However, if you then go on to let people know that you will be happy to get the a copy of a GOOD CLEAN audio of the event at a VERY reasonable price, most will NOT try and record it on the SLY.

What is the right price?

I would say about 10% of what they paid to attend the event. If you price a good audio recording at that price, most people will think it’s worth it to pay for a GOOD quality recording.

Do it this way and you’ll have very few people who WANT the recordings who wont’ BUY them!

I suggest you do it either at lunch or right after you finish for the day.

Make it a NON mandatory session and make sure that your speaker KNOWS that you are going to promote it this way.

How do you get people to come?

Let the speaker (who should be there before the session – preferably well before) do a short commercial about what he/she is going to do at this special session. Let them tell the folks what they will learn and give them the BENEFITS of attending.

This is a good place to have someone who is a strong closer for products do their thing. As long as they deliver some good, solid, content, people won’t be offended with a strong pitch at the end.

AND, since it is a SPECIAL session that was meant for those who WANTED to come, your attendees can’t really BITCH about a PITCH!

Start your search on-line. If you’re doing a marketing seminar for chiropractors, go to your favorite search engines and enter in the words: “marketing seminar for chiropractors.” You’ll also want to search for variations on these terms as well. Look everywhere you can on-line and you’ll find what you’re looking for. (If you want help with this, buy my friend and colleague Dan Shafer’s amazing eBook, How to Find Anything on the Web in Less Than 10 Minutes, which is being published at the same time as this book. It’s available through our joint Web site, www.publishingprofit.com.)

You’ll also want to approach trade associations. Act like a naïve “newbie” and tell them you’re looking for a certain kind of event and ask who offers them.

As soon as you decide to do seminars in a given topic or area, attend every seminar that anyone else offers that is remotely related. Take extensive notes at these events. Monitor them not just for the infor- mation, but for how they present the content. Take what you can from their events and make changes where you feel they’re appropriate.

Talk to attendees. Ask them what they liked the most and least about the event. You can learn a lot by surveying the people who are there. Remember, their perspective will be very different from yours. They will be your future customers. While you’re at it, collect business cards for your database. They will be ideal prospects for your events.

Make sure that you are on the mailing lists for all of your competi- tors. Do this both on and offline. If they take you off their lists because they identify you, just ask a friend to get on their list and send you their promotions. (When competitors find their way onto my mailing lists, I don’t try and make it difficult for them. It actually takes too much work to ferret out a competitor.)

After attending their events, assess where their strengths and weak- nesses lie. Assess your own skill and knowledge base and see where you can provide a different approach or where you can fill in the gaps and do some coaching work.

An example from the publishing industry may help to illustrate my point. I help small to medium sized publishers make more money. There are two or three people who do something related. When I started this business, I attended their events.

My assessment turned up that although the individuals sponsoring these events were intelligent and knowledgeable, their content and presentation were lacking. I came in and quickly gained huge market share at their expense by providing a much better seminar with a slightly different slant.

As soon as you identify your competition, you’ll want to see if they are amenable to a joint venture. In this case, a “joint venture” is a relationship in which they let you mail a promotion about your event to their customer base and you cut them in for 50% of what you make from their customers who attend. In many cases, you’ll be met by immediate hostility. Very few people can see the positive benefits to them of a joint venture for your seminar. They may or may not be right.

Here’s how I see it. If I’m really good at what I do, I won’t be scared to let my customers know about a seminar from one of my competi- tors. Why? Because they will inevitably be disappointed. I might as well get paid 50% by them to let them know about an event they will probably find on their own.

Another thing to remember about people and seminars. Many people will hop from guru to guru looking for the next greatest idea in a field. Still others just want to listen to everyone’s perspective on a given topic. Understanding these realities, it behooves you to make some money from your database in exchange for introducing them to the other gurus in the field. After all, they are highly likely to find them anyway. If they find them on their own, you won’t make a dime!

Related Topics:

There are three pieces to the publicity puzzle as it relates to your semi- nars. 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 news- worthy 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 promo- tion. 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 under- stand 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 regis- tration 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 some- one 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 atten- tion 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 recom- mend 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.

Related Topics: