – but I can find a list of associations. I need to do this basic identification of possible titles or categories of who might make a good prospect for my business before I can hope of being able to reach them.

When you are first brainstorming about who should attend your events, don’t limit yourself. Create an exhaustive list of different groups who can benefit from the knowledge you share. Once you’ve created a massive list of all potential prospects, go through your list and prioritize your audiences.

When you are first getting started, you might find it easier and less stressful to start working with people you already know. If you have strong relationships with people in a certain industry, it would make sense to begin by offering seminars to that industry. Here is a four-step process to identify the audience you want to start marketing to:

1. Brainstorm all of the different audiences that you think could benefit from learning your material.

2. Identify all of the different industries and groups of people you have worked with. This list can include industries in which you’ve worked personally, industries you’ve worked in on behalf of your clients, and groups you’ve belonged to as part of your personal life.


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3. Identify where there is overlap between the groups on your first list and the groups on your second list. Note: you might find that list #1 needs to expand after reviewing everything you’ve put on your second list.

4. Identify the groups with which you are most passionate about working.

To illustrate, let’s look at my work experience. People who should attend any seminar I offer on how to market seminars and workshops include “anyone who” promotes seminars. This list includes trade associations, professional associations, colleges and universities, and training companies. It includes independent professionals like speakers, coaches, consultants and authors. It includes job titles such as copywriters, account managers, seminar coordinators, marketing managers, marketing directors, marketing assistants and event coordinators. It also includes any business that sells something, such as the previously mentioned crafting store that offers how-to courses for creating projects using supplies that the store sells or financial professionals who offer short educational seminars to teach prospective customers about the various investment offers they have available.

Before quitting my last “real” job to pursue a full-time freelance writing career, I worked mostly within the Chicago area’s booming not-for-profit industry, while supplementing my income by moonlighting as a freelance writer for small businesses in the Chicago suburbs. Some of the groups I worked and associated with include:

Trade associations

Charitable organizations

Service businesses

Retail businesses

Business in the western Chicago suburbs

Home-based businesses

Junior colleges

Freelance writers

Business owners in Plainfield, IL (where I live)

Parents

As my freelance copywriting business grew, the type of clients I worked with great to include:

Speakers

Trainers

Training companies


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Coaches

Consultants

Information marketers

Multi-level marketers

And other “experts”

All of these audiences could benefit from attending my workshop on how to market seminars and workshops. However, had I offered such a class when first starting my business, I would have focused on junior colleges, trade associations and training companies. These groups very clearly need the training, because they typically – and regularly – offer seminars and workshops. In addition, I was very comfortable marketing to the seminar promoters within these organizations, because my work experience had given me a good grasp of their challenges .

If, after you make it through this exercise, you are discouraged to see the audiences you would pursue, don’t worry! This is just the place at which you can start. As your business grows and you get more successful seminars under your belt, you can begin targeting different audiences. In fact, you probably should.

Identifying Your Ideal Target Audience

Audiences who need what

you teach

Audiences you’ve worked with

Figure 1-1. W hen launching your first sem inar, one way to identify your target audience is to identify who needs what you teach, as well as the audiences you’ve worked with before. Identify where the two groups overlap – this is a sweet spot.


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As my business matured, I shifted focus. I began to work with more self-employed individuals – speakers, trainers, information marketers and other experts. More of my newsletter subscribers and clients come from this portion of the market vs. larger organizations, so I am more apt to target my promotions to them.

Defining Your Ideal Prospects

To take your marketing to the next level, you need to go even further by identifying your ideal prospects. You don’t want to try marketing to “anyone” who could attend your seminar; you want the prospects who are most likely to buy. Aim to develop a profile and an in-depth understanding of the individuals who are most likely to respond to your marketing efforts.

Pursuing your ideal prospects will increase the return you realize on your marketing investment in three ways:

You’ll boost your response rate because prospects will be more inclined to buy than “anyone.”

You’ll keep your promotional costs under control, because you won’t be wasting money marketing to people who are likely to ignore your message

It’s faster and less stressful to make decisions about how to spend your promotional dollars. Unless you have an unlimited budget, you are going to have to make hard decisions about where to spend your marketing dollars at some point. Determining where to spend your limited resources becomes much easier when you know who is most likely to respond to and benefit from what you’re offering.

