So you want to host a seminar?

Not that I am going to be of much help but I do radio advertising.. and $300 wont even get the commercial recorded! I would count that out.

I might try and schmooze the local hardware store? do you have a Lowes or Home Depot or 84 lumber? I might talk to their "Pro Desk" might even go so far as to speak to the store manager.. what's good for the contractors would be good for them.

I know my local Home Depot does APP nights once every other month or so and they have someone come in and go over the features and functions of their Estimator App. might be able to tie that in with the presentation and make it a win win for both parties ( you and the hardware store )

Might look up the local union and see if there is a way to advertise that way maybe? that would be a couple calls for sure Plumbers, Electricians, Framers etc.

I know with Hvac in my small town there are only 2 warehouse places that they pick up equipment /controlled gases at, you might try and hunt those down.

Hope that helps!

100 is a big call for a small budget.

I run seminars for clients on a monthly basis and have done for several years.

My clients' seminars are not aimed at tradespeople but one of my offline businesses is a trade based business and I've run a few seminars and helped with promotion and the organisation side for my major suppliers who do supply to tradies.

Here are some observations that may help.

Even with big promotion from trusted companies and some really huge offers and prizes that are drawn for a variety of seminars and trade nights etc the percentage of businesses that show up is usually 10-12% when we are contacting account holders and they desperately need what is being offered also. (this is about 50-60 business owners in a city with a catchment of about 2.5M people)

Better results we've found when running two time options usually both on one day with one presentation being at 2pm and another at 6pm. We provide refreshments at both times and usually try to have multiple incentives to attend.

For another of my bigger suppliers they used to run evening events but now only ever do a Saturday and their big presentations are usually at 2pm but they run a whole day event with sales staff on hand from 8am through till 4pm. Again catering is a must.

Note: Females are far more likely to be responsive and then actually turn up to an event. You may want to get inside their heads so they encourage partners

Outside of my trade niche I do monthly evening seminars that we combine with live webinars. Our target market are usually referred by Doctors or other health professionals.

We spend a lot of time visiting the major medical centres and ensuring they have enough referral material and are aware of times and dates. There is also a lot of Doctor lunching where my clients meet the main referrers for lunch...This can be 2 or 3 days per week.

Given the catchment size this business works in...

...and they have some pretty huge budgets...

...and they solve various "life threatening" conditions...

....it is still difficult to get bums on seats for events. On average we put 20-30 people in a seminar and 15-20 tuning in live online.

There has been months where the number are 40-60 in the seminar but this is rare.

The big months are usually accompanied by having big name expert speakers and a bigger promotional effort and expense.

I would be looking to circle of influence to drive the traffic.

I'd consider direct mail either by sending something with a handwritten address on the envelope and an invitation to "See what your competitor is doing online to beat you hands down" - RSVP here.

You could negotiate to piggy back on suppliers mailings and even material deliveries.

You could potentially offer some assistance to a supplier up the food chain where you help them with their online marketing and you negotiate the inclusion of your marketing material with their mailings or physical deliveries.

I would say it is pretty important to get some support from the industry influencers particularly given that you say your name is unknown.

Another observation is I was a guest speaker at a few digital marketing events and in an event where we had a highly motivated number of attendees and months of promotion direct into all businesses because it was partnered with local government and all business associations.

At one event that ran over a few days where we had 4 speakers who were absolute gold on one primetime session we only put 226 people on seats even though there were many more people in attendance over the three days.

For one evening event with three great speakers and the local mayor + various govt small business experts being on hand and was promoted to 9,400 businesses via online, multiple direct mail, radio, PR over two months we had 237 attendees but it was really only 92 business owners because some had brought partners or employees and there were a number of "job seekers" or students at the event,

The numbers in my marketplace will be significantly different to yours so you may achieve
better results.

You may want to offer some genuine incentives to attend...

Perhaps a $10K business building package as a door prize.

It all depends on how responsive your target market are.

Kemdev in bold. me in not bold.

