How to Write Effective Seminar Marketing Materials 51 · People attend seminars, workshops,...

How to Write Effective Seminar Marketing Materials 51

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© 2011 Hamby Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

STEP TWO: Write Your Copy Chunks

The prospect of sitting down to write an entire brochure, sales letter or web site can be wildly intimidating. It can kick off a huge case of writer’s block.

One way I’ve discovered for navigating around this challenge is breaking copy into chunks. This process grew out of a short cut I would take during the research phase of my projects. I love writing notes by hand on pads of paper. But then I would have to essentially rewrite all of my notes because I would have to type them before I could use them in my copy. I started typing my notes up immediately while doing the research. I would have a section for notes about how prospects would benefit from attending a particular seminar, another section for things they would learn, another section for who should attend and so on.

When my daughter was born in 2001, I faced an additional challenge: she was a cat napper. She would sleep for only 20 or 30 minutes at a time. So I learned to squeeze in little bits of work while she napped. I trained myself to focus on cranking out one chunk of copy at a time. It worked so well that I continued using the method even after Maggie, and eventually her little brother, started attending school.

In this section, we’re going to break your seminar promotions down into manageable chunks and write them one at a time.

You’ll see in a minute that the order in which we’ll write these chunks is NOT the way they will appear in your promotional materials. As you can imagine and expect, a headline or seminar title is the first thing that you’ll see in your seminar promotions. But we won’t start by writing headlines or brainstorming about titles. Instead, we’re going to start with writing the section about “what you’ll learn” at the event. I start here because what you’ll learn is the heart of your seminar promotions. People attend seminars, workshops, teleseminars and webinars to learn.

Writing this section first offers several benefits:

You get very clear about what will be taught during your seminar. If you’re the person developing and teaching the class, you might think that it sounds odd to suggest that you need to get clear about what will be taught. But I’m continually surprised by clients who read my description of what they teach and argue that they don’t teach as much content as I’ve described in their promotions. Once they realize that what I’ve described is, in fact, what they teach, they often comment that they want to sign up for their own course.

Writing other chunks of copy becomes easier once you have


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articulated what exactly you’ll be teaching.

It’s the most time-intensive section to write. So why not dig in and get it done? The rest of the copywriting will be like coasting downhill.

As you work through this section, you’ll want to have several things available:

Your research materials, particularly the documents in which you took notes for each section of copy (such as who should attend, what you’ll learn, how you’ll benefit, etc.).

Your workbook, a notepad or your computer – whatever you prefer for drafting your chunks of copy.

The copywriting samples included with this kit. Do not copy these samples word for word (they are provided as teaching examples only). Instead, use them to guide your own efforts.

What You’ll Learn

The seminar content description (or “What You Will Learn” section) is one of the most critical sections of your marketing materials, second only to the headline. It may even be more important, as the headline merely captures a reader’s attention. The content description is what will sell most prospects on the idea of attending your event.

This section is where you prove that your seminar has meat – that it will provide the critical knowledge and skills that your attendees are so desperately craving. By listing exactly what attendees will be learning at your event, you’ll help to set and manage their expectations.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when creating your marketing materials is making the content description too brief. Don’t merely list the broad topics that you’ll be covering during the event. Doing so leads to three potential problems:

Prospects think “I already know that” and think they don’t need your seminar. For example, “finance, legal issues, ethics, marketing and logistics” might be clear headings to you if you’re leading a small-business seminar. But these descriptions are dull. They don’t provide enough of a hook to grab readers’ attention and make them recognize their need or interest in the topic.

Wary prospects won’t be sure you’ll talk about what they need to know related to the subject. They also won’t necessarily take the


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initiative to call you with questions and, therefore, won’t sign up.

You’ll end up with a roomful of dissatisfied customers. Each participant will bring dramatically different expectations as to what will be covered under each topic area. When their questions aren’t answered, they’ll leave grumbling. You may even get requests for refunds because you haven’t lived up to their expectations.

If your agenda is detailed, though, there will be no questions about what specifically you’ll cover during an event. If a specific subtopic isn’t on the list, participants won’t expect to learn about it.

For example, if I were holding a workshop on how to promote seminars, I could list Internet marketing as a topic. If I don’t define what, exactly, I plan to discuss related to Internet marketing, some participants will come expecting to learn the right way to use emails to rented mailing lists, other attendees will want to learn about search engine optimization, and still others might expect to learn the specifics of putting up a web page. If my intent is merely to discuss writing online sales letters to post on your website, I’ll have a roomful of unhappy campers.

Now, on the other hand, if I list 30 different subpoints under the head of Internet marketing, and all of those elements are specific to writing copy, prospects will know that I’m not planning to cover search engine optimization and programming.

So how detailed should be your content list be? My rule is, the more detailed the better. You’re never going to lose a prospect because they think they’re going to learn too much, but you could lose them if they don’t think you’ll provide enough content – and therefore, enough value, for the money you’re charging.

Plan to devote as much as 25 to 30 percent of your total marketing space to telling prospects what they’re going to learn. Remember, you might be concerned about making money, but your prospects are concerned about learning. Be sure to allow adequate space to tell them what they are going to learn – even if that means spending a little bit more money to investing in a larger brochure or a longer sales letter.

As you’ll see in a minute, the process I use is to write one statement for each point you’ll be making in your materials. Depending on the length of your training program, you may end up with a list that is 50 to 100+ points long. If, after going through the process of writing this section, you feel the list of lessons learned is too long (or if using a tool, such as a postcard, with a limited amount of space), here’s what to do:

Post the entire list of lessons learned on your web site.


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Extract the most compelling points to include in your promotional pieces.

At the end of the content description you use in your promotional tools, include a link to the web page where prospects can review the entire list of lessons you’ll be teaching.

A second common mistake that marketers make when describing an event’s content is listing the topics and then writing paragraphs of copy that describe the general lessons that will be imparted under that topic. Don’t do this. It screams “Skip over me!” Despite the care and effort we invest into crafting our marketing copy, prospects rarely read it word for word. Instead, they scan over the copy until something grabs their attention, at which point they’ll slow down to read more carefully. Paragraphs appear to the scanning eye as impenetrable blocks of text. Describing your content in paragraph format only makes it difficult for the distracted prospect to quickly grasp what you are trying to communicate.

The best way to present the seminar content is as a bulleted list, with a separate bullet for each lesson you plan to impart. By breaking your content into short, easy-to-digest bullets, you’ll increase the chances of the copy being picked up on some level. If desired, you can divide your list into sections organized by subtopics, including a sentence or two to explain what that portion of your training will cover. Then list at least three bulleted statements under each section to flesh out your description of what will be taught in that particular section of your course. For example:

Identifying Seminar Content

Another stumbling block you face as a new trainer is figuring out what exactly you need to cover during your seminar. If you're like many new promoters, you have a TON of information to share. But figuring out what makes the most sense for a specific event can be tough.

Discover:

How much input your prospective attendees should have in your seminar agenda

How one popular method of determining content can actually be a huge disservice for your attendees

The quick and easy way to organize your content ... without involving an instructional designer


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The best way to create the seminar content description is to go through your course outline step by step. The following process will help you turn the factual statements about what you’ll teach into powerful bullet points.

What you need: Grab your instructor’s manual or participant’s manual if you have one. If you don’t, grab the course outline provided by your instructor.

If you don’t have any of these resources, you’ll have to rely on your common sense (what you know about the audience and topic), as well as the results of your interviews with past participants, prospective attendees and/or the instructor. (Note: if you are using the instructor’s or participant’s manual, be sure to go back to review your research interview notes to add even more content to this section).

What to do: Go through your manual, slide by slide. You will be writing one bullet point for each lesson you are teaching, so you end up with a detailed list that looks something like this:

The right way to ask questions to uncover client needs (hint: most salespeople do not know this technique)

How to present your information with passion and conviction … and how these two ingredients allow you to subconsciously control your prospect’s buying behavior

How to break the paralyzing chokehold that indecision has on your life … and why the ability to make a decision is the key to your ultimate success

The single most important thing you can do to build your self-esteem and achieve your goals

The five rules for defining what you really want – break any of these rules and your ability to achieve your goals will be slashed dramatically

Following is a five-step process to use in writing your bullet points. You can go through the entire manual, doing one step at a time, or you can go through the entire process, one bullet point at a time. Use whichever approach works best for you. What you’ll probably find is that you will grow more comfortable with the process the more points you write. Eventually, you’ll be able to do at least some, if not all, of the steps without having to think through the process.


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If you find that the bullet points you create after Step 2 or 3 is easiest for you to write or produces copy that feels most appropriate for communicating with your audience, feel free to stop. Although I find that using the entire process works best and builds the greatest intrigue and desire for event content, the bottom line is that this copy is for your event. You must be comfortable with the copy that is promoting your seminar.

Ready? Grab your manual, flip to slide #1, and let’s get started.

Step 1: Identify all of the topics. Obviously, w e w ill not be stopping here. However, it can be helpful to identify all the topics you’ll be covering during your program. If desired, write a two- or three-sentence summary to help prospects understand their need for this content and what they’ll learn. For example, use one or two sentences to summarize the problem or challenge they are facing. Use one or two sentences to summarize what they’ll learn in this section.

Marketing Your Seminar

Promoting a seminar is unlike promoting a product or service. Learn secrets for succeeding at this potentially high-risk game … and how to generate the biggest return on your marketing investment.

Step 2: Identify the “how to.” This is essentially going through and listing the subtopics of what you’ll be teaching. Although this isn’t the best way to describe content, as it can be a little too brief. However, it is much better than listing broad and general topics only.

You will learn how to:

Identify your audience

Properly name your event

Increase registrations

Step 3: Add more color and description. The English language is a wonderful thing, a bounty of words that can add richness and color to your marketing materials. Grab a thesaurus and be creative in the way you describe your content. The best copy will create “word pictures” in your prospects’ minds. The more descriptive you are, the better your chances of getting prospects to connect with your copy.

Just a word of warning: you don’t want to choose multisyllabic,


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unpronounceable words that will scare off your readers or leave them utterly baffled. Simply review the list from Step 2 and see if there’s a more lively way you can rewrite the point.


Create a profile of your perfect seminar attendee

Craft a compelling seminar title

Generate a flood of registrations

Step 4: Highlight the benefits. Spell out the benefits your prospects will gain when they master the lessons you’ll cover. Help them picture the end result of your training.


Create a profile of your perfect seminar attendee … so you know at a glance whether a new advertising opportunity will be a surefire winner or certain loser

Come up with a seminar title so compelling that prospects are motivated to register based just on the name

Generate a flood of registrations with minimal effort and expense

To quickly tap into the benefits, go through the points you create in Step 3 and ask “So what? How is this going to help attendees?” This is what prospects will do as they read your copy, so keep asking the question until you’ve identified the benefit of each lesson and what it means to the prospects.

Compile the answers to these questions, and you’ll soon see themes developing, such increasing profits, saving money, improving efficiency, reducing error rates, and so on.

Step 5: Tease. Add a little m ystery to your m arketing by teasing the reader a little bit, making them extremely curious about what you’ll be teaching. At this stage, you can vary the format of your bullets. Ways to do this include incorporating questions and putting thoughts in parentheses.

You will learn:

The 3-step process for creating a picture-perfect profile of your ideal seminar attendee … so you know at a glance


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whether a new advertising opportunity will be a surefire winner or a certain loser

Want to make prospects to register just by telling them your seminar’s name? Here’s the litmus test your title must pass

7 tested tactics for generating a flood of registrations with minimal effort and expense

TIP: Refer to the samples section of this manual to get ideas for how to write these bullet points.

A content list isn’t the only way you can tell readers what they’ll be learning when they attend your event. You can also use:

A list of questions, sample problems or quizzes. Just write a question as if you were giving a quiz and ask readers to work through the problem or answer the question. Then deliver the answer and explain that you’ll be giving them the answers to similar questions at your event.

Q: What’s the best approach when offering a guarantee?

A. Don’t guarantee satisfaction – the legal department will have a cow.

B. Let attendees stay for the first morning only. If they don’t ask for a refund at lunch, they are committed.

C. Make participants stay for the entire course before they can ask for a satisfaction guarantee.

D. Don’t publicize a satisfaction guarantee. Decide whether or not to refund money on a case-by-case basis.

You’ll discover these answers and more when you attend “How to Market Your Own Seminars and Workshops.”

Case studies. With this format, you provide more background to help the reader understand how the scenario changed. Tell the reader what situation your attendees were facing, what changes they implemented based on what they learned at your event and then, finally, what the results were.

A list of results achieved by past attendees.

Past participants have achieved results like these in as little as three months after attending the seminar:


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Doubled closing ratio

Grew revenue 17% within first 60 days

Slashed return rates by 37%

Generated an extra $108,000 in income from one idea

Common challenges faced by your audience. Use an introduction such as “Past attendees say our seminar has helped them …” or “Attending this seminar will give you the skills and knowledge to overcome these common challenges.”

Testimonials. This will be covered in greater detail later in this manual.

This section should include a subhead that quickly signals what it’s all about – the content you’ll learn at the seminar. Some ideas include:

What You’ll Learn

Discover the Top 27 Lessons You’ll Learn

Give Me Two Days and I’ll Teach You the Following

After going through the manual, also review the notes you took when researching competitors and the notes your transcribed during the interview process. Compare these items to the list you just wrote and determine:

Are there any points from competitors or your interviews that should be incorporated into your seminar? If so, add the item to your “What You’ll Learn” list and make a note to revise your presentation.

Are there any points that are better said in your attendees’ own words? If so, edit your list.

Are there any items that you know that you do teach, but that you did not include in your list? If so, add them now.

TIP: Review the sample promotional materials that are included with this manual for ideas on how to write bullet points. Use the structure of the copy I’ve provided as a guideline – change words as needed to adapt the copy to your seminar.

Who Should Attend


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Another critical task your copy must accomplish is identifying who should attend. Unfortunately, some marketers overlook this step, believing that prospects should “just know.” Maybe so … but let’s face it, people are skimming your materials. To grab their attention, you need to scatter as many hooks as possible throughout your copy. You want to grab readers with something that will make them say, “Hey, that’s me they’re talking about. I need to read more about this.”

The most obvious way to tell readers who should attend is to create a “Who Should Attend” section in your brochure or letter. You want a nice big subhead that will make them stop and read through the paragraphs in that section, which would further describe the ideal prospects.

What you need: Grab the research information you collected in the first section of this manual. Review who you know — based on common sense and experience — should attend this seminar. Also review the notes you took when checking out competitors’ marketing materials.

You can describe prospects in a variety of ways, including:

Job titles

Sales managers, sales assistants, sales directors, VPs of Sales, sales professionals

Experience

mechanics with at least five years’ experience working on foreign luxury cars

Demographics

widows over age 55

Events in their lives

Business owners who want to sell their companies within the next three to five years

A checklist of problems they may be facing

If you’re struggling with any of these issues, this seminar may help:

A checklist of desired benefits

Veterinary clinic owners who want to:


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Secure more patients

Increase clinic profitability

Reduce marketing expenses

Quizzes, case studies and descriptive testimonials will supplement the work you do in this chunk of copy by providing additional clues about whether they should attend. When they see a peer describe how your event helped them achieve the benefits they’re after or if they see, via a case study or quiz, that you can help them solve their biggest problems, they’ll understand that your event is right for them.

This section should have a descriptive subhead so that it jumps out at prospects who are scanning your copy. “Is this seminar right for me?” is one of the top questions racing through your prospects’ minds. Having a subhead that addresses that question will hook their attention and get them to slow down enough to learn more. Here are a few to try:

Who Should Attend

You Should Attend If:

This Seminar Is Designed for:

How You’ll Benefit

To get prospects to sign up for your event, your marketing materials must convince them that they’ll benefit by attending. It’s not enough to merely tell prospects what they’ll be learning at your event. You need to go one step further, connect the dots, and provide specifics about how they could, and probably will, benefit by learning the information you’ll be sharing.

What you need: Grab your notes from researching your competitors, as well as the notes you took when interviewing participants and the instructor.

Here are three different ways you can pinpoint the benefits that are most important to your prospects. Use these methods alone or in combination:

Take a look at the challenges or problems your customers are dealing with, then flip the situation around. W hat’s the solution to that problem? What would the reverse scenario be? These are things you want to stress.


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For example, if your audience is facing shrinking profit margins because of a flat market or increased competition, tell prospects that you can help them grow their profit margins, gain market share in the face of increased competition, and make their business stand out in a sea of competition.

To create this list, rely on your own knowledge of your audience and their problems. Also look at the benefits that your competitors emphasize in their marketing copy.

Review the list you created when writing “What You’ll Learn” and use it to build a list of benefits. To create this list, get out a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns. Label the left column “Lessons,” the middle column “So What?” and the right column “Big Benefits.” Go through your seminar outline point by point, and in the lessons column, write down the individual lessons and bits of wisdom that you’ll be sharing during your event.

Alternative: Run through the list you created w hen w riting “What You’ll Learn.” Ask yourself “So What?” and then ask what the big benefit is for each point. Type the benefits into a separate list. It is not essential to keep the benefit with the lesson (feature). You simply need to create a list of benefits that will be delivered by your seminar. Compile this list in whatever manner is most efficient for you.

Review your interview notes. Add the suggestions given to you by the instructor and by past participants to your master list of benefits. Remember to use the same wording and phrasing that your prospects used as much as possible.

Once your list of benefits is complete, start looking for themes. You’ll probably be able to identify two and three that reappear throughout the list. These are what I call the “global” or “big-picture” benefits. These benefits should be used when summarizing what your seminar will deliver, when developing your USP, in headlines and so on. You’ll also have a list of more specialized, unique benefits. These will come in handy, as well.