Going back to my own experience to illustrate, I’ve found that my best prospects are speakers, consultants, coaches, and information marketers who:

Are marketing their own seminars, workshops, and bootcamps

Have tried to market events in the past without satisfactory results or are wisely doing their homework before diving into the challenging business of marketing events

Want to learn how to do their own marketing (for my information products and coaching) or who recognize the benefit of outsourcing to professionals (for my copywriting and event marketing services)

Who have the ability to pay for their investment

Who have purchased information products online or via direct mail (for my information products)

Who have hired a copywriter before (for my copywriting services)


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To create your ideal prospect profile, find out the following information about your prospects:

Demographics, w hich are objective data such as gender, level of education, age, profession or job title, income, and ethnic background. Gather this from your own experience, from researching your competitors (more on this in a bit), and from surveys (both your own and others’).

Geographic location. Are your ideal prospects concentrated in certain regions, states, cities or neighborhoods? When marketing seminars, you may find that you get a better response rate when marketing in cities where you are better known (e.g., a city that you lived and worked in for 15 years before recently moving to a new state) or when marketing to individuals who live within two hours of your seminar location.

Psychographics, w hich is the term for m easuring buyers’ interests, opinions and beliefs. After you identify the demographic group you’re targeting, you can use psychographics to further narrow your search for prospects by identifying why your ideal prospects register for your events.

Here are some questions you can use to determine why people register for your events:

What do they like about your event? What do they dislike?

How do they perceive your competitors’ events? What differences do they perceive between what you offer and what they offer?

What attracts them to your event?

What type of media do they respond to the most?

What is their social class or status?

What are their hot buttons that, if pressed, will make them buy? (Are they bargain hunters who will register once they realize how great of a deal you’re giving them? Will they be more attracted to your event if you are strongly positioned as a guru? Do they want cutting-edge information that will give them the competitive edge? Are they attracted by the prestige offered by gaining knowledge, skills and training that few people have or can get access to?)

For example, one past client was an association of professional writers, whose members tended to be very frugal. Knowing that our prospects were very price conscious, we typically offered an early bird discount. For one event I marketed for the association,


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every single participant signed up before the early bird deadline so they could receive a $20 discount. We didn’t receive a single registration after the deadline, which is highly unusual.

Why should your prospects buy now? (For example, seating is limited, so if they don’t register, they might miss out. Worse yet, their competitors might be smart enough to attend.)

Affinities, such as the m agazines they read and the associations they belong to. In other words, what groups do they join? Knowing this type of information is helpful for two reasons: it helps you identify marketing opportunities (e.g., placing an ad in the magazines they read) and demonstrates that your prospects are interested enough in learning to pay for vehicles to achieve growth.

Preferred resources. Marketing becom es easier w hen you are talking to people who are actively interested and seeking information similar to what you offer. To put yourself in front of interested, proactive prospects, it helps to know where they are looking for information. In addition to the magazines they read and organizations they join, find out where else your prospects will go to look for information. Are there other experts they follow? Are there certain websites they visit? Are there other areas of expertise that they stay current on?

Buying preferences and behaviors. W hat type of marketing does your audience respond to? For example, do they buy online or through direct mail? Do they listen to the radio, or do they prefer reading the paper? Do you need to start by pursuing a shyer “yes” – such as signing up for a free preview seminar – rather than going for the paid event? Do they need to get a supervisor’s approval before they register? What does the decision maker look for – how will your offer be evaluated?

How much money do they have available to invest in your event? (Tip: this is a key qualifier that many seminar promoters overlook. But prospects who don’t have the money to attend your event are NOT ideal prospects for you. The ability to buy is a key characteristic of an ideal prospect.)

Are they conscious of brand when making buying decisions for your type of event? Are there competitors dominating your industry that you somehow have to compete against, or is it enough that you have expertise? (You want to avoid situations where your prospects will have a knee-jerk reaction against you because you’re not the name they recognize.)

Who makes the final decision about whether your prospect gets to attend your seminar? If it’s not the person you’re marketing to, you will need to address the decision maker’s need for information, too.


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Are there any budgeting cycles that you need to be aware of? For instance, when marketing to organizations, when does their calendar year end? This is helpful to know for several reasons, including:

Some prospects may need to use up funds in their education budgets before the calendar year ends. Contact them in the final few months of their calendar year so they think of you when trying to figure out how to spend all funds.