My goal is to put on an educational 1 1/2 hour seminar on local online marketing in front of 50 business owners. My typical client is a contractor (plumbing, hvac, remodeling, etc...) who wants more leads.

50 is unrealistic. To get 50, you would have to have a list of 5,000..that you just kept hammering by mail, or e-mail. Or you would have to talk to maybe 500 prospects (on the phone or in person) to get 100 to Swear To God that they would show up, to get 30-50 to actually show. You don't have the time to build a list. Are you willing to talk to 500 people by phone? That's what it will take. And I'm assuming that your talk is free. If you are charging for it, add a zero to the number of people you need to contact.

The seminar will cover ways local businesses can get more business through the internet. I have both expertise and one or two case studies I can use, so content for the seminar isn't an issue.

If you get in front of the local, and surrounding Chamber of Commerce, you may be able to talk to them, to sell them on attending your free talk. Talk at local Meetup groups. Talk at local referral exchange groups.

I have a good bit of clients in the area but have 0 name recognition. Moreover I don't know of a lot of contractor-type folk who would take time out of their day to listen to me (I live in a pretty small area - <20k population)

You don't need name recognition. You need to sell the idea of what you can do. 20,000 population? Are there even 50 prospects total in your area? You need to adjust your expectations.

How do I get these people in the door?

Getting 50 people in your door is going to be unrealistic. You can bribe them, offer them dinner. But 50 is a lot more than it sounds like. you may need to travel a little to the nearest large city, and promote there.

Calling is fine but I think it's more beneficial for me to go for the sale for 95% of my prospects. Being a smallish city there's only a handful of large players.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

Advertising? I'm willing to put some money out for attendance. Radio maybe? Let's assume I have an advertising budget of $300 and I have 1 months to prepare.

No advertising (in a town of 20,000) is going to put 50 people in seats. All normal advertising, is reaching an audience that is 99.9% not your prospect.

I want 50 people seated when I take the stage and start my speech. How would you promote the seminar to be confident 100 will show up?

Do you want to know the average cost of putting people in seats for a free seminar? About $200 per person. That's if you do this by using direct mail, telemarketers, advertising.

Try to work with someone that is already putting on an event in your area. They already have an audience. Speak in front of smaller groups, that are already gathering.

Is it possible to fill 50 seats? Maybe. If you hustled...talking individually to local groups, offering them a free talk. But not out of a town of 20,000. But, if it were me...I would talk to smaller groups that have already gathered.

Promoting a seminar, for yourself, is very work intensive. If you do it yourself, you'll find that 99% of the work, was getting them there. And only 1% was giving the talk.

I talk a big game, about audiences of 50-300. But these are as rare as hen's teeth. Mostly, I end up in front of 5 or 6 people. After the organizer says that 50 will show up.

But talking to local Business associations? That's easy. They are always looking for speakers. You may be able to speak to a few of those groups in the next month. And maybe funnel the interested ones into a larger talk you put on.
If there are 50 members of a local referral group...that's your audience. 50 members of the local Chamber? That's your audience. It's far far easier to talk to groups that are already gathering. Do you know how hard it was to build the local referral group to 50 members? Years, probably.

But if it were me, and a group of car dealers were gathering, I'd speak to that group, by itself, and slant your presentations toward them. You'll certainly make more sales that way.

Here is a recent teleseminar on how to get corporate sponsors. Event sponsorship is covered. Runs around 55 minutes.
Welcome to the Event

Joe Golfer & Claude have given you some great advice. We've co-branded seminars with local media to help them sign unsold leads, upsell and renew existing advertisers. We showed attendees how to max results with our lead conversion system. The business owners signed on to advertise more & bought our back-end system. Ask to trade out small ads for your own seminar BTW and ask for co-branded ads for seminars. One thing you can do in a small area is start your own local "meet-up" if there's not a Chamber in your town and promo your seminars to your new group. If there is a Chamber, volunteer to lead or speak at their "small business success" monthly meetings. You'll get to know business owners plus get the email/mailing list for free and get exposure when they email about your group's upcoming meetings and your expert topics. Cheers to your success!

