SeminarSavvy.com

A recent trip to the grocery store reminded me of a valuable Internet marketing tip I learned years ago.

When I was headed out the door with my cartful of groceries, the greeter — an elderly man who always welcomes me with a big smile and friendly “hello” — flagged me down. His job that day was to hand out fliers directing customers to the store’s web site to take a customer satisfaction survey.

I like George. So I went to the site to share my rave reviews about the store’s customer service.

Unforunately, the flier directed me to the superstore’s home page, which featured dozens of links and buttons. Even after some persistent digging around, I couldn’t find the survey. So I left without sharing my input.

Contrast this experience with the survey offered by a local pizza franchise — their coupon takes you directly to the survey form. And when you’re done, you get a discount coupon as a thank you.

I firmly believe that you can learn a lot about marketing simply by paying attention to what annoys you, as well as what wows you. From these two experiences come the following lessons:

1. Direct visitors to exactly the page you want them to visit. Depending on how your site is organized, dropping visitors off at your home page in hopes that they’ll find their way to your seminar page can be like kicking someone out of your car miles from nowhere with a hearty “Good luck!” They might be persistent enough to find a trail; they could easily get lost in the forest. If seminar registrations are your goal, take visitors by the hand and lead them to exactly the page you want them to go.

2. If the URL of the page you want prospects to visit is long and convoluted, set up an abbreviated URL that redirects to the target page. For example, a client of mine runs advertising to promote its personal development seminars. Rather than including their web page’s full address http://www.foundations1.com/personal-success/cornerstone/ which would be too long and clunky for a print ad, their webmaster provides shortened URLs that point to this page (foundations1.com/publicationname) Tip: This strategy allows you the ability to track web traffic. In this case, setting up a unique URL for each publication allows us to see how many visitors come to the site from each ad placed.

3. Continue the conversation. When prospects are motivated by a promotion to visit your web site, it can be jarring to land on a web page that doesn’t relate to what was presented in the original promotion. Some will be confused and leave. Others may find their way to the seminar page, but by the time they do, they’ve lost their interest in what you were saying.

Continuing the conversation can be as simple as making sure that your landing page promotes the same thing that was offered in the original promotion. In other cases, you may want to go deeper. For example, if one ad plays up your seminar’s ability to boost revenue, make sure that copy on your landing page also plays up this benefit. Ads that highlight a different benefit should point to a different landing page with matching copy.

If you’re working with a finite budget, you want to make sure that every dollar counts. By using these three tips to create a more seamless customer experience, you’ll eliminate the unncessary loss of web site visitors, as well as increase your chances of seminar success.

If you’ve been tempted to buy an email list that offers unlimited use for a one-time price … or if you view networking functions as a great way to collect email addresses for your email marketing efforts, I have a little story to share.

Every Monday night, I receive a garish email adorned with a chameleon. The message is simply a listing of the services provided by the graphic design firm that sends it in hopes that I might have work for them.

I didn’t ask to receive this information.

I’ve never even heard of the company.

So why do I receive these messages? It boils down to one of three reasons:

1. I signed up for a list somewhere and agreed (or forgot to disagree) that the list owners could share my email address with vendors they think would be a good match for my business. I’m now part of what is, technically speaking, an opt-in list … and they’ve chosen to rent my information to this design firm.
2. My email address has been harvested and packaged into a “compiled” list. As the name suggests, this type of list is a compilation of publicly available data.
3. The enterprising owners of this design firm visited my site, obtained my email address (either on the site or by signing up for my newsletter), and added me to their prospecting list.

How I ended up on their list doesn’t really matter, because the end result is the same: I’m getting email I don’t want and didn’t ask for. It’s creating a negative impression of their company. And if they don’t respond to my repeated requests to remove my email address from their list, I would be justified in reporting them as spammers.

Why should you care? Well, if you are using any of the methods listed above to promote your events, you are what I call an “Accidental Spammer.” And your well-intentioned efforts could be endangering your reputation and generating ill will among your prospects.

Method #1: If you rent an opt-in list, you may technically have permission to mail to the subscribers. But they gave permission to the list owner — not you. Unless you’re allowed to mention the list owner (“Dear Inc. Reader …”), it’s understandable why they might think you are a spammer.

Method #2: These types of lists are a bargain (17 million email addresses for only $29!). But again, you’re contacting someone without their permission. If you insist on using a compiled list, use direct mail instead. People aren’t as ferocious in guarding their mailboxes as they are in protecting their in boxes.

Method #3: If you want to go online to research potential customers, go ahead. But use a private email or their “Contact Us” form to make contact and your initial offer.

Also don’t assume that people you meet during networking and business functions want to be added to your email distribution list. Feel free to follow up with them using a private email. But give them the choice to decide whether to join your opt-in list or not.

So what should you do if you want to use email lists other than your own to promote your seminars? Sign the list owners up as affiliates, and have them send emails on your behalf.

That way, you’ll get the benefit of being exposed to a wider audience, without the risk of being reported as a spammer. Plus, you’ll benefit from the implied — and often direct — endorsement the lists owners make when sending an email promoting your event.

The signature on your outbound email is a fantastic free tool to promote your seminar. That’s because an email signature flies below your prospects’ marketing radar. Most people don’t think twice about deleting promotional messages. But this promotional message is tacked on the end of a more personal message that WILL get through.

For best effect:

• Keep your message short. A one- or two-sentence message is plenty.
• Focus on benefits — what are the top 1-3 benefits or things attendees will get at your event? Alternatively, list your seminar title, tagline, the dates and location.
• Link directly to the page where readers can find full details about the seminar. Don’t drop them off at your home page and hope that they stumble their way to your seminar page.
• Want to use your email signature to build your opt-in
  email list of prospects who are interested in your seminar? Use your signature to promote a free teleseminar or other giveaway that’s related to your seminar topic.
• If referring to yourself in your signature, use the first
  person (“I,” “my,” etc.) not the third person. For example, “Discover my top seminar marketing secrets at …” rather than “Discover Jenny Hamby’s top seminar marketing secrets at….”

Promoting your seminar in an email signature obviously
won’t fill your seminar to capacity on its own. But it can
be enough to fill an extra seat or two … and the potential
profit more than justifies the two minutes it takes
to create this type of promotional message.