Contacting prospects during their budget-building process gives you a greater chance of securing business in the coming year. Let prospects know what events you have available so they can budget for attending your seminar.

The start of a new budget year is a great time to contact clients. As soon as they have funds available, they can follow through on their desire to register for your event.

Emotions, fears and deepest desires. To succeed at marketing, you must understand the emotions that drive your prospects, and you must be able to sympathize with them.

Feeling empathy for the challenges someone feels is objective – you understand why they’re upset or frustrated or feeling whatever emotions they’re feeling. But you’re a step removed from the situation – an observer. Being sympathetic is like stepping into your prospects’ shoes, becoming them for a brief period. You have to step inside their heads, feel the same feelings. This skill is extremely useful when writing your marketing copy. It also can help you think more strategically, guiding you as you develop your message, determine how often to contact your prospects, and what you need to say to anticipate and overcome objections.

Don’t worry if you don’t have all of this information about your prospects right away. Ideally, you’ll be able to answer most of these questions based on your experience within your field or your idea of who you want to reach. But you may find that your assumptions about who is most likely to buy are wrong. Start by gathering as much data as you can, and continue to add to your profile. You may even find that your ideal prospect changes as your seminar matures.

For instance, when I first started promoting my home-study course and copywriting services, I targeted associations. After all, most of them hold seminars and workshops. Plus, my “corporate” work experience was in the not-for-profit sector, so I figured I’d have a leg up over consultants who had no understanding of this group’s unique challenges. What I soon found was that associations usually had limited budgets and too many levels of administration to get purchases made in a reasonable timeframe. The person in charge of marketing the association’s events would love what I had to say, but then the project would stall out when


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my contact tried to get approval to hire me.

Now, this isn’t to say that associations are a bad target market for me. They just aren’t the ideal match. I’ve known for a long time that I don’t have much patience for editing by committee, so I generally fill my schedule with projects that allow me to work directly with decision makers. I dropped the idea of targeting associations and focus solely on working with entrepreneurs. Although I would never turn away an association or other not-for-profit group who is seriously interested in using my services, I choose to focus my proactive marketing efforts and resources on pursuing entrepreneurs.

The point of sharing this story is to encourage you to be as specific as you can in targeting your audience based on the information you have today, as well as to encourage you to keep collecting data and be unafraid to challenge your own assumptions. Each marketing campaign and seminar you conduct will produce information that you can use to better understand your audience for future campaigns.

To dig into your prospects’ emotional state, ask the following questions (giving credit where credit is due, I learned many of these questions while studying the work of Dan Kennedy, www.dankennedy.com):

What are their deepest fears and worries – the things that keep them up at night?

What are the biggest problems your prospects deal with on a day-to-day basis? What trends are affecting them?

Why are they struggling with these problems? What’s causing the problems?

How does their struggle with these problems make them feel? (For example, frustrated, depressed, angry, wanting to “give up,” embarrassed, entitled to more than what they’re getting, etc.)

What type of physical symptoms might they be feeling? (You might want to work mention of this into your copy.)

What are some scenarios in which they might be experiencing these feelings? For example, during a bad game, a golfer typically will get frustrated. And when he’s golfing with his buddies, the “friendly” ribbing he’s getting might make him angry and embarrassed.

How do they see and describe themselves? Are they entrepreneurs who see themselves as people who are smarter than average and who have a hard time admitting that they may not have all the answers? Are they patient, loving parents who will do whatever it takes to ensure that their kids get the skills and support they need to succeed in life?


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What Prospects Are Looking For

The second critical area to research is what your prospects are looking for when it comes to your area of expertise. By knowing what prospects want, not only can you ensure that your marketing materials stress the right benefits, you also can make sure that your event delivers the goods.

Here are questions you need to be able to answer about your prospects:

What is the ideal solution to their problem? (Tip: Your seminar should solve the problem or teach them how to solve the problem.)

What do they say they want? For example, more money, a promotion, better employees, kids who are happy and well-adjusted.

What do they really want, but perhaps won’t admit to you … or even themselves? For example: to not just get a promotion, but to someday run the company … because your prospects believe they’re smarter than the jokers in charge. Or not just to have happy kids, but to be the mom that the other mothers hold up as an example of Supermom.

What’s standing in their way and preventing them from getting what they really want?

