Event Planning Web

Planning a Seminar

Seminars and conferences are relatively the same, but there are some key differences in a seminar.

For example, both are designed for the most part to make money, but conferences are generally used by businesses in order to woo a new client or advertisers that are trying to present a new campaign.

Seminars are a little bit less business-like and can be more laid back.

Some seminars are there to inspire attendants, some are to raise funds for a charity; some are to sell something; and some seminars are there to inform attendants.

Whatever the reason is for your seminar, there is a little bit of a difference in organizing a successful one.

All too often you hear of a seminar that was pretty good if only more people showed up for it. Smart firms, companies and individuals decide to build and market seminars.

That's really what successful seminars are all about. The people who must deliver the seminar in those firms sometimes spend days making sure they do a great job.

Unfortunately, in too many organizations the efforts for building seminar attendance often miss the mark. Too many dollars and too many hours are wasted on attendance building tactics that just do not work.

So what happens now? Do you give up on seminars? The answer is no.

One of the most effective ways to build a professional service practice is to produce and deliver short (one-half day or less) seminars, speeches and host various other events.

Indeed, you will not find too many people disagreeing that speaking is a great marketing technique because it is more personal and builds trust.

Some advisors say that seminars and meetings don't work anymore. Clients and prospects seem to view it as a sales push.

These are the same advisors who are experts at seminars after holding two or three and finding out that they didn't work for them. They are the same people that held public seminars.

Today's people need to hold targeted seminars. Let me give you an example. What if you sent out a wedding style invitation to people of a certain community and invited them to the local club about a topic that was important to them?

For example, you can take any neighborhood in North America, get the mailing information and mailed an exclusive invitation for residents of various estates to discuss a topic specific to their communitys needs or concerns such as ensuring your estate is taxed at the lowest possible rate through estate trusts.

The invitation could include possibly a lunch or dinner and is at their local club. The club should help you with the meeting also so they can possibly attract new members and meet new people as well.

This is an example of targeted seminars and not just public seminars.

There are four keys to making your seminar work. They are:

1. Don't try to educate people, open their eyes

2. Don't inform people, define their problems

3. Don't offer solutions, provide a sample of solutions

4. Don't sell products, sell yourself

Ask your board of directors or top clients what type of seminars or information they might be interested in. Find top advisors who have completed successful seminars.

To get good at hosting seminars you need to practice, practice, practice and copy from the best to make seminars work. I have done several different seminars and after doing a dozen or so, I fund a formula that works.

Have daytime seminars in a top notch venue with a targeted list of clients, and follow up with them until we get them into a seminar or two.

Some of the top representatives in the country have been doing the same seminar every month for ten years.

They have a seminar so fine tuned that year in and year out, the representative doesn't ever worry how they will grow their business from one year to the next. That is what a good performance can do.

A couple of ideas that work are client workshops, where you ask your clients to invite a friend. Birds of a feather flock together.

You can mix your audience with clients and prospects, so that if they were to ask one of your clients after the meeting about you, a strong endorsement after your presentation makes the call to you much more inviting.

Second on the list are conference calls. You can do a luncheon conference call with top managers for clients or prospects. A discussion after the conference call is why you should invest now. Make sure there is a sense of urgency created during the seminar and a recommended implementation schedule.

You need to get creative with topics and speakers. You should also remember the two things that most people remember. Pictures and stories are what people remember. If you paint the picture for them by telling them a great story, you will have your audience hooked.

If you do a superb job at providing worthwhile information during the first 45 minutes, the 15 minutes at the end should be a snap because you've already established trust with your audience.

Some of people report that 33% of attendees will end up becoming customers. And it will happen not because you invested money in marketing, but because you invested your time, energy, imagination, and expertise.

Some business owners and hosts will improve upon that one-third closing ratio by doing one of these three additional things.

1. They have a different person take the stage during the final 15 minutes, someone with a knack for motivating groups of people
2. They have salespeople in the doorways exiting the venue, thanking people as they depart, and selling to them at the same time.
3. They make a very special offer that's available that day only.

The right reaction to a poor professional, who had only 6 at his seminar, is not to give up the seminar, but give up the marketing tactics she used.

If you do plan on taking the time and spending the money to produce, prepare, and deliver a presentation or mini-seminar, here are seven event marketing tips that will help you fill your room:

Marketing Timing:
Usually, professionals market their events much too early. One firm that I know recently had extremely high business development hopes from hosting a series of six short seminars.

They sent very well-written letters to inform clients and prospects of the series. The 'invitations' reached the client base about 12 weeks before the first mini-seminar, 14 weeks before the second mini-seminar, 16 before the third, etc.

Attendance was decidedly underwhelming.

Their mistake was in the mailing lead time. They were surprised when we told them that announcements for generating attendance for 2 hour seminars is best done about three or four weeks in advance, not 12 or 16 or 20.

A good rule of thumb is that the shorter the seminar the shorter the event announcement lead time should be.


List Targeting:
In direct mail the three greatest indicators of success are lists, lists, and lists.

Before you send out one piece of mail, you should make sure that you have a reasonable expectation that the people on the list will be interested in your topic first because if you send a weight loss seminar package to a fitness guru, you can bet that you will not get much attendance.

A great seminar title, mailing package, and value proposition will generate zero attendance if you mail it to a list that is not interested in your topic.

Marketing Response Expectations:
Easy math which is the number of names times response rate equals attendance. 2,000 names times 2% response equals 40 attendees. "And why shouldn't we get a 2% response," inexperienced event marketers often say to themselves. "I've seen the research on direct marketing: 2% response is average for direct mail."

According to the Direct Marketing Association 2003 response rate study, direct marketing responses are somewhere in the 2% range on an average basis.

Consider, however, that most professional event marketers don't measure response in percents; they measure it in response per thousand because, by and large, they only get fractions of a percent to attend.

So if you're going to be an event marketer, forget about wondering, "What percent of our mailing will come to our event," and start thinking about how many per thousand might attend.

Some highly successful events that are marketed by professionals don't even get a 1 per thousand responses. Mailings for mini-seminars tend to do better than this, but not always by much.

The point of this information to inform you that if you have your direct marketing response expectations set too high, you are in for both disappointment and low attendance.

So make sure you have enough good names to mail to, and mail enough pieces to actually fill your room.


Marketing Piece:
Suffice it to say that sometimes a postcard is perfectly fine for generating attendance for your events. Other times email is all you need. It might be that personal invitations will work better for your event.

Sometimes you need an invitation, a letter, a business return envelope, a white paper, and convenient registration on your website.

This could be (and generally is) the subject of whole books and other seminars. Just be aware that you should research what kind of marketing piece might work in your situation, for your audience, and test different pieces on different events.

Think about your audience, what their day looks like, and then send them the piece that will get through the noise and clutter.

Registration Fee:
Many professionals assume that their 'marketing seminars' should be free. Here are a few reasons to consider charging a registration fee:

a) Paid events will often generate more actual attendance than free events because they have an air of sophistication and authority in them.

b) Paid events tend to have significantly fewer no-shows than free events because no one wants to pay to go to an event that they dont plan on attending.

c) The attendees that you generate are usually more interested in the event than those attending a 'free' breakfast, lunch, or 'networking' event.

d) People come expecting value instead of a sales pitch. If you then deliver value, you'll establish the expectation and knowledge that time with you is worth the money.

You should also note that, depending on your service, free events can work as well as paid events, especially for business-to-consumer professional services.

Our final advice on the subject is that you should know your audience and make good business assumptions, and test both paid and free.


Event Title:
This may sound trivial, but believe me it is not. Your event title needs to clearly state what value you will deliver at the event. You will also want it to be as short as possible but as long as needed, and appealing to the reader.

Using the words "How To" in an event title has proven time and time again to increase attendance.

The title "Learn about new investment opportunities" would be much more effective if it were called, "How you can take advantage of new investment opportunities."
A very simple approach for event titling is that you should make a list of a dozen or so different ways that you could title the event.

Ask for feedback from colleagues, clients, and potential clients. If you run the event multiple times, test different titles and see if one title generates more attendance than the other. Basically, just do your research, and test it out on people.

Marketing Partners:
Marketing partners are an often overlooked source for boosting an events attendance.

You can, for example, partner with two other firms and pool your resources and mailing lists to increase response and then deliver together.

Besides having extra names to market to, your event will have a multi-faceted presenter list which can often increase attendance on its own.

By having a marketing partner, you can also co-market the event with a trade association, get the event notice listed in your partner's newsletters, work with a college or university to sponsor the event, or any number of other partner strategies.

For example, a network security service firm I know of once partnered with the FBI to run their seminar on the new security issues facing firms.

The event pulled better than anything they had ever done before.

As a final thought, one of the most overlooked ways to increase event registration is by delivering great events and by providing information or tools that will be of significant value for the attendees.
If you can deliver one of the best seminars of your life every time that you make an effort to host a seminar, your events, much like your practices, will grow in reputation and attendance.

Who knows, someday soon you might even be able to answer the phone and let your potential attendees know, that your seminar is full but you can let them pre-register for the next seminar that you host.

That is not all there is to say on the subject. Here are some extra quick tips to hosting a successful seminar.
Plan your overall objectives
Plan your marketing mix of the seminar
Plan your invitations and approach
Plan your target group
Plan you target list of attendees
Plan your date and location
Plan your type of seminar- large or small
Plan your speakers and topics
Plan your venue and details
Plan your staff time and resources
Plan your budget
Plan your handouts and questionnaires
Plan your equipment
Plan your talk and time
Review all details over and over
Plan your follow up
Repeat and improve