For example, if you are conducting a basic marketing seminar, you would probably have several items related to picking mailing lists, designing effective marketing pieces, and writing copy … the ultimate, “big picture” benefits of which are maximizing response rates while minimizing marketing costs.


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Presenting Benefits for Best Effect

For greatest effect, you’ll want to weave in benefits throughout your sales copy. For example, you could:

Put the most important benefits into your headline and include two or three bullet points on the cover.

Break the agenda and/or discussion of what you’ll learn into subtopics … and then describe each section in a benefit-oriented way. For example, if one topic I’ll cover at my seminar-marketing workshop is email marketing, I could use a subhead like “Slash Your Marketing Costs With Email Marketing” and then present a list of points I’ll cover during that section of the seminar.

Here’s another example of how you incorporate benefits with the seminar agenda or list of lessons to be taught:

Write More Effective Marketing Copy … in Less Time

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Create a comprehensive list of benefits under the subhead “How You’ll Benefit by Attending.”

If your attendees typically must seek a supervisor’s approval before attending, also include a section about “How Your Organization Will Benefit” to highlight the benefits that will most concern a supervisor.

Lessons So What? Big Benefit

How to choose a sem-inar title

You grab prospects’ a en on

Get a be er response rate


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For example, your prospects might want to attend because they’ll get cutting-edge training that will bulk up their resumes and make them more attractive to potential employers. Their current employers, on the other hand, would be more interested in knowing how giving their employees this cutting-edge education will translate into greater profits, revenue, sales, etc.

Review the details (features) of your seminar and then turn each into a benefit. Present those benefits as you discuss the details about your event. For example, many events include lunch or dinner as part of the registration fee. It’s something most attendees will want to know … but it can be made more compelling (i.e., useful to you as you try to sell seats) if you call attention to the benefit.

You can present these benefits as subheads, as well as working the benefits into your discussion of the feature. Using the lunch-is-included example, you could use a subhead as simple as “Hours of Networking With Your Peers.” Then, when you discuss the networking opportunities, you could explain that you understand that your attendees typically don’t have a chance to compare notes with their peers or get support in the workplace, because most people don’t understand the challenges they face. That’s why you’ve worked in at least one hour of networking time into each day … why you’re making lunch arrangements to maximize the time they have to network … and why you’re including a roster of attendees so they can begin networking even before the event.

Testimonials and case studies are also great places to call attention to the benefits of attending your event. After all, prospects will greet your claims of benefits with a healthy amount of skepticism. Having past attendees – people just like them – make a claim is much more believable.

“It used to take me days to bang out a sales letter. I tried your top-secret writing tip and wrote a 6-page sales letter in less than two hours. Best of all, my response rate more than doubled!”

As noted earlier, the “Who should attend” section is another fantastic place to work in some benefits. I like to include a checklist of benefits that your attendees would like to receive.

This workshop is designed for consultants, speakers and information marketers who want to:

Increase seminar registrations

Practically eliminate cancellations and requests for refunds


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Boost seminar profits

Cut seminar marketing expenses

Write more effective seminar marketing materials in less time

This section should have its own subhead as well. Here are a few ideas:

How You’ll Benefit

The Top 7 Benefits of Attending

Don’t Miss These Powerful Benefits

Event Title

Your seminar name functions as a form of headline. It should grab prospects’ attention and explain what your event is about, ideally in just two to seven words.

How important your event title is in the scheme of things, though, depends on who you are marketing to, the relationship you have with those prospects, how frequently you offer the seminar, and how long you’ve been promoting your event When you’re promoting an event to people who aren’t familiar with you or when you’re promoting one of multiple events you offer, the event title could make the difference between grabbing prospects’ eyes vs. your promotion getting tossed straight in the trash. When marketing an established event to an audience that knows you, though, the specific words don’t matter as much – people see your promotions and know instantly what it is … and what it’s about.

The quality of your seminar title also becomes more important when you are relying on a self-mailer brochure, postcard or catalog as your primary promotional tool. In these types of marketing pieces, the seminar title is traditionally used as the main headline. If your seminar name is boring or confusing, your promotion will likely be tossed into the garbage without a glance.

TIP: Test using your seminar name as a headline vs. headlines that either incorporate the event into a subhead or that do not use the seminar name at all.

The best seminar names help prospects recognize their need for the


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information or hint at the benefits they’ll receive by participating. For example:

“Internet Marketing” would be better titled “Effective Internet Marketing” or “Internet Marketing for Newbies”

“Electric Power System Design” could be better targeted if called “The Basics of Electric Power System Design” or “Advanced Electric Power System Design”

It’s generally a good idea to avoid seminar names that are cute or cryptic. The danger in being clever when naming your events is that prospects will be confused or won’t be interested immediately.

That said, you might be committed to using a seminar name that doesn’t reveal who you’re targeting, what you’re teaching or how your audience will benefit. This most often seems to be the case when experts are trying to build an air of exclusivity surrounding their events – an attitude of “if you don’t know what this seminar name means … well, you don’t belong here” – or when they’ve developed their own processes, acronyms, and names for things and the seminar is teaching their methodology. If this is the case with your seminar, take note of two things: (1) your event name isn’t going to grab the attention of someone who has never heard of you and (2) as a result, you should not use your seminar name as a headline. Instead, work your seminar name into a subhead or into the header graphic on your web site.

If you are working on the promotions for your first seminar, it can be beneficial to take a few minutes and look ahead at where you want to go with your seminar business. Do you want to have one signature event with the flexibility to modify the content and speakers based on the availability of experts, as well as on the desires and interests of your audience? Or do you want to add tightly targeted seminars to your event roster to address your audience’s needs and desires? How you answer these questions can influence what you name your event.

For example, if I named my seminar Creating Seminar Promotions That Fill Seats, I would be largely limited to covering copywriting, print and web design, and perhaps printing. It would also appeal to a narrow audience – people who want to learn how to create effective seminar promotions.

