Then ask yourself, which of the companies you listed would make the MOST sense to approach first. The most sense for THEM! Which companies would benefit the most from getting in front of your group at your event.

Who do you talk to? Start with the vice president of marketing. In some companies they will be the right person to “pitch” on sponsoring your event.

If not the VP, then he/she will direct you to the right person. The decision maker will make their decision on a number of different factors.

They will include:

• How much are you charging for sponsorships?
  
• Are their competitors sponsoring your event?
• How many people are you projecting to attend?
• What is the possibility they will purchase?
• Are the attendees likely to be INFLUENCERS?

All of these questions are critical to be able to answer whomever you talk to sponsorships about.

They will want to feel that the price they pay you for the sponsorship will give them more value than what they paid for it.

What will you give them for sponsoring the event?

Will they be able to put up banners and signs or will they just have an booth or table at the back of the seminar room?

Do they get to sponsor a meal? Will they get to speak in front of the whole group?

What should you do? Sorry to say, but it DEPENDS on what you’re trying to do. If you want the MOST money, you let them have “face time” with your audience. The more time you allow them, the more money you should try and EXTRACT from them.

I’ve also seen people sell the back cover of the seminar workbook to a sponsor. The possibilities are endless. Just put your thinking cap on.

There are two primary things I suggest you do.

One is a longer, more detailed promotional brochure. You will want to do it on an 11X17 coated paper. Given the relatively inexpensive prices of printing these days, you should probably opt for “4 color” printing. This just means that you print in FULL COLOR.

You’ll want to concentrate first on your headline. This will be the most important element of the brochure. Make sure you make it a SELF mailer. Putting the piece in an envelope will only depress your response rates.

On this piece, also make sure to include:

• Lots of bullet points detailing what people will learn
• Plenty of testimonials, preferably audio and/or video
• A bio that will make people want to hear YOU
• Pricing that is tiered based on how soon people respond
• Bonuses that make sense to anyone who visits
• A website address for those who need more info
• Where and when the event will be held

If you opt to do a postcard, here are some of the things you need to know:

• Use a postcard that is over-sized to make sure it gets seen
• Your headline becomes critical to success
• Don’t PACK it with copy, make it “airy” and easy to read
• Your primary goal is to drive people to a site

When using either or both of these direct mail methods, the most critical item is your list. The best list is one that you compile yourself. This will make it MUCH more likely to get people sign up.

I never recommend that people use compiled or purchased lists to promote a seminar. They usually don’t pull enough response to justify their purchase.

You should always TRY and write the copy yourself You may find you are very good at it. If you’re like me you’ll find that you are NOT particularly good.

No worries.

You can have a professional copywriter write the copy for your seminar or event. IF you have a LOAD of cash!

Hiring GOOD copywriters to write an entire site will NOT come cheap.

If you’re on a limited budget, I suggest you write the copy yourself and then have someone like Sabrina Brick TWEAK the copy that you write.

This will save you a lot of money AND allow you to promote your event with some very well written copy.

You can find Sabrina at:

http://www.SuperFastTweak.com

(Make sure to tell her where you found her!)

Most seminars are boring and teach you very little. In order to get people to shell out a lot of cash you have to be giving them some real value. When I do my fred info bootcamps, I give people a full week of education on how they can create and market their own info products.

The reason why it’s possible for me to charge what I do for this event is that people leave with a FINISHED product and a system to market it. The other reason why prices can be set fairly high is that it’s a small group and I put people up in my house in Las Vegas. This has a strong appeal and will make it easier to get people to part with their cash.

You also have to be willing to truly do the best for your attendees. People will want to hear from people who have been to your event. This is were video testimonials are really helpful. The ones that I have on the site that promotes this event are incredibly effective. I suggest you take a look at them to see why they are so powerful.

Your seminar attendees can smell if you’re merely out to take their money. OR, if you’re truly interested in helping people. Very few people can effectively fake it. Don’t be one of them!

The best way to maximize event marketing promotions 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 to e-mail either a pre-written email to ensure effective promotion or a link to your carefully written 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 new- found 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 joint- ventured 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.

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