Perceptions About Your Seminar

The final area of information I like to gather about prospective attendees relates to how they could likely perceive the event … and how I need to position the seminar for maximum interest. Here are the questions to ask yourself; as you answer these questions, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes:

In a nutshell, how will your seminar help your prospects solve their problems and ultimately get what they really want? How can you summarize what your seminar will do for attendees in a sentence or two? What is the big, overarching benefit of your event?

What’s the best-case scenario a prospect could expect by attending? Alternatively, what’s the worst-case scenario if they decide not to attend? (You want to consider both because some people are motivated more by carrots than by sticks. Generally, people are motivated by pain, whether that’s a problem they’re dealing with or a loss they fear, but you should work both types of motivation into your copy.)


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What objections do they have to what you’re offering? If you had the chance to talk to each prospect personally, what would you say to them to overcome these objections? The more of these objections you can uncover early in the marketing process, the better your promotional materials will be.

One client was an ERP implementation expert. When promoting his seminars, we discovered two interesting objections. First, prospects expected the ERP software vendors to provide the training my client provided. Two, they were used to vendors coming to them and, therefore, did not want to travel to attend a seminar. As a result, the overall response rate to his seminars was low. However, because many attendees would go through his training and then decide it would be easier to simply hire his firm, the events were highly profitable.

Where to Find Information About Your Audience

Now, if the thought of “Research” makes you think of time-intensive, pages-long surveys … hours spent in libraries or tabulating data … hiring high-priced professionals to develop precisely worded questions to ask prospective clients, relax. The research you need to do for your seminar marketing can be fairly easy, inexpensive and conducted by just about anyone.

Read industry publications. Start by getting your hands on the magazines, newsletters, and newspapers your prospects are reading, many of which are often available from industry associations. (This is one reason you want to know what your prospects are reading and the associations they belong to.) Skim through these publications to get a sense for the challenges your group is facing.

Interview industry leaders. You m ight even w ant to interview the publication editors and/or association executives within your niche. These professionals should have a finger on the pulse of what’s happening within their industries. (If they seem reluctant to talk to you, consider ways that you might be able to help them. For instance, host a teleseminar for your list where you interview the editor or association executive. They get exposure to your list so they can promote their publication or association, you get a great way to interact with and serve your audience by giving them access to knowledgeable experts – it’s a win-win solution.)

Go online. After you’ve finished checking out websites for associations, go to Google.com and search on the keywords you think your audience is using to find you. Read the articles that


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come up and check out the competitors that appear. In addition to the organic search listings (those that appear in the main portion of the page), also look at the ads that appear down the right side of the page and/or the very top of the page. These are ads that have been placed via the Google AdWords pay-per-click advertising program.

Keyword research, w hich is covered on pages 32-33.

If your keyword research doesn’t turn up the type of information you are looking for, it tells you a couple of different things:

You may have no idea what your audience is using to try finding solutions like the ones you offer. Search on other terms you can think of, as well as on keywords suggested by keyword research tools suggested above.

Your competitors may be doing a lousy job of optimizing their websites for the keywords terms your audience is using … meaning that there is a prime opportunity for you. Stake your claim by setting up pages on your website that are optimized for each keyword or keyword phrase. Also set up pay-per-click advertising campaigns on the various search engines to grab traffic that way.

You may not have much competition at all. Some experts say that this is a warning sign that the demand for your event or product does not exist. I view it as an opportunity, though be aware that a lack of competition may mean that you have to do the hard work of educating customers about the need for what you do.

Talk to your prospects. Participate in LinkedIn groups, membership sites, chat rooms and listservs to get a feel for the problems your audience faces.

You also can survey clients and prospects about their greatest problems, #1 question or challenge, or merely to gather valuable demographic and psychographic information. There are few ways you can gather this type of information.

Mail a printed survey to your database, pass out surveys at your events, or even incorporate some of these questions into the seminar feedback forms you distribute at your events.

Post a survey online and request your list to participate. You may even want to ask your colleagues to invite their databases to take your survey.

Use an evergreen survey, which runs nonstop. For example, you might ask every first-time visitor to your website to take your survey, and then periodically tally and compare the results to previous surveys. This way, you may begin to notice


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trends in the responses your audience provides.

I find it invaluable – especially when preparing to write the marketing copy – to set up one-on-one interviews with prospects and/or with past attendees or current clients. As explained in How to Write Killer Copy to Fill Your Event Seats, here are some of the questions I ask during interviews to help me crawl inside the heads of prospects.