Naming my seminar How to Market Your Events would give me more flexibility in the topics I’d cover and additional speakers I could bring in. It would also appeal to a broader audience. I could still address the process of creating seminar promotions. I could also bring in experts who specialize in certain segments of marketing, such as search engine optimization or affiliate marketing, or expand the topic to include marketing of conferences, teleseminars, trade shows and special events,


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in addition to seminars and workshops.

A title of How to Build Your Seminar Business opens even more opportunities, allow me to dive into teleseminars, in-house programs, information products, coaching and consulting.

As you develop your seminar name, keep the following guidelines in mind:

Incorporate the topic of what you’ll be teaching into your seminar name.

If possible, also incorporate the benefit of attending your event (for example, Low-Cost Lead Generation ... Profitable Direct Mail Strategies … or Risk-Proof Your Investment Portfolio)

If possible and appropriate, mention your target audience (e.g., Accounting for New Business Owners or Yoga for New Mothers)

Creating a Tagline or Subtitle

Your seminar name serves as a headline; its job is to grab attention. From there, it’s the job of your event’s subtitle or tagline to keep your prospect’s attention … explaining your event in enough detail to entice prospects to continue digging into your promotions. (If it helps, think of book titles – the main title grabs your attention, while the subtitle further explains what the book is about. The same concept applies here.) Your subtitle or tagline should further clarify who should attend, the format, and/or the benefits of attending or what will be taught.

Here are a few examples to consider as you work on your seminar name and tagline:

Ken McCarthy’s internet marketing seminar, The System, has been billed as “the world's largest gathering of serious entrepreneurial Internet marketers.” One of Ken’s competitors, Armand Morin, described his event, Armand Morin’s Big Seminar, as “3 Days with the World’s Top Marketers”

The tagline for Mark Victor Hansen’s Mega Speaking Empire was “Where Future Platform Stars Meet the Speaking Industry’s Greatest Experts and Starmakers”

Jim Bunch’s Ultimate Wealth Workshop is further described with a tagline of “Develop the Skill Set, Mindset and Environments Needed to Be a Millionaire … and Beyond”

Alex Mandossian describes his Teleseminar Secrets program as


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“Tested Tactics to Sell from Your Seat”

One final note about taglines: not all seminar promoters use them. In fact, I’d say that most don’t. So if you find that you’re really stumped by trying to summarize your seminar in just a few words, you can skip this step. But to fully maximize the power of your seminar promotions, it pays to develop this extra piece of copy to help hook and keep your prospects’ attention.

Headline

Your seminar title is critical to grabbing attention and persuading prospects to register for your event. Going hand in hand with the title in terms of importance in grabbing eyeballs and building appeal is the headline for your marketing materials. Space permitting, the headline block can contain three sections: the prehead, the headline, and the subtitle or posthead.

The headline block should answer three questions:

Who is this seminar for?

What is the topic?

How will I benefit by attending?

There are dozens of ways that you can use the prehead, headline and posthead to answer these questions. Because the headline is one of the most important elements in your copy, it makes sense to spend time developing this section. Also test different headlines to see which one resonates the most with your audience.

Let’s take a look at how you can use these different components of a headline block to attract prospects and answer the three pertinent questions.

The prehead. Often printed in italics or in a slightly sm aller font, the prehead appears above the main headline and is used to help target your message to a particular audience. Use the prehead to:

Address the audience by name

A special message for retired educators …

Identify the top problem your prospects are facing


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Worried about shrinking profit margins?

Highlight key benefits your event delivers

Eliminate confusion about how to comply with OSHA regulations…

The headline. Usually pr inted in a color different than the body text (such as red or blue) and a larger font size (three to four times that of the body copy), the headline grabs prospects’ attention to get them to read the entire message.

You can use the name of your seminar as a headline – “How to” seminar titles work great in this regard. Or come up with a longer headline that is focused on the benefits your event delivers.

On direct mail brochures, the seminar title traditionally has served as the headline. On sales letters, you typically want to come up with a traditional direct-response headline … while bringing up the seminar title in the subtitle, or even waiting until you get into the body of your sales letter to introduce the title of your event.

The subtitle or posthead. Com m only printed in the sam e color, but a slightly smaller font size, as the headline, the subtitle expands on the headline’s message. Use the subhead to:

Describe the length and type of event

Identify who should attend

Hint at the problems that will be solved

List a few desired solutions you’ll deliver

A special message for Chicago-area gardeners …

Add Year-Round Beauty and Privacy to Your Backyard … Without Increasing Your Gardening Chores

During “How to Create a Low-Maintenance Evergreen Shrub Border,” You’ll Discover How to Choose, Install and Care for the Best Shrubs for

Your Zone 5 Garden

* * *

Want to increase the beauty and privacy of your backyard – WITHOUT adding to your gardening “to-do” list? Then reserve your seat for …

How to Create a Low-Maintenance


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Evergreen Shrub Border

A Half-Day Workshop That Will Show You How to Choose, Install and Care for the Best Shrubs for Your Zone 5 Garden

When you are not using your event title as a headline, craft a direct-response style of headline that provokes curiosity or makes a promise. In most cases, you’ll get better results if you resist the urge to rely on cute, “clever” or humorous headlines. Cleverness and humor may pass muster around the boardroom tables in Madison Avenue advertising agencies. But you’re not out to gain the approval of marketing and advertising folks, your peers, or even your friends and family. Using humor and play-on-words headlines is a gamble in the real world. You have to hope that your readers “get” the joke and, if they do understand it, that they agree it’s a laughing matter.

If your goal is to grab attention and generate a registration, a much better bet is using a headline that tells prospects exactly what you’ll be teaching and/or the top benefits they’ll get by attending.

One good way to generate compelling headlines is to study the work of other marketers, including those outside the seminar and speaking industry. When you see marketing materials that are used repeatedly, such as an ad that runs in every issue of your industry’s most popular magazine, save them and put them into your swipe file. Then, when you’re looking for ideas when creating your next marketing campaign, flip through those pieces for inspiration. Remember, you can’t copy things word for word (this is especially dangerous when you’re using materials from someone within your industry). Instead, use the general idea as a foundation and make it your own.

