One of the top challenges faced by consultants, trainers, and speakers who promote their own seminars and workshops is getting their events to stand out from the sea of competition. One way to do so is to carve out a unique niche for your event.
The process of identifying a niche starts with studying your competitors. As you find your competitors, take note of what positions they are claiming within the seminar industry:
- How are competing seminars similar to yours?
- How are they different?
- Most importantly, what can you do with or say when marketing your seminar to ensure that your event is perceived as unique?
Remember, “unique” does not mean that your seminar must deliver different content or address a different topic than what your competitors are teaching. It means only that you are claiming the space for yourself. For example, I write marketing copy to promote seminars, teleseminars and webinars. Am I the only copywriter in the world who writes promotions for events? Of course not. But I have staked my claim as the “Seminar Marketing Pro.”
Finally, remember that thing that makes your seminars most unique is you. Examine your experience and background — what is unique about you? Also consider how you can inject your personality into your marketing. When teaching your own seminars and workshops, you are a big piece of the experience. Don’t be afraid to develop a unique voice and style to help make your marketing pop.
To successfully promote a seminar, you must understand your prospective attendees — how they think, what they want, what they are struggling with and what they want from you.
Studying your competitors — specifically, how they promote their events — can give you greater insight into your target audience.
Study the marketing materials put out by your competitors to see what they’re saying when talking to your prospective seminar attendees. Take note of the benefits that your competitors stress when promoting their seminars, which job titles or industries they target, and what problems they identify your seminar prospects as having.
Although you should not copy your competitors’ promotions, you can use their work as inspiration. Take the things you’ve learned about your audience into consideration when you sit down to write your own seminar promotions. Find your own unique way of connecting with your audience and speaking to their fears and desires. Not only will this keep you out of legal and ethical hot water, it will help you develop a unique voice and attract the individuals who are meant to study with you.
Do you want to offer your own seminars and workshops … yet find yourself continuously putting off the necessary work needed to put butts in seats?
One reason you may be procrastinating is a fear of failure. Promoting events can be a tough business. Response rates are generally low … which means that by some people’s standards, “failure” is common.
To overcome the fear of failure, change the way you look at marketing. Stop viewing your results as as successes or failures. Instead, view your marketing as a series of tests. If something doesn’t work, view it simply as a lesson in what NOT to do.
There are people in this world who are waiting to hear what you are here to teach; now you need to experiment to find the best way to reach them.
