Marketing Seminars and Workshops >> Letting-Them-Know-You-Have-A-Seminar >> Promoting The Seminar
Promoting the Seminar
Testimonials:The "Mother's Milk" of Seminar Promotion
By far the most effective means of selling your seminar are testimonials
from previous seminar attendees. The best time to capture these
testimonials is at the event itself. This is when people are the most
"lathered up" about your event and most inclined to give you a glowing
report.
You'll want to get them in written form, which is best accomplished
through the use of an evaluation form where you ask people to sign
the form after they jot down some words of praise. When you hand
out your evaluations , instruct people to give you specific comments.
A general, watered-down testimonial is virtually useless.
You may even want to coach them a bit on what you're looking for
by giving an example. I always tell people: "If you think your profits
will double as a result of using the hotline, please put that down."
When you speak to people after your event and they tell you great
things that have happened as a result of your event, quickly ask them
if you can write up what they said and fax it over to them for their
signature. Again, the key is to strike while the iron is hot. If they have
great things to say, get them in writing.
I also recommend that you keep the video camera rolling towards the
end of your event and get people to give you video testimonials. You'll
be able to use them in a variety of ways to help you promote future
events. You can send out videos or stream them from your Web site.
You can also choose to use only the audio portion of the testimonial.
Public Relations
Publicity can be a very effective way to promote your event. This is
particularly true if you do it yourself. Paying a PR person can be
expensive and often times won't pull enough responses to justify the
costs.
There are three pieces to the publicity puzzle as it relates to your seminars.
First, you want to get the coverage. Second, you want to do the
best job you can once you're in front of the media. Lastly, you want
to sell a lot of seminar seats with this opportunity.
To generate publicity, you'll need a hook. This is what causes the
media to want to cover your event. You'll also want to formulate your
message. This is what you say once you're in front of the media.
An important thing to remember is that there are tons of people who
are trying to get in front of the media to help promote their seminar
or event. The media gets bombarded with requests for coverage from
seminar promoters. This means that you must have something newsworthy
or unusual to get their attention.
In many cases, you'll be doing the publicity yourself. This is nothing
to be ashamed of. Many people do their own publicity and promotion.
If you understand the process, you can be very successful. Who
can be a better advocate for your seminar or event than you?
Media Coaching Can Help
Before you start getting in front of the media, it's a good idea to understand
how the process works. This will allow you to optimize your
opportunities. I'd recommend that you go to a seminar by Joel Roberts
to find out exactly how to maximize your chances for success.
I have spent some time with Joel and attended his seminars. He does
a great job in this area. Contact either Joel or his assistant Nancy. Let
him know I sent you. You'll be glad you did. (His contact information
is in the Million-Dollar Rolodex in Appendix A.)
Using Outside Publicity Experts
There are many people who present themselves as publicity experts
who will be happy to take your money in exchange for claiming to
help you promote your event. Be suspicious.
If a publicity person is confident he or she can get you publicity, I
suggest you compensate them differently than they might prefer.
Offer to give them a piece of all of the registrations that come in from
their efforts. Let's say the seminar is priced at $300. Let's also assume
that the marginal cost for each attendee is $25. This means that every
registration is worth $275 (net) to you.
Offer your publicity person a minimum of a 50-50 split on the registration
dollars for every person that their efforts generate. (This
assumes that you can track the responses.)
I would even consider giving them more. If necessary, I'll give a PR
person $200 for each person their efforts can generate. I'll still make
$75 on the front end and have the opportunity to sell them products
and other services while I build a larger database.
Most PR people will balk at this deal. Fine. Only use people who are
willing to bite at this arrangement. If they are really good, they'll
actually make a lot more money.