One shortcut you can use to create a compelling headline is to use a classic headline that’s been proven to work in other situations. Here are five to choose from (just replace the underlined copy with your own words):

Who Else Wants to Make a Full-Time Income Working 10 Hours a Week or Less?

Give Me Two Days … and I’ll Show You How to Make at Least $10,000 a Month With Your Own Internet Business

How to Protect Your Kids During Your Divorce

How to Book More Appointments … Without Making a Single Cold Call


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Revealed! The Secrets to Selling More Seminar Seats in a Recession

Writing headlines should be a process of continual improvement. By continually testing headlines, you’ll eventually find a headline that works like gangbusters with your audience and topic. It’s a good idea to create a “swipe file” of headlines. This is merely a collection of direct marketing pieces with headlines that caught your eye. Here are some places to look for materials for your swipe file:

Publications that your prospects read, such as industry-specific magazines, business magazines, and publications geared toward specific hobbies and interests. Watch the ads that appear in each issue. If you see repeats from issue to issue, it might mean that the ad is a winner. (The alternative is that the advertiser committed to running the ad for several months and hasn’t pulled the ad even though it’s not working. Unfortunately, this is a fairly common occurrence.)

General interest magazines. Most marketing experts will tell you to study the National Enquirer. Doing so will help you in two ways: (1) you’ll get a first-class education in writing attention-stealing headlines and (2) you’ll learn how to write copy that is simple, easy-to-understand, and very conversational.

General news … whether that’s a weekly newsmagazine, your favorite news website, or the local TV news. You want to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening so that you can tie current events into your promotions.

Your mail. Read everything that arrives in your mail box. First study the pieces that grab your attention. Then take a look at the things you really wanted to throw away (and vow not to make the same mistakes with your marketing).

Swipe files that are available from big-name copywriters. Why go through the effort of building your own from scratch when you can spend a couple of hundred dollars and buy a collection of highly successful ads and marketing materials.

Background / Introduction

You’re marketing a learning event. So obviously, you need to devote a lot of space to telling people what they’ll learn by participating.

To get things off to a roaring start, set the stage with a concise introductory section. Your introduction should identify, from a big-


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picture vantage point, what it is that attendees will learn by participating in your event.

Some marketers make the mistake of not including an introduction, figuring it is best to just jump right into a list of topics. However, introductions can play a critical role in helping prospects grasp why, exactly, your seminar is so critical to their success.

Other marketers go the complete opposite, writing what seems to be a dissertation-length composition on every nitty-gritty detail related to the topic. If you fall into this category, feel free to write a long, extensive background with a complete history of the subject matter, if you want. Just be sure to chop it down to a manageable length before you mail your materials.

When deciding what to keep and what to toss, aim for something short and sweet. Shoot for something between two sentences to five paragraphs, depending on the overall length of your marketing piece (the shorter your marketing piece, the shorter the introduction should be). Your introduction should do four things:

Clearly state what challenges your prospects are facing

Communicate that you understand exactly why prospects are struggling

Help prospects recognize what they need to overcome their challenges

Introduce your seminar as the #1 event to help them overcome those challenges

With a concise summary of the issue, you’ll be primed to position your seminar as the end-all, be-all solution that they desperately need. Items you typically should cover in this section include the challenges your audience is facing and what your seminar delivers in a nutshell. If you have room, you then branch out into a conversation about why other solutions don’t work and have a longer explanation of what prospects need.

Expand Your Business Banking Venture and Increase Profits

Recent research revealed that banks stand to lose $250 billion by 2012 if they don’t change the way they sell to small businesses. Faced with an overwhelming array of financial products and services, company decision makers are looking for guidance in choosing the most advantageous and cost-effective


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ways to meet their financial needs.

The key to reaching—and keeping—these business clients is to become a trusted advisor. Yet, few banks have the discipline, cohesive approach and leadership necessary to penetrate this profitable market.

As a sales manager, you’re responsible for helping your employees become advisors. Effective Sales Leadership for Business Bankers will give you the tools, skills and confidence to lead your sales team to success. Your staff will become more productive in meeting sales goals and in improving shareholder value.

* * *

Why 95 Out of 100 Businesses Are Doomed to Fail … And How to Become One of the Rare Success Stories

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 95% of businesses fail within 5 years of startup. And the chances of consistently generating a profit are even slimmer.

The reason up to half of all new business fail within their first year of operation is that most entrepreneurs decide to start their own companies because they’re good at something … and because they can’t tolerate for even a single minute more the idea of someone else controlling their schedule and life.

During “Business Success Strategies for Entrepreneurs,” a five-hour seminar for owners of early stage businesses, startups and budding entrepreneurs, you’ll get a crash course in the business fundamentals you must master to survive in the cutthroat business world. This is straight-shooting advice you won’t ever get from attending business school, by reading start-your-own-business books or by hiring most business coaches.

About the Instructor

For prospects to understand exactly what your seminar has to offer – and to agree with you that attending is a smart decision of their time and/or money, you’ll have to convince them that you (or any other instructors) are qualified to teach the seminar. Contrary to what many seminar marketers believe, the strength of an instructor’s biography is not measured by the amount of detail is provided. Instead, it is the quality that counts.


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By quality, I mean relevance. You only want to include details about the instructor’s experience that are relevant to the audience and to the topic at hand.

In other words, don’t mention educational degrees and certifications that don’t relate to your topic. Don’t list every job you’ve held, unless the jobs are directly related to your current position of expertise on the topic you’re teaching. Don’t list other seminars you teach if the topics are unrelated. Finally, seminar attendees rarely care what you do in your free time, where you live or how many kids you have.

In short, when you write up this section of your marketing materials, be a harsh critic. Ask “so what?” after every statement, because this is exactly what will be going through your readers’ minds. If your gut response is, “Who really cares?!?” you can bet that that’s what your attendees will think, too, so cut those details out.

What should be left are the high points of your experience. The bottom line is that your bio needs to communicate not only why you’re qualified to teach the course, but also why you’re the best person to teach the course.

