seminars

Not All Seminars are Classroom Led

Some of the conventional marketing tools never lose their relevance with changing times. Seminars are one such medium of promotion which has been in use for a very long time. They have advanced with changing times and a lot of innovative techniques have evolved to make them as useful as possible. This article discusses various techniques that are used to build a successful seminar for promoting your business.

‘What is a seminar?’

Basically a seminar is a presentation made in front of an intended audience with the aim of promoting your products or services and add customers to your business by adding value to them in the form of knowledge. A seminar revolves around a message which you wish to convey to the audience. The more effective the message and the way it is communicated, the more likely the semiar will be a success. So, there are some basics which must be followed while developing its content.

‘The content’

A presentation is always identified by its title. In order to get the attention of the maximum number of people, the title should be very catchy tagline. There must also be a sub-heading explaining the benefit your product/service offers and explaining what you intend to convey from your catchy title. If your seminar is informational i.e added value at one level in order to get people to buy higher priced products you must ensure the content is very good and useful to them, the expression is ‘an eyeopener’ or an ‘a ha’ moment.

The body of the content must carry forward the effect of the catchy title. The content must be as concise as possible and must be presented in an effective format. Wherever it is possible, you should use bullet points instead of wordy lines. The words used in the content as well as used by the presenter during the presentation must be persuasive in nature, yet light and not sales pitch like. The words should spontaneously create an attraction, for example-’Please’, ‘Free’, ‘Save’ etc. Through persuasive words you can hold on to the attention of the audience. The content must end with a thanks note along with a call to action like highlighting benefits of early purchase.

‘Add-ons’

In order attract the audience to become customers you can offer them additional benefits. ‘Early bird offers’ can be made where you can offer special discounts or gifts on early purchases. You can also mention ‘Money back guarantees’ to give them reassurance. Online ordering facilities always work well especially alongside easy finance options given to facilitate the purchase. These simple offers can get many customers attracted to your product. You can publish the testimonials of successful customers which authenticates your product.

‘Different forms of seminars’

A seminar may not be always a presentation in front of a sitting audience. It can be in various forms like- a flyer intended for pitching with a cover letter; an e-mail campaign where the content is mass mailed; an advertorial, which is content in form of an advertisement; an online advertisement; a referral campaign where you can ask your old customers to refer your product to new customers and offering them incentives in return; a simple radio or TV infomercial where the content of seminar is moulded as an infomercial. The seminar presentations can also take place in PR events. Whatever the form of seminar is, the intention is to convey an effective message to a target audience.

A successful seminar ends up generating a lot of customers for your business and moreover it builds up a long term relationship with them. Once you develop a relationship with your customers, you start expanding your network. The most important thing is to hold on to your network by constantly following up with them. Remember, a successful business runs on a successful network.

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