What are the three biggest challenges you’re facing right now related to <seminar topic>?

Please describe your ideal solution – what would you want from a seminar on this topic?

What about the marketing materials appealed to you? What specifically was said that convinced you to register? (Obviously, this is a question for past attendees. This question could be used to talk to a prospect who has not attended your seminar, but has attended seminars held by your competitors.)

What were the three most important things you learned during the seminar? (If you’re talking to a prospect who has not attended your event, tweak the question slightly and simply ask interviewees to share the three most important things they would like to learn.)

How have you used the information or skills you learned? What results have you seen?

Take detailed notes during your interviews. Better yet, record and transcribe your conversation. This will help you capture the words and phrases you should be using in your promotional materials, which can transform your copy from ho-hum to something that makes readers sit up, take notice and say “Wow, that sounds exactly like me!”

Research Area #2: Keywords

Online marketing is a critical component in building a successful seminar business, which is why I typically suggest that my clients spend some time researching keywords that prospects are using to try to find the information they offer. Keyword research serves you in several ways:

Keywords can be used to optimize your website for search engines, as well as to conduct successful pay-per-click advertising campaigns. If you know w hat keyw ords your prospects are using, you’ll achieve a better return on your investment when running PPC campaigns. You’ll also achieve better SEO results and generate more traffic to your website.

Keywords may give you an idea for what to say in your copy. For exam ple, one of m y clients is an event planner who specializes in seminars. Although she called herself a


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“seminar planner,” a few minutes of keyword research showed that people search on “event planning” and “meeting planning” when trying to find vendors with her expertise. Although she can still bid on keywords relating to seminar planner (and will probably achieve great results when doing so), event and meeting planning is how most people categorize her. Using this information, she positioned herself as an event planner who specializes in seminars.

Keyword research may uncover other competitors, audiences and marketing angles you wouldn’t think of initially. For exam ple, rather than focusing solely on “seminar planning,” my seminar planning client could use her keyword research to find competitors who rank high on “event planning” and “meeting planning.”

Your primary goal when conducting keyword research is to figure out what your prospective clients are typing into search engines when they are trying to find you and the solution you offer. Your secondary goal is to use the results of your research – the keywords and keywords phrases you find –to see who else and what else is out there. Pretend you are your customer and check out the results of these searches. Finally, your keyword research will help you optimize your web site copy and design to attract visitors who are looking for your type of information.

Sources for Keyword Information

There are several sources of information you can use to compile a list of keywords to be incorporated into your website and to use for bidding on the pay-per-click ad programs:

When you visit a competitor’s website, select View > Source in your browser window. When the screen of HTML opens up, look near the top of the page for the list of keywords being used on the site. (The list of keywords will be preceded by text such as “KEYWORDS” content = .…)

Internet searches. Go to Google or Yahoo and pretend that you are your customer. Think about the problem you have (this is the problem that you, the seminar provider, will help participants solve during your event). When results come up, check out the keywords for which other listings are optimized.

Google’s keyword suggestion tool, available at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://www.goodkeywords.com

http://www.wordtracker.com

When you find relevant keywords, simply copy and past them into a spreadsheet.


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Research Area #3: Your Competitors

The third critical research area is your competition. The existence of competition is a good sign – it tells you there’s a market for your seminar. Plus, your competitors can help you make your marketing more effective.

By studying their materials – and even attending their events – you can pick up clues for how to price your seminar, what benefits to offer, what subjects to include and what to disregard, what types of problems your audience is looking for, and what you can bring to the table that other seminar marketers are missing. You can also determine how qualified your competitors are and use their more-limited or different experience with the subject matter to your advantage.

Shopping your competitors also gives you the chance to begin to establish relationships with them. This is important because, in many cases, your competitors can be your greatest promotional partners.

Consider that a good marketing campaign might convert one-half, 2, 5, maybe 10 percent of prospects. That means the vast majority of the people to whom your competitors are marketing will not buy from them. If they want to still make money from the 90+ percent that never buy from them, your competitors can refer them to your products, services and events (be prepared to pay a commission for the sale). Similarly, you can refer your non-buyers to your competitors’ events, products and services.

Finding Your Competitors

So how do you go about finding your competitors? Here are some places to look.