And yes, this means that you may need to have a different version of your bio for each seminar topic you teach. Each version would accent the experience and qualifications that were most pertinent to the topic at hand. Think of your bio as a resume. Just as you’d structure your resume to closely match what an employer is looking for, you should write your bio to highlight what prospects should be looking for when “interviewing” for an instructor or mentor. For example, if I were teaching a copywriting seminar, I’d play up my copywriting experience – that I’ve been doing it since 1995, the variety of industries I’ve worked in, the types of products and services I’ve promoted, and so on. When teaching a topic related to seminar marketing, I’d spend more time focusing on my accomplishments related to seminar marketing.

Items that can be included in your biography include:

Current position/title

Years of experience

Past jobs and positions held

Type of clients served

Names of well-known clients (organizations and/or individuals)

Books and other products you’ve written


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Movies in which you’ve appeared

Degrees and certifications you’ve earned

Schools and education programs you’ve attended

Magazines, newspapers, websites and other media for which you’ve written

Radio and television shows on which you’ve been a guest

Conference and other events at which you’ve spoken

Awards you’ve won or for which you’ve been nominated

Professional nicknames that indicate your area of expertise (Mark Victor Hansen, “America’s Ambassador of Possibility”)

A one- or two-sentence summary of what you do to help clients

Companies you’ve founded

Pertinent volunteer work

Boards of directors on which you sit

Associations to which you belong

Organize the material so that the first sentence or two provides an overview of what you do and why you are the right person to teach this seminar. Make sure that prospects understand what you do to help people just like them – ideally things that will be related to what you’ll teach during the seminar.

The next section can provide more detail about your past accomplishments, such as who you’ve worked with, where you’ve spoken, books you’ve written and so on.

The final section can include details about your education. Information about your products and books could also go here.

Dr. Rick Brinkman is one of today’s leading experts in effective communications. Through his popular books, videos, speeches and seminars, he has taught millions of people worldwide how to his use innovative and highly effective Conscious Communication ® strategies to deal with difficult people and create more harmonious, productive relationships – at work and at home.


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After earning his Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine from National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Portland, OR, Dr. Rick opened his practice specializing in mind / body medicine. His success with his patients led him to further study communication and how it can profoundly affect quality of life. In Life by Design, he reunites with co-author Dr. Rick Kirschner to teach people how to apply principles of conscious living to achieve the lives of their dreams.

* * *

Author of The Science of Making Things Happen: Turn Any Possibility into Reality, Kim Marcille Romaner is an expert on the science of amplifying possibility into reality.

A possibility leader for 25 years, Kim is renowned for her ability to teach others to see undiscovered possibilities, craft strategies to take measurable advantage of them, and inspire with a compelling vision. Kim has an extensive business background ranging from small-business ownership to Fortune 500 executive leadership. The founder of Possibilities Amplified, she is a popular motivational speaker and sought-after consultant who shares her passion and practical application of scientific principles with audiences worldwide.

* * *

Business consultant, author, entrepreneur and graduate school instructor Richard Henderson has more than 35 years of business experience.

Working with or for manufacturing, mail order, retail, service, sales and international sales companies such as such as Whirlpool, Kirsch, Hershey, Westvaco, Mead and Boise Cascade. Henderson has deftly tackled a range of business management challenges – such as helping to raise millions of dollars of capital … restructuring and managing regional sales forces … negotiating environmental and labor problems … rebuilding entire divisions from the ground up … improving net operating income … and introducing innovative technology.

Henderson has launched more than 15 businesses, including the Drug Emporium of Arizona, which achieved $90 million in sales revenue with 14 stores and 800 employees.

* * *

Jenny Hamby is a copywriter and Certified Guerrilla Marketer who specializes in promoting seminars and other information


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products. Her company, SeminarMarketingPro.com, helps industry experts, consultants, speakers, and training companies effectively market their seminars and other information products through multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Since 1995, she has marketed a variety of seminars, books, videos and audiotapes on such diverse topics as personal development, inventory management, negotiations, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP), trade show marketing, elder and disability law, behavior-based safety, Enterprise Resource Management, and Internet marketing. Familiar names on her roster of past and current clients include top speakers Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield, Internet marketers Alex Mandossian, accelerated learning expert Bobbi DePorter, Guerrilla Marketing Coach Founder Mitch Meyerson, and leading NLP trainers Tim and Kris Hallbom.

Jenny is the author of How to Successfully Market Seminars and Workshops, a self-study program that shows professionals how to develop marketing plans and promotional materials to fill events, as well as the co-author, with Lee B. Salz, of Stop Speaking for Free! The Ultimate Guide to Making Money with Webinars.

The type of promotional tool you are creating will limit the amount of space you have for a bio. For postcards, you will probably be limited to a sentence or two (if you even include a bio). For brochures, you might have a paragraph or two. The solution is to create a short version of your bio to use in limited-space situations, while also posting your full bio on the web site.

When and Where

This may seem obvious, but you need to let prospects know when and where your seminar will be held. That means including the date, times and specific location. Don’t just say “May 15 in Chicago.” Be specific – Saturday, May 15, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hotel Continental, Chicago.

You want to include the specifics so that people know without a doubt whether they’ll be able to attend. One seminar I attended was promoted as starting on Friday. The natural tendency is to assume it would start somewhere between 8 and 10 on Friday morning. If you had a scheduling conflict that day – say, you couldn’t get the day off work to attend this personal development seminar, or if that early of a start meant you’d have to travel on Thursday, which was out of the question


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because you had a miss-it-and-you’re-fired-type meeting at work – you would probably decide against the event.

Well, it turned out that the seminar kicked off with a one-hour presentation at 7 p.m. followed by networking. Obviously, we received the information once we registered, but how many people didn’t sign up because it wasn’t clear from the get-go what the starting time was?

I can practically guarantee that the marketer behind that event would say something along the lines of “well, if you’re that easily put off, I wouldn’t want you at my seminar anyway.” That’s one way to look at it … but to me, it’s walking away from easy money.