Persistence Pays
The key to getting media coverage is to be persistent. Don't expect to
make one call and have them asking you to sit down for an interview
and a photo shoot. As with all things where you're relying on someone
else to do something that's higher on your list than it is on theirs,
persistence is the key here. Without being a pest, regular and polite
call-backs are in order. If you've left several messages and none are
being returned, a final message that simply says, "I assume you're not
interested and I don't want to keep pestering you, so I'm not going to
call again. But if you are interested and just busy right now, please do
call me as soon as you can and let's talk about how we can help each
other" is definitely appropriate.
If you're easily discouraged when people seem to ignore you, you'll
find the PR route tough sledding. Editors are not only busy people, they
are suspicious as well. Press releases tend not to get the kind of attention
that the people who send them think they deserve. But if you are
gently persistent in your follow-up, you can often get a reporter or
editor on the phone to talk to you about your story. It's more often that
conversation, rather than the release itself, that will lead to coverage.
So don't give up and don't get discouraged!
Don't Be Hurt When They Don't Cover You
When, despite your patience and persistence, you don't get coverage
by the media, don't be discouraged and don't take it personally. These
folks are just doing their jobs. Your goal is to make your event so
enticing that they are compelled to give you coverage.
Sometimes you just don't have a newsworthy event. It's not likely
any major metropolitan daily newspaper or TV outlet or radio show
is going to cover your seminar unless it has a hook and is something
they haven't seen before (or at least recently). No hook, no coverage,
even on a slow news day.
The Hook
The hook is what causes the media to stop what they're doing and
take notice of your event. If there has just been an earthquake in San
Francisco and you're doing a seminar on how to earthquake-proof
your house, you've got a relatively easy sell.
In most cases, things won't be this easy.
You can also take a specific portion of your seminar and try to create
a hook. In order for your hook to be effective you'll want to try and
tie it to some current event or trend in the field.
TV Publicity (Empty)
We live in a time that is dominated by television. It's only natural
that you would be eager to get yourself some good TV publicity. Don't
bother. As good as seeing your face on TV may be for your ego,
stations rarely let you put up an 800 number or a Web site URL. This
makes TV appearances just about worthless for product promotion
unless you're already known and people can find you easily. I recommend
that you not pursue TV unless you know someone.
Radio
To learn how to get your event covered on radio, I suggest you learn
from the master of the radio interview, Alex Carroll. He has done
more interviews for one book than virtually anyone on the planet.
Go to his site, www.radiopublicity.com, to learn more about him and
some of the materials that he has to offer. His information is backed
by real-life experience as the interviewee in well over 1,000 radio
interviews.
Print
The master of print publicity is another friend of mine, Paul
Hartunian. Paul has generated the equivalent of well over $6 million
in space advertising in magazines and newspapers. I suggest you
obtain his materials before you start promoting your own events.
Give me a call and we'll get you a set of his materials.
Online
There are a number of sources for you to generate on-line publicity.
Some of these depend on your topic. If you're giving a seminar of
interest to the building trades industry, for example, you should use
your favorite search engine (my technical colleague Dan Shafer, who's
a real guru in this field, currently recommends www.google.com)
and look up building trades sites. Some, particularly associations
and eZines devoted to your space, will be happy to list your seminar
free.
You can also post notices about your seminars and workshops on the
email lists, listservs, and discussion boards you belong to and
contribute to regularly. Be careful here; spam is not appreciated and
can have a severe negative side effect. But if you're a regular member
of and contributor to some online communities in your space, and if
you're careful about how you promote your seminar (avoiding
blatant, obvious promotions but perhaps including a line about your
upcoming seminar in your personal sig line, for example), you can
often get peoples' attention here.
Joint Venture Mailings
Email Joint Ventures
The best way to promote your events is by doing joint venture email
marketing. Identify others who have email lists that you feel would
be responsive to your seminar offer and then ask the list owner e-mail
either your promotion or a link to your Web site. You split your profit
with them in return for their help.
You can find people with whom to do these joint ventures by scouring
the Web for sites that rank high on the search engines or get a lot
of traffic and whose audience has something in common with yours.
Sometimes, these sites are competitive to yours and in many of those
cases, the site owners may not want to help you become more
successful.
You generally split the gross registration fee profit with joint venture
partners 50-50. Let's say you have an event for which you're charging
$997 and on which you have hard costs of about $30 per attendee.
You would give a joint venture partner about $480 for every person
who registers from their list or site. Why so much? It gives your joint
venture partners a reason for doing the deal
and it only costs you $30
out of pocket for each additional person.
This is a great way to promote because you put no money up front.
Also, if you have a decent back end the lifetime value of these newfound
customers could be considerable. (Remember that once they
sign up for your seminar or product, they are no longer exclusive
property of your joint venture partner.)
This is my preferred way to promote seminars. If you use this method
exclusively, you can break even with even a tiny number of total
registrations.
Direct-Mail Joint Ventures
Despite the clear advantages of email marketing, many seminars are
still being promoted via direct mail. I recommend that you move
away from direct mail as your primary means of marketing. Why?
The cost of printing and postage make it more difficult for you to
recover your money.
But if you are going to go the direct-mail route, explore jointventured
physical mailings. The arrangements here can be many and
varied. The person whose list you are mailing to is concerned about
the integrity of their list.
You will usually compose the letter, pay for the mailing and then give
the mailing list owner a per-name fee or a percentage based on response.
With the right list, this can be a very effective way to promote your
event. Given the incredibly high costs associated with this type of a
mailing, however, you'll want to test the list before mailing the
entire lot.
The nice thing about using this technique is that once people
respond, they become a part of your in-house list. If your lifetime
customer value is high, it might even make sense to use this method
of promotion if you can only achieve a break-even on the front end.
You can also rent various types of mailing lists both on and off line
to promote your seminar or event. Generally, this method does not
pay off. Perhaps the biggest reason: a seminar priced higher than
$100 or so requires that people know who you are. Unless you have
some celebrity in the field, a blind mailing to a list of people who
have a specific profile won't likely sell anything with a very high
price tag.
Third-Party Online Newsletters
There are two ways of looking at online newsletters as promotional
aids for your seminar: buying advertising space or obtaining free
publicity or even an endorsement.
My success using on-line
ads to promote seminars is abysmal. (This,
of course, parallels just about everyone's experience with online
advertising in general.) I would only work with on-line newsletters if
they write a little article or endorse my event.
Your experience may be different. If so, please contact me and share
your experience. From my own experience, it isn't cost effective.
The only successful way to work on-line is through joint-venture
emailing, which is described above.
Paid Advertising
Advertising R.O.M.D.
R.O.M.D. is an acronym for "Return on Marketing Dollar." To understand
this concept, you'll need some important background
information. Every advertising and promotional method you use will
have a different level of effectiveness. The only way to find out your
precise numbers will be through testing. But here is a blueprint for
how things will almost certainly work.
Let's say your seminar is priced at $300. Let's also say that your
marginal cost for each additional attendee is $25. Marginal cost is the
actual "hard cost" of having an additional person in attendance. This
would include the cost of your handouts, drinks, meals or any other
cost that would increase if another person came to your event.
Knowing that every additional person costs you $25 allows you to
proceed with your computations.
Let's say that your newspaper ad will cost you $2,000 and it ends up
generating 10 attendees. Would your R.O.M.D be 1:3 ($2,000:
$6,000)? No. You need to add on marginal cost of having the 10
people. Adding on $250 (10 x $25) you get $2250. So your true
R.O.M.D. is $2250:$6000. This works out to 1: 2.66.
The rule of thumb is that even if you only break even on a marketing
approach, you should consider using it since it doesn't take into
account back-of-the-room sales. Since the ratio in this case is greater
than 1:1, you would use the newspaper ad with some confidence. In
cases where you had a history of high product sales, you may even
use those marketing methodologies that produced R.O.M.D. ratios
that are slightly less than 1:1.