Search engines. Go to your favorite search engine (e.g., Google or Yahoo!) and think like your prospective customers. Enter the keywords you think they would use to find you and what you’re offering (e.g., wealth seminars, business building seminar, business coach, etc.)

Note: The keywords you think your prospect should be using to find you are not necessarily the keywords that they will be using to find you. For example, “wealth building seminar” might adequately describe your event, but your customers might start with keywords like “make more money,” “build wealth” or even “eliminate debt.” Keep an open mind about the keywords that can be used to find the information you’re offering.

Pay-Per-Click ads. W hile you’re using your favorite search


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engine, take a look at the pay-per-click ads that pop up when you type in your keywords. Click on the ads to see what other experts are advertising to your target audience.

Associations. Check out the m em bership roster for local, state, regional and national associations that your students belong to. Your competitors will most likely to be listed as affiliate or partner members – the special membership category created for vendors that serve the association’s main membership. Also check out organizations for members of your profession.

For example, professional speakers are my prospective clients, so I can investigate associations for the speaking profession, such as the National Speakers Association, to find my competitors. Within NSA, they are classified as Service Supplier Partners. I can also investigate associations that serve my profession, such as the Direct Marketing Association. In these associations, my competitors, like my company, are the primary members.

Survey your list. Ask your subscribers and clients to tell you what other experts they listen to and follow.

Network. The m ore you are out and about, the m ore likely you are to hear about and meet your competitors.

Read industry publications. As w ith associations, you should check out publications written for your profession, as well as publications that are geared toward your prospects. Study the ads to see what other events and products are being publicized. Also take note if any of your competitors have written articles for the publications.

Phone book. Don’t overlook the Yellow Pages or its online equivalents, such as SuperPages.com. This resource is especially helpful if you are marketing a local event and want to find local competitors.

When you find competitors, check out their web sites, call to get added to their mailing lists, buy their products and sign up for their events. Discover what they’re offering, how they’re pricing their events, what benefits they’re stressing … and then position yourself as the different, and infinitely better, solution. Ask your customers and prospects if they’ve heard of your competitors or attended their events. If they have, find out what they like and dislike about those individuals or organizations.

Also keep in mind that “competitor” may be defined differently by your target audience than by you. Prospects generally don’t have one budget for seminars, one for teleseminars and webinars, one for books, one for home-study courses, and one for coaching or consulting. They usually have one budget for education … and all forms of continuing education are competing for your seminar dollars. Observing how other


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promoters market their seminars is smart. But when doing your own marketing, remember that you’ll have to prove how your seminar is not only better than other events, but also how it’s better than other forms of education offered on your topic of expertise.

Research Area #4: Historical Data

The next key area to research when developing your seminar marketing plan is history – that is, how events like the one you’re planning have been marketed in the past and the results achieved with such marketing. If you’ve promoted this seminar before or even marketed to this audience before, review your records to cull information like:

What steps did I take to market the event?

When did I deploy each marketing tool (e.g., when did I drop the first set of brochures, when did I send the first broadcast email, etc.)?

To what lists did I market?

How many registrations were generated from each marketing piece and from each list?

How many people showed up?

How many people cancelled?

How many people were no shows?

Were there any significant complaints from the attendees? If so, how can they be resolved this time around?

Were there any suggestions for improvement that I need to implement?

Based on feedback or my own observations, is there anything about my event that I can stress to help make my event stand out?

Capturing Historical Data for Future Events

If you’re marketing a brand-new seminar, targeting a new audience or if this is your first venture into seminar promoting, you’ll have to rely more heavily on educated guessing than if you had been marketing seminars – and tracking the results – for years.

To make the most of your learning curve and to aid your research efforts for future events, keep detailed records about how you’re


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marketing your event and the type of results your efforts produce. Note the mailing lists you rent, the types of promotions you use, when you start your marketing, and so on. Also closely track the number of people who show up, how much they pay for a seat, how much product they buy at the event, and which list and promotional vehicle produced their registration. When it comes time for another round of marketing, you’ll have loads of useful data to help fine-tune your efforts.

Let’s say that the first time you marketed your seminar, you rented four different mailing lists. To enable you to identify which list a particular registration came from, you printed the registration form with a unique tracking code.

To choose mailing lists for your next marketing effort, you would go back to review the results achieved from the first promotional effort. You had 22 registrations from List A, none from List B, 17 from List C, and 4 from List D. Which mailing lists would you use again?

