How Would You Get Attendees to Your Event?

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Hey Warriors,

I am looking to start a training program in my local market and was wondering how you would find clients/individuals interested in attending your course. If you have experience doing so, I would love to hear how you went about doing so. For starters, this is what I have in mind:

Join business networking groups and invitee people from the group
Send out letter to small business owners
Send out emails to small business owners
Run ads on LinkedIn
Join and Interact with business minded people on Meetup.com
Post ads on Craigslist, Kijiji, Etc...

Any advice from experienced offliners would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike
#offline marketing #attendees #event
  • Want to make sure 20 people show up? Stop by businesses and talk to 50 business owners who promise that they will show up. 20 will.

    Give talks to any local groups that need a speaker. They all do, by the way.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Refresh my memory Claude, have your group presentations been positioned as a seminar on ways to improve your business and then you work in the offer or a straight up sales presentation of something that will improve your business.
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    • I have two talks. Everyone attending knows that I'm talking about online marketing. It's never a general business talk.

      One talk is an hour on 'Local Online Marketing" that gives information, and at the end, I spend 10 minute or so offering my services to any that are interested.
      All 60 minute business talks are sales presentations of some sort. But there is a lot of real "take and use" information in mine. Of course, that's to create value in what I offer later.

      Nobody will invite you to speak to their group to give a sales presentation. There has to be value, beyond any offer you make.

      My other talk is a three hour seminar that is very heavy on "How to dominate the first page of Google in your area". In that three hours, I explain everything I do. I answer questions, and share everything I know. At the end, about 10-15% of the audience is in love with the idea (but doesn't want to do the work) and they buy my service.

      These are both information packed talks. But I never hide, even at the beginning, that there is an offer.

      At a recent talk I gave , this guy in the front row wanted to make himself the star. One of the ways some people do that is pee on your presentation.

      He said (a tad louder than he needed to be) "Is this a sales presentation? I didn't drive 30 miles to hear a sales presentation."

      I smiled, the smile I reserve for people I hate..and said "I'm so glad you asked. I want everyone here to know that I Promise, that after I explain how to do everything yourself, if you can't take the time to do it all yourself...I'll do it all for you. I promise not to leave you without a way to profit from what you learn today".

      He said "For Free?" And I said "Don't be silly. Of course not. But let's spent the rest of our time learning something. OK?" And I ignored him for the next hour.

      When I give these talks, I make sure of a few things.
      The people in the audience are business owners.
      I give real content they can use right away.
      I make sure the person putting on the event knows I'm making an offer at the end.

      I hate grey areas. And making an hour speech without also providing tools to implement what they have learned, or offering a service to deliver what they now want....is wasting everyone's time.

      And that's how I explain it to the event organizer.

      Saying that you are going to teach for an hour, and just giving an hour long sales pitch? That's how to get lynched.

      If I'm making a one on one presentation. It's to sell. They know it, I know it, I'm there to talk business, not entertain.
      • [ 3 ] Thanks
  • The best way that has helped me get attendees is by sending each business owner a personal private letter to their business, not a email or a postcard most of them go into the trash or spam folder.

    First pick what niche you are going to promote to example:
    Restaurants
    Clubs
    Bars
    Mechanics
    Dentist
    or any other.

    Then make sure you customize that letter with your hand writing and regular stamp DO NOT MAKE IT LOOK LIKE A Sales or advertising envelope. Send it to each niche and on the letter tell them that they have WON a FREE $100-$197 gift but they can only redeem the coupon if they personally show up. Make sure you send them first to your opt-in page so they can register and you build your list of High targeted businesses owners!

    Send out 100 letter first, then make sure you follow up with the rest of the people that did not respond a few days later or a week later, after send out one more follow up to the rest of the people that did not respond and at the end of the third follow up you should have about a 20-40% response.

    Then it is up to you on how to sell them on your product once you have them in front of you waiting to hand you money!

    Good luck and let me know how your stats end up.
  • Mike,

    As simple as this sounds... I've had great luck with running small sized newspaper ads in my local newspaper.

    I've done sales training seminars for dentists, chiropractors, car salespeople, and other service businesses that depend on clients.

    So, in my local newspaper I'd run a 1/4 page direct response ad that had a headline directed towards the group I was targeting.

    For example:

    Attention Chiropractors: Attend One of My Free Training Seminars and I'll Teach You a Fool Proof System for Attracting More Clients to Your Practice"

    Or something like that.

    But I've tried postcard marketing, direct mail, social media, etc... and for me, it was easier and more effective to reach them by display ad in my newspaper.

    several other methods were a tad bit cheaper... but the newspaper was a lot easier to set up and run.

    In my area, most of the service professionals told me that they read the paper, saw my ad, and called.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Joint venture with someone who has a highly responsive list, someone who runs a network group, Chamber of Commerce, someone with a big client list. Write an endorsement letter printed on their letterhead, pay for the postage, charge a nominal fee so that people prequalify themselves, and split the take with your JV partner. It's good manners, and an endorement mailing has a much higher response than a cold mailing. I love direct response marketing, but this is direct response on steroids!
  • Have you planned to make calls to all business owners in your area? That would save time and effort compared to actually walking in and talking to each one of them. Sure, if you want to personalize your approach, then a door-to-door method would pretty much work. But if your prospects number to the hundreds, well, maybe a telephone call would do your efforts justice.
  • To me this is simple:

    1) Run ads on LinkedIn

    2) Run ads on Facebook.

    You can target exactly who you want and no one else.

    Just make sure you properly setup your funnel to get them from point A to point B.

    Point A is them finding your ad and point B is obviously your event.
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    • That's it. Plus Meetup.com, plus talking to local business owners. Plus speaking to small groups to sell them on attending your event.

      Of course, the best way to speak is to offer your program to a promoter already putting on an event. Offer to speak for free, and split the sales.
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  • You may also try to announce/post your event in local community sites or related sites in social media (facebook or twitter). There are also event directory sites where you can register your event.
  • * Claude nailed it: one of the best ways is to offer to speak at another event - esp. if it's the same audience you're targeting. JV partnership
    * Checkout the Chamber of Commerce and different business groups like BNI International.
    * Speak to biz owners and do a few cold calls. The feedback you get is often very valuable.
    * Search for special LinkedIn groups in your area / market.
    * Run a few ads (local newspaper, FB, LinkedIn, Adwords...).
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • You guys are fantastic. Some of these methods I will have to put in action.

    Thanks warriors!
  • I agree that a well tuned funnel and LinkedIn and Facebook ads should do the trick.

    For a more old school and personal approach, going door to door and introducing yourself to the business owners is perfect for something like this. Especially if you get them to agree to coming while you are there, I know that I'd find it pretty hard to justify not turning up after I had met you in person and agreed to go. If I had found your site on LinkedIn/Facebook and checked out your site and decided I'd like to go, but then nearer the time something came up, in that circumstance it would make it a lot easier for me to blow it off.
  • I was thinking of setting up a webinar through meetup.com and pitch SEO services to dentists, anyone done something similar to this?
  • I would try Meetup, Linkedin, Eventbrite and handing out postcards to people that may be interested. Posters in the local area could help if you have a great offer.
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    How Would You Get Attendees to Your Event?

    Hey Warriors, I am looking to start a training program in my local market and was wondering how you would find clients/individuals interested in attending your course. If you have experience doing so, I would love to hear how you went about doing so. For starters, this is what I have in mind: