Seminar Marketing Book
My most popular book is called: “Marketing and Promoting Your Own Seminars and Workshops.” It is currently in the process of being revised. Although the information is solid, there are some areas that need a bit of updating. Over the course of the next 9 to 12 months, I’ll be revising that book.
One of the areas that will be revised is the way in which seminar marketers should use email to market their events. I now use very little direct mail in the marketing of any of my own, or my clients events. This is because of my obsession with making sure that I maintain my perfect record of having never lost money on a seminar or event. To do that, I have to keep my expenses to a bare minimum and rely only on those methods I am 1000% sure work.
Over the past 4 or 5 years, I’ve been marketing my seminars exclusively using online means. I’ve also recommended to others that they do the same.
At least twice a month I get an email from someone who wants my help in doing one of their seminars. They are anxious to get going and are willing to spend a lot of money to make the events happen. I’m almost always the voice of reason who asks them to step back and take a deep breath. Every single person who contacts me is under the delusion that they can profitably promote a seminar with a small or non existent inhouse email list. This is nuts!
IF you want to be doing seminars and workshops in a field, the single most important thing you can do is build a high quality list of email names. This will allow you to promote to these folks for free. This reduces your break even point to almost ZERO.
If you were to combine your in house email marketing with some quality joint ventures and some content packed teleseminars or webinars, you’ll be well on your way to creating a profitable event.
The areas of my seminar book that will be most updated are in this area. Reliance on direct mail is iffy. I’ve seen some people get decent results, but others have wasted a lot of money. My suggestion is to concentrate on your online methods of getting people to attend your events. This way your break even point is extremely low.
The new version of the seminar marketing book will cover these and other new topics that you, as a seminar marketer, should consider carefully when doing your events.