Local Chambers are fine for promotion.

A long time ago when I was active in my local chamber we started out with around 70 members with around 30 -40 attending regular monthly breakfast meetings.

Over three or so years we grew that membership to excess of 300 and the best attendance we had was 206 members...

Shortly after (I was acting president at the time) I got really busy with work and stood down from the position at the next AGM.

Several of the old timers who put in all the effort also either stood down that year or the year after.

The same chamber today is under 50 members.

In talking with the past members I asked many people their opinion as to why such a powerful business force became less significant again.

The common answer I got from most was

"When times are tough membership grows because people are seeking new business"

"When times are good membership falls as people get on with business"

My prescription from this analysis is...

I'd kind of recommend approaching the groups that are growing rather than those in decline as those individuals are most seeking improvement.

The small groups of lead exchangers and Chambers tend to have the highest percentage of Bankers, Real Estate Agents, Lawyers, Accountants, Local Paper Ad staff.

I attended one about a year ago and I was mobbed by the vultures who wanted to pitch to me.

If business is good...tradies are at work...

bad???...

...then they attend events.

Thank you everyone for your helpful advice. Although I don't have time to respond to each individually, I've read all of your posts and taken your advice to heart.

Looking back, I can see how unrealistic it would be to expect to fill 50 seats. Perhaps I should, like Claude said, start more regularly attending meetings and offer to speak to their audiences for free. Less reach but certainly not worthless. I tend to want everything to happen at once, but starting small is much more realistic for my situation.

Joe had an extremely solid idea. Never thought of having another advertising company co-promote. I'm wondering how receptive they would be to the idea? I suppose there's only one way to find out. But I'm going to hold off on the "event" idea until I get all my ducks in a row. When the time comes and I'm ready to host a talk of my own, calling a handful of these companies will be my first priority.

In my pitch I already explain that everything I do and their current advertising work hand-in-hand. Most of their other advertising includes places like AngiesList or HomeAdvisor (garbage) or events like the yearly Home Show.

It would be impossible to partner with the YellowPage and other directory types. They package websites with about everything they sell. A good majority of my clients are previous customers of there's. I couldn't recommend them in good conscious, or without shooting myself in the foot.

There's a large county publication based out of my area that would be ideal, but they're already partnered with another web design firm. Although my "web design" and their "web design" differs greatly, it would be too much a conflict of interest.

I think the trick to this is going to be finding a sponsor that complements what I do - that is also in the relative area. There's a couple PR places. A radio station that plays in almost every local business that just got bought out by some conglomerate. The local newspaper of course. If that damned publisher I was talking about wasn't already partnered with my city's largest web designer it would be the perfect opportunity.

Here are examples of radio stations staging or co-promoting seminars. One of the reasons they do this is commercial advertising for traditional media is slowly going digital.

NTR and Small Market Radio: A Necessity for Survival | Radio magazine

They are creating NTR (non-traditional revenue) streams in order to diversify and not be so beholden to spot sales alone.

WCBS Small Business Breakfast « CBS New York

http://www2.krla870.com/events/krla-...alth-2011.html

This financial expo was founded by a radio station but they promote it as an independent entity:
http://financialfest.com/

http://connecticut.cbslocal.com/localpages/

Here's an example of Facebook packing a seminar for local small business operators:
http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/06/19...ll-businesses/

And here are some of the local events that are promoted in my neck of the woods

hub4101

Interactive Minds - Brisbane Breakfast with Coca-Cola | Digital Brisbane

These events are a great place to network, capture leads and then follow up.

Usually you just try to meet a few people and also introduce yourself to the presenters.

Over time and attendance to various event from the outside you can get on the inside track because you start to build the network of potential clients and more importantly the influencers who will say later on "I Know that guy" - we should go and hear him speak and see what he has to offer.