The same rule applies with location, especially if you’re headed to a big city. Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta and the like – they’re huge, sprawling cities. A meeting on the east side may not be a big deal, but a meeting on the west side might make it too inconvenient for some people. It sounds picky, but paying attention to each little detail doesn’t take much effort. If it can help you pick up an extra registration here and there, aren’t the few extra minutes worth it?

There are two times you might want to make an exception to the rules of providing specific times and locations.

If you’re offering a seminar that’s held very frequently throughout the year. In that case, it might make more sense just to capture the names of people who want to attend the event, and then call or mail them a list of all upcoming events.

For example, George the financial planner might want to hold an evening seminar twice a month. Now, he could bombard his mailing list with an invitation for each event; he’ll probably get tired of incurring the expense … not to mention the grumbling that he’d hear from the people on his mailing list. Or he could send invitations to specific segments of his mailing lists to particular events, though he’ll never know if prospects aren’t responding because they’re not interested in the event itself or because that particular day doesn’t work.

The smartest decision might be simply to change the call to action on his marketing pieces to “Call to reserve your seat at one of our upcoming seminars” rather than “Call to reserve your seat for the seminar on April 28” (or May 7, or May 21, or June 5, etc.). If this sounds like your scenario, do a split test and see which approach works best.

If you don’t want walk-ins and/or you don’t want people taking up rooms in your room block until they’re sure they’ll attend. Some seminar promoters want to keep the location of their events secret


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until attendees have registered; some who host smaller events may even wait until the last minute to book a space based on the number of registrations they’ve received. A better way of handling the first situation might be to note that walk-ins will not be permitted – all attendees must register in advance. If you don’t want to reveal where, specifically, the seminar is being held, at least be very descriptive about where in a city an event is being held (Oak Brook, Illinois vs. Chicago).

Contact Information

A shocking number of seminar marketers overlook the inclusion of critical contact information. One marketing manager I consulted with seemed a bit surprised when I suggested that her registration numbers might be down because nowhere on her flyer did she include a way to register for the seminar. The only number listed was to make a hotel room reservation. So do yourself a favor: pull out your marketing materials and make sure that:

If you tell prospects to call and register … that you list the phone number to call (and if it’s a toll-free number, say so!)

If you tell prospects to register online … that you include your URL. Better yet, provide the URL for the specific page you want prospects to visit. Don’t merely drop them off at your home page and hope they find their way to your event page.

If you tell prospects to mail their completed registration form … that you include the mailing address on the registration form

If you tell prospects to fax back their registration … that you include the fax number on the registration form

Make this information easy to find … even by people who are not taking the time to read your entire promotional piece. Don’t be lulled into believing that if you have great marketing materials or a hot topic, that prospects will hunt until they find the information they need to contact you. The persistent ones might. But the vast majority will give you a few seconds … and if they can’t figure out what they need to do next or how to do it, poof!, they’ll be gone. They’ll move on to the next web site or toss your promotional materials in the trash.

Cancellation Policy


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A top question that prospects have – and one that may keep them from registering until the very last minute if it is not answered – is what happens in the case of a cancellation. Will you refund all of their money, or none of it? Will you charge an administrative fee? Can they send someone in their place?

Cancellation because of scheduling changes becomes more of a concern the further in advance you start your marketing. An attendee may sign up, only to discover that he or she is required to attend an all-staff meeting that day. A small number of registrants will probably be last-minute cancellations because of illness or other emergencies.

Cancellations put you in a tough situation. You risk losing revenue to the point that you may not have enough participants to break even. You may have already had to pay for attendees expenses (e.g., to print a binder or buy a lunch) that now you’ll have to take directly from your event profits. If your event is of limited seating, you also have the frustration of knowing that you could have given the seat to another participant.

To be fair to both you and the registrants, here are the cancellation policies I typically recommend:

Refund 100% of the registration fee if the cancellation is received within 1-2 weeks of the event (set the deadline a day or two before you must give you final numbers to the hotel or meeting space provider, or a day before you must make a go-no go decision).

If a cancellation is received after your deadline, permit the registrant to send someone in his or her place or to apply the registration fee to a future event.

You may want to withhold a small administrative fee of $10 to $25 to cover the expenses you incur by processing the registration and refund. You could also have different tiers of cancellation penalties – for example, a full refund if cancellation is received at least 2 weeks before the event, an 85% refund if received less than 2 weeks before the seminar.

One popular approach is to use deadlines to determine how much tuition is refunded. The closer the cancellation is to the event, the less money will be refunded.

Here is some sample language you can use in your promotions:

You may cancel your reservation without penalty up to 15 calendar days before the event. If you need to cancel fewer than 14 days before the event, you may apply your registration fee to


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another event, or you may send another attendee in your place. Substitutions are always welcome. No shows will be responsible for the full registration fee; no refunds or credit will be issued. Cancellations must be made in writing.

At your discretion, you may want to allow exceptions to your deadline. For example, if someone cancels at the last minute because of a death in the family, you may want to refund the registration fee regardless of what the rules say. If you know you’ve already secured enough registrations to break even on the event, this becomes an easy decision.

Places where you can list your cancellation policy include:

In your promotional materials

On the registration form

Within your list of Frequently Asked Questions

On your website

In your confirmation materials

What You Get

One unspoken question that virtually all prospective attendees have is “What do I get?” Don’t make them call you up to ask (most never will) – tell them what they receive in exchange for their registration fee.

At a minimum, your description should include any seminar materials they’ll receive at the event. But don’t just call them “seminar materials” or “participant handouts.” Instead, describe your handouts as “a 67-page workbook chock full of worksheets, templates and checklists, bound in a sturdy binder for use in class and back at the office.”

Also describe “extras” you have negotiated with the hotel or property at which you are holding your event. If you are providing them, your list should include free parking or parking validation, beverages in the morning and at breaks, and the ever-important lunch.

Finally, include the more intangible and less-obvious benefits of attending, which may include:

World-class instruction. Here’s a great place to remind attendees about your qualifications and how much they’ll benefit

How to Write Effective Seminar Marketing Materials 51 · People attend seminars, workshops,...

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