Since we already know that TR = SR + PS + CB, we know that you
make money "on the front end" with any marketing method that
produces a ratio of greater than 1:1. If you're just starting out in the
seminar business, stick with those marketing methods that produce a
minimum of 1:1 ratios.
If you have a history of doing this seminar, your computations will
be different. If you "know" that the average customer will generate an
additional $150 in product sales, we can compute the ratio including
the product sales number.
In this example, spending $2,250 will produce $3,000 (SR) + $1,500
(product sales for 10 people: $150 X 10) for a total of $4,500. In this
case, the numbers work out extremely neatly (as you might have
guess I planned them). Your R.O.M.D. is 1:2 (2,250: 4,500).
This means that for every dollar you spend on this particular advertising/
promotional vehicle you generate $2 in total revenue.
The CB component doesn't come in immediately. Some consulting
business that you generate may come in well after the event itself. In
my case, I have generated consulting business more than 10 years
after a seminar my new client attended.
This being the case, leave the CB component completely out of your
computations. Let the consulting business be gravy. Don't use it in
your computation of R.O.M.D.
If you included the CB component, you could get yourself into trouble.
If you relied on consulting business and it didn't come in (or
didn't come in as quickly as you expected) then you might drive yourself
bankrupt. Even if the consulting business was significant, you may
not be able to handle the cash flow shortfall in the short run.
Unless you can generate a break-even on seminar registration and
product sales with a certain method of marketing, don't use it! In
essence you have thrown out the "CB" in the equation. You still
know that it will bear fruit
eventually, but for our computations -
as well as for your financial peace of mind - leave it out!
Elements of Your Ad or Direct-Mail Piece
Any advertising you do for your seminars will contain virtually all of
the same elements. This would apply to ads you place in both newspapers
and trade publications. Many of the same elements will also
be included in your direct mail pieces.
Here are a list of the elements you'll want to include:
Pre-head: The pre-head is what is at the very top of your ad, usually
in fairly small type. It sets the stage for the main headline which is in
much larger type. Think of the pre-head as the maitre d for your ad.
It introduced people to the headline.
Headline: Your headline is the single most important part of your ad
or direct mail piece. The difference between success and failure could
lie in your headline. You need to work at creating a variety of headlines
before settling on one. Some people who do nothing but write
this kind of material start out by writing as many as 100 headlines
before they start narrowing the selection.
Post Head: This is what comes after the headline and keeps people
reading so they enthusiastically read your first paragraph.
Greeting: Your greeting is how you say hello to each individual reader
of your direct mail piece. You obviously won't have one of these in
your ads.
First Paragraph: Your first paragraph is critical to your success, second
only to your headline. You need to suck people in with powerful
benefits or they will turn away and do something else with their
busy lives.
Testimonials: You wouldn't use the word testimonials as the heading
of this section. Instead use something like: "What Others Say About
the Seminar." In this section, the more specific the quotation, the
better. When identifying the source of the quotation, make sure to
include the first and last name as well as the city and state. Also put
the name of their company and (if they agree to it) their phone
number. The more information you include, the more credible the
testimonial will be.
Seminar Fee: Your price or fee should be clear and understandable.
How much do people have to pay? What is the deadline to receive the
discount? What bonuses do they receive if they respond by what date?
Do they get lunch for that fee? All of the typical questions that anyone
would want to know should be answered. Also, let them know what
methods of payment you accept. Also mention that the fee includes a
comprehensive 45-page workbook (or however long it really is).
Unable to Attend?: This section must be included if you're going to
generate tape sales. I've heard other marketing gurus suggest that you
NOT offer your tapes for sale in your promotional piece for your
seminar. I adamantly disagree. I have been doing seminars for quite a
while and offering recordings of the live event has never hurt seminar
registrations.
If you are offering both video and audio tapes, charge more for the
video tapes. Not long ago I forgot to change the prices for the videos
and charged the same amount as I do for the audio tapes. This was a
mistake. Videos cost a lot more to produce than audios. Make sure
you price these items accordingly.