Your gut reaction is probably to drop List B, keep Lists A and C, and perhaps replace List D with a new, untested list. It seems sound, right?

Maybe, maybe not. Because, remember, the registration fee is just part of the picture. If you want to maximize your revenue, you’ll also be offering products at the back of the room. And of course, you’ll be willing to coach or consult with attendees who want your personalized attention when implementing the skills you teach during your event.

Let’s take a look at the real numbers:

List A produced 22 registrations at $199 each, $1,000 in product sales, and no consulting clients. Total revenue produced: $5,378 or $244.45 per person.

List B produced no registrations and, therefore, no product sales or consulting work.

List C produced 17 registrations at $199 each, $1,500 in product sales, and $5,000 in consulting work. Total revenue produced: $9,883 or $581.35 per person.

List D produced 4 registrations at $199 each, $300 in product sales, and $10,000 in consulting work. Total revenue produced: $11,096 or $2,774 per person.

It turns out that List D, though it produced a relatively low number of responses, also produced the highest quality of attendees. List A, on the other hand, which looked to be the winner with a whopping 22 registrations, actually pulled in the lowest amount of revenue. If you had made your future marketing decision based solely on the number of registrations you had received, just imagine how much additional revenue you would have been passing up.

Now imagine what would have happened if you didn’t code your registration forms at all. You would have been operating completely in


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the dark. You either would have rented all of the lists again, essentially throwing your money away on mailing to List B, which didn’t produce any revenue, or you would have operated on gut instinct, which could have resulted in dropping highly profitable lists.

To ensure you learn the most from your marketing successes and failures, carefully nail down the source of every registration. Then be sure to track and calculate the lifetime value of each attendee.

Research Area #5: Marketing Opportunities

As you move through the previous four areas of research, you will no doubt become aware of various opportunities for promoting your seminar. These include, but are not limited to:

Associations, clubs and other groups to which your prospects belong. Opportunities presented by these organizations include:

Renting their mailing list so you can send seminar promotions to their memberships

Placing an ad in their newsletter or magazine

Placing an ad on the association web site

Sending a press release for potential inclusion in the publication

Sending an event announcement for inclusion in the organization’s event calendar(s)

Delivering a free teleseminar or webinar to interest their members in your live event

Being a guest speaker at one of the organization’s meetings or conferences

Developing a seminar, teleseminar or webinar that you get paid to deliver – and members pay to gain access to

Writing an article for the organization’s publication(s) and/or web site

Setting up an affiliate arrangement, under which you will pay the organization a commission for every seminar registration they generate as a result of promoting your event to their members

Magazines, newsletters, and other publications read by your target audience, which present these opportunities:

Renting the mailing list of subscribers

Placing a display or classified ad


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Sending a press release in the hopes of getting a write-up about your company in the publication

Submitting an event announcement for inclusion in the publication’s calendar of upcoming events

Guestwriting an article about your area of expertise

Becoming a regular contributor or columnist

Websites, blogs, membership sites, and other online resources frequented by your audience:

Placing a banner or classified ad

Sending a press release in the hopes of getting a write-up about your company on the site

Submitting an event announcement for inclusion in the site’s calendar of upcoming events

Guestwriting an article about your area of expertise

Becoming a regular contributor or columnist

Becoming an active participant on the site, sharing your thoughts and expertise on discussion boards, chat rooms, and blog comments

Posting information about yourself and your seminars in your membership profile, where possible

Companies that sell products to your target audience. Approach them about:

Renting their mailing list of customers

Providing a free educational seminar, teleseminar or webinar. This helps position the vendor as a value-added solution.

Including a promotion about your event in each shipment (this also works with promoting products or a free resource)

Other potential affiliates, who would make a commission for every seat they fill at your event. They include:

Direct competitors. Although som e com petitors w ill not be interested in such an arrangement, others will. The reason is that the majority of prospects on any subscriber list will never purchase something from the list owner. If they introduce subscribers to people who may be a better match – in this case, you – they will generate revenue they otherwise would not make.

Professionals that serve the same audience, but in a different capacity. For exam ple, speakers are one of my primary audiences. My affiliates include professionals


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who help experts become better speakers, graphic designers who work with speakers, and social media consultants who advise speakers.


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how to market seminars and workshops · might be qualified to register for your event, understand...

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