Top 7 Marketing Strategies to Fill Your Workshops and Teleseminars

When Cathy (one of Get Clients readers) emailed me asking how to fill her monthly workshops, I quickly sent her a list of top mistakes that cause low attendance in training and promotional programs and several tips to make her events more successful.

Afterwards, I thought you too might find this kind of information helpful in your business. So here we go.

The 4 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid

If you currently promoting some sort of workshops or training programs and registrations are coming in slower than you would have like it, chances are you’re making one – or all – of these mistakes.

Mistake #1 - Giving your promotions too little time to work
Mistake #2 - Putting your prospects to sleep with boring copy
Mistake #3 - Turning off even the most interested buyers with a complicated registration process and...
Mistake #4 - Giving up on your follow-up efforts too soon

How did you do? Any of these sound familiar? If so, let me share with you a few quick and easy tips that will give your event marketing strategy a fighting chance.

7 Tips to Make Your Promos Generate “WOW” Results!

1. Increase the lead time to promote your events

While each situation is a little different based on your specific market and program you offer, there are certain “hard and fast” rules for how much lead time you should give your potential clients.

For a short 60 or 90-minute teleseminar all you need is a few days to couple of weeks notice.

For a half-day or full-day program, your promotions will be most effective when deployed anywhere from a month to 90-days before the event.

If you are promoting longer and pricier events you might want to start promoting as long as nine to 12 months in advance.

2. Develop exciting promotional materials

The problem most people make is trying to convince people to give up their time and money and register for a program by just listing event’s name, date, location and price.

We all can be a bit optimistic about our offerings, but this is like hoping for a miracle.

Whether you are promoting online or offline, using fliers, brochures, or emails, make sure your materials are exciting to read and communicate the full story.

3. Clearly convey reasons why your potential client should register

Don’t assume people know what’s in it for them. Tell them.

What is the BIG, HOT, UNDENIABLE BENEFIT people get from participating in your program? Are you clear what it is?

Is it something your audience really wants? It better be! And make sure to COMMUNICATE this over and over again.

4. Use multiple media to get your message out

Don’t limit your promotions to just fliers and emails. Use direct mail (like postcards and complete sales letters) and add phone-blasts and faxes. Also, using simple, two- step direct response ads can be highly effective as well.

Finally, don’t forget other promotional opportunities like mentioning your events during speaking engagements and including bounce-back offers in materials already being sent to your current clients. And of course do not overlook social media like Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin!

5. Find promotional partners

This is one of the most effective yet most overlooked ways to get eager participants to sign up for your events – when you get others to endorse and promote your event.

Depending on your audience you may find it beneficial to team up with your local chamber of commerce, a professional association, or other businesses that already have an established relationships with your potential clients.

6. Make it easy to register

I know... this one seems so obvious! Yet, it amazes me how often I personally give up on ordering something I really want because the process is “too hard” or confusing. Give potential buyers clear instructions and offer multiple choices of payments. For example, I was shocked to discover a 20% jump in my sales when I included paypal as one of the payment options a few years back.

Also, for more expensive events, offer a payment plan.

7. Improve your follow-up

Sometimes this alone can make a dramatic difference.

Common wisdom often disguised as a scientific research says it takes five contacts to make the sale. Still, most people expect to sell out their programs with one boring email or flier.

With a bit of creativity you can come up with five, ten, or even more topics for stand-alone messages that could be distributed to interested prospects to give them more chances to evaluate your offer and take action.

The author, Adam Urbanski, teaches service professionals and business owners how to develop better marketing strategies to increase sales and profits. His website offers more how-to articles and free tips to create a winning marketing action plan at http://www.themarketingmentors.com Once a year, in November, Adam hosts Attract Clients Like Crazy Boot Camp designed specifically to teach entrepreneurs effective marketing strategies. http://www.attractlientslikecrazy.com