Tax Deductibility: Even though most people know that educational
events can be deductible, it doesn't hurt to remind them of the fact.
Limited Attendance: You want to give people the feeling that your
event will fill up quickly to encourage them to register promptly. I
would suggest specifying a specific number of people that you'll allow
to attend. Using this tactic will help to create urgency.
Seminar Hotline: Include a line which says: "For more information
call our 24 Hour Free Recorded Seminar Hotline." This should be a
separate line that you set up that gives people a verbal pitch of your
event. (I discuss hotlines elsewhere in this book.)
Guarantee: An incredibly strong guarantee is a big selling point. You
are dealing with a very skeptical public. You have to do any and
everything you can to assuage their fears. A powerful guarantee helps.
I offer what I call a "100%, No B.S., No Weasel Clause, Iron Clad,
Lifetime Guarantee."
Matching the Typestyle: You'll want to match the typestyle of the
publication that you advertise in. The closer you can look like the rest
of the publication, the better. Doing this will create an implied
endorsement for your event. Some publications realize this and won't
let you match their type. Do it until you are instructed that you can't.
Who Should Attend?: This section allows you to target exactly who
you want to attend. People reading this section will be looking to find
themselves in the group. If they aren't there, they will assume this
seminar is not meant for them. List as many different groups as
possible as long as the seminar is definitely meant for them.
Early Registration Bonus: Always give people a reason to act now.
People are always inclined to put things aside and do them later. You
have to get them so excited by your seminar offer that they want to
sign up immediately. To help move this process along, give them an
incentive. This incentive can be a price reduction or some kind of a
special free gift. If you use the price reduction, make sure that you put
the date by which they must respond to get this special deal.
Your Seminar Leader: In this section, describe yourself and your
credentials. You'll want to concentrate on what benefits you have
generated for your clients and other attendees of your seminars. Take
a look at the samples in Appendix A to give you some ideas.
What You Will Learn (Bullet Points): This is the most influential
section of the main body of your ad. Reading through this section is
where most people make a decision about whether or not to attend
your event.
Location(s): You'll want to let people know exactly where your event
is being held. Give people exact locations and even phone numbers
if possible. When there is more than one Hilton in the area, make
sure and highlight this fact in the ad and let them know which one
it is. Even with these explicit instructions some people will still blow
it and go to the other hotel. If your ad is detailed and clear they will
blame themselves and not you when they screw up.
Times: Give people the times of your event and when they should be
there to register. Tell them they should be there 30-45 minutes in
advance to make sure everyone is in by the appointed start time.
Who Should Not Attend?: I've started using this section in trade
publications and I feel it works out well. The idea here is to further
sell people on your event using the negative slant. In this section, I
tell people who think they know it all or don't want to learn the latest
and greatest stuff not to attend. Using this section will also eliminate
a lot of jerks who may have attended.
Cancellations: You should have a clearly stated cancellation policy.
Even though you offer people an iron-clad guarantee, you should
still let people know what to do in the event that they have to
cancel.
Newspaper Ads
I started my career in seminars by running space ads in newspapers.
I promoted a one-day seminar on a Saturday. I ran the ads the two
Sundays before for the following Saturday. When I did my first seminar
on Starting Your Own Consulting Business back in the early 80s I
spent about $1500 on two 15-inch ads that ran on the two Sundays
before my event.
I charged $95 for the seminar and had 44 people show up. I ended up
netting around $2,000. I was psyched! The problem is that back then
I did not understand the front end/back end concept. I may have
made $2000, but I lost a lot more money by not having a decent
back-end product line.
I no longer make those mistakes. Live and learn.
The beauty of the newspaper ad as compared with direct mail is that
you can decide you want to do a seminar today and three weeks from
now be doing a seminar. It shortens the lead time for you to do a
seminar.
Of course, email promotion is even faster, but that wasn't an option
when I started in this business.
Advertising in newspapers can work well for certain general-interest
seminars. The newspaper is a fairly general medium. Since that is
the case, it makes sense to test newspaper advertising for seminar
topics like making money, losing weight and having better sex. If
you have a general seminar topic, you should definitely test the
newspaper.
A lot of big cities have two or more major newspapers. Usually only
one will work for promoting your seminar. I learned this by mistake
many years ago in Dallas. Not being familiar with that city I advertised
in the wrong paper. How did I know? I didn't get very many
registrations. Luckily, I also did some direct mail, so I squeezed out a
small profit.
Before you advertise in a city you know nothing about, talk to people
in that city and get their feedback. If I had done this with Dallas, I
never would have made the mistake I did.
When you run ads in the main newspaper in a town you'll get calls
from various specialty papers. The calls will come from hardworking
salespeople trying to sell you advertising space. They will be very
convincing in their arguments. Don't bite!
My standard response to an enthusiastic salesperson is to give them
a very enthusiastic reply. I say: "It sounds like you think this ad
will really work in your publication. Here's what I think we should
do. Rather than pay for the space, let's split the revenue 50-50 on
all registrations. You can even have the calls come into your office
so you can track the responses. That way you can be a partner in
this venture and make a lot more money than if I just pay for the
space."
After you give them that line, don't say a thing. They will usually
have nothing to say. In all the years I have been doing seminars I
actually got one publication to go for this scenario. It didn't work out
well for either of us, but I didn't spend money up-front to find out.
Please follow my lead.
One question that always comes up with newspapers is in which
section of the paper to place the ad. This depends on the type of seminar
you're doing. I have found that the seminars that I do work best
in the main news section of the paper.
It would be very difficult for me to give you specific recommendations
in this area without knowing your particular seminar topic.
Even if I did know your topic, we would still have to test to see what
worked. All the speculation we might do is meaningless. The proof is
in the pudding. Test it for yourself to see what works.
When I do a seminar I will occasionally run what are called "tickler
ads" a few weeks before the larger ads kick in. These are small (oneor
two-inch) ads consisting only of a powerful headline and a phone
number to call for more information. If you choose to test these, run
a Web site address as well.
It also makes sense to test some classified ads. They are usually
extremely affordable and can help to build your mailing list as well as
perhaps snagging a few seminar registrations. Think of your classifieds
as a two-step ad. Don't try to sell the seminar in a small
classified. Sell them on getting more information.
Trade Publication Ads
If you are doing seminars in a niche market, chances are you'll find at
least one or two (maybe more) trade publications you should consider
advertising in. Although not as cost effective as email promotion, it
usually makes sense to use them to promote your event.
Your promotion efforts in the trade publications will not only generate
additional registrants, but you will likely get some in-house
seminars and consulting work.
The nice thing about trade publications is that people in that industry
usually read them. Most people read them cover to cover. With an
effective ad, you will be seen.
One of the problems with trade publications is you must plan your
seminars well in advance. Depending on the magazine, they may
need your ad copy as much as 60 days or more in advance. This isn't
as much a problem as it is a hassle. You need to be very organized and
book your schedule well in advance.
Magazines are also more effective if you're advertising a series of seminars,
not just one. The efficiency of your advertising efforts increases
dramatically when you advertise multiple seminars in an ad.
Trade magazines tend to have a fairly long shelf life. Most people keep
one magazine on their table or desk at least until the next issue
arrives. When the latest issue arrives people save the magazines or cut
out the articles and ads that most interests them.
Dollar for dollar trade publications often provide the best return for
your marketing dollar outside of email promotions.
If you can also get them to let you write articles for their publications,
your ads will be even more effective. Again, there appears to be an
implied endorsement.
I suggest you set up your ads in an advertorial style. This makes it
look like an article. You may want to test both a three-column and a
single-column approach. The more you can make your ad look like
editorial copy, the better off you'll be.
Many trade publications will demand that you "slug" your ad. This
means that they will slap the word "Advertisement" up at the top of
the ad. Don't worry, it rarely depresses response rates.
Radio & TV Advertising
Most advertising on TV and radio for seminars are a waste of time and
money. Unless you have extremely deep pockets, promoting using
these means are too expensive to test. Since testing must be done
before you roll out, the small seminar promoter should avoid both of
these means of marketing.
If, on the other hand, you're well financed and have a program that
lends itself to a two step promotion, radio and TV may be sensible to try.
The people who have been the most successful with this means of
promotion have been the real estate and financial seminar folks.
They are normally promoting multiple dates in multiple cities. They
are almost always using a two step promotional model. They use
radio and TV to fill the rooms and then sell people on a two day
weekend event.
Direct Mail
In the not too distant past, direct mail was the primary means of
promoting seminars. In the age of the internet, this is changing
quickly.
As postage and printing prices rise, it makes sense to find other more
cost effective means of marketing your seminar.
I don't suggest that you ignore the use of direct mail, but using my
model it will not be your primary means of promoting your events.
The problem is the cost associated with printing and postage associated
with direct mail.
It is very easy to make money using only email to promote your
event. Your fixed costs are virtually nil. The use of direct mail increases
your costs and thus your break even number.
Both direct mail and newspaper advertising must have certain
elements present in each.
Although I'm doing less and less of it, many people are still using
direct mail to promote their events. To make it pay its way, you have
to do it right. Earlier in this chapter, I outlined the essential elements
of a direct-mail piece or advertising design.
Postcard Mailings
A variation on direct mail that involves long copy sells is the postcard
mailing. A postcard mailing is a brief message designed to drive traffic
to a Seminar Hot Line or your Web site.
I will often use a postcard mailer when I'm promoting a seminar to
my in-house list. This is a group of people who already know and love
me. I can use postcards and still get very respectable response to my
in-house list.
Whenever I want to redo one of my existing products I'll do a postcard-
only mailer to promote the event. I'll limit the attendance to 10
or 12 and then have everyone sit around a boardroom table and
record the session.
If I'm promoting a standard event, I'll do a postcard mailing a week
before my main direct mail piece. The postcard will promote the
upcoming event by giving a Web site address and a seminar hotline
number. It will also tell people to be looking for the longer, more indepth
direct mail piece that will follow.
The purpose of the postcard is not to try to sell its recipients on the
seminar. That would be absurd. You don't have enough space to make
that happen. The purpose of the postcard is to get them to call your
seminar hotline or visit your Web site. Let the hotline or the site sell
the program for you. If you have an effective hotline, it will, at a
minimum, provoke a call from people who want more information.
You should be armed with an extensive 8 page fax or email to close
the person on registering.
For prospective attendees who live within 250 miles of the seminar
location, send a first postcard about five or six weeks before the date
of the seminar. Then a week later, send your longer direct mail piece,
then a week later, follow up with a different postcard.
If people will have to travel farther than 250 miles, the customer
should probably be given a little longer to respond. You may want to
add two weeks. Your first postcard would then go out eight weeks
before the seminar. Your direct mail piece would go out at six weeks
before the date. The last postcard mailer should go out four to five
weeks before the date of the seminar.
The key to making your postcards work is the headline. Like any
other piece of direct mail, it is vitally important to your success. But,
remember your goal is not to get them to agree to sign up for the
seminar, but simply to get people to call the hotline or visit the Web
site.
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Fred Gleeck is an information marketer. He creates, markets and sells books, ebooks, audios, videos, seminars and software to a variety of niche markets. Fred is both a mentor to other information marketers and a sought after internet/marketing consultant. He is based in the Las Vegas area and spends a good deal of time in New York City. Fred is a movie and theatre buff and also enjoys reading good fiction. He lives with his two chocolate Labs, Coco and Henry.
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