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[tonyjohnson]

Forum,

I hope all of you are having an awesome week!   I'm hosting an advanced sales and business development seminar in October (details at www.tonyjohnsononline.com )  and I'll be able to seat around 90 people for this event.  I'm working with a local university who will be sending out seminar invitations to it's staff, alumni, and students, but I'm not sure how much I can count on this audience to fill up the event.  With that in mind, I'll be inviting sales reps from local companies.  I'd like to ping this team to see if anyone has any new ideas (or old ideas that worked real well) to get people at seminars.  I'll be using some traditional (and non-traditiona) techniques to advertise the event, but I thought I'd check with this brain trust for ideas as well.   Thanks in advance and make it a powerful day!   

Tony Johnson
Maximum Effectiveness Inc.
www.tonyjohnsononline.com

[Joreymay]

Don't forget your list (you do have a list, right? Of course you do). How many of them might want to see you in person?

Also, think a little more about what you are offering. A chance to sit and listen to someone talk? Limited appeal, in these overscheduled, high pressure days. Ironically, the low price makes it seem even less appealing in many quarters. What would you expect from, say, a $500 a seat seminar? $5,000 a seat? What can you provide that gives the "feeling of value" of those seminars, while making the low price a positive rather than a negative?

Are you providing "materials" (handouts, etc.)? Mention them in a suitably impressive way. Will you be recording the presentation, in audio, (preferably) video, or a Camtasia type presentation? If not, give it serious thought. You can offer a free copy (maybe with a nominal shipping/handling charge) to be sent later (with other promotional materials you choose to include). Or you can just offer a "discount" to participants, and offer the recording (/video) as another product in your collection. Or, if you don't want to go quite that route, you can get the recording transcribed and offer the printed transcription.

What else can you offer at little or no cost to make it more attractive? Don't go overboard - loading the offer with too much cheapens the image. But do think about your audience and what would make them even more attracted to the idea of getting out of their rut and into your seminar.

A couple of comments about your website, in relation to your question. First, it looks like it was designed under the "because I can" approach. Does that thing in the upper right really do anything but drag the visitors' eyes away from your text? Second, was there a compelling reason to force the visitor to keep experiencing that distraction by making the relevant text sit in a scrollable box, rather than making the whole page scrollable?

Most importantly, why is there nothing about the seminar that is immediately visible to the visitor?

What metrics are you using to evaluate your site design, and what variations have you tried?

There are a lot of quick and easy things you could be doing, but apparently aren't. Maybe you have a solid reason for that, maybe not. In the end, it is your choice, and your decision about how well you like your results.

HTH

Jorey
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[tonyjohnson]

Jorey,

Thank you much for the feedback.  Very good stuff.  Regarding my website, I'm using a template layout offered by 1&1.  I'm not 100% happy with the scrolling text either, but to move to a full page scroll would require a site programming change.  Not out of the question, so I'll look further into that.  As far as announcing the seminar, it's the very first thing you should see when you go to the page, so I'm concerned that this did not pop out for you.  I'm going to work on the site to see if I can't define this more. 
Regarding your seminar ideas, yes, I'll be recording the session and there is a handbook provided as part of the package.  I'm not 100% sure about upping the price at this point.  I totally get what you're talking about as far as low price not potentially showing value, but since I'm building my seminar business I'm trying to make the session appealing to as many as possible and times are hard for most.   Thanks again for all of your help.  -Tony-

[Joreymay]

Don't "up the price" now. Firmly plan to do another session of the seminar, at the higher price. Take at least two steps toward setting up that seminar. Then mention that seminar (especially the higher price) in your copy about the current one - emphasizing the fact that the attendees will get the same materials, presentation, etc. as the later one.

I see that you have fixed the text in the scrolling box. That is better, but now you have basically lost your former definitional statement - the site comes across as a squeeze page for the seminar. Again, part of your problem is the page layout. 1 & 1 offers a variety of templates, and a relatively easy to move from one to another. One thing to consider: Nothing on your site (so far) really needs flash, and very little benefits from javascript. Some people will access your site with javascript disabled (for a variety of reasons), and without the latest version (or even one of the last 3 or 4 versions) of Flash Player. Have you tested your site to see what such people will see? Is that how you want your site (and business) to be perceived? And the long load time will not exactly endear you to people accessing your site over dial up lines.

Just some (hopefully helpful) observations.

Jorey
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[Quentin]

Getting offline advertising is not as hard as you may think especially if you have a good story.

A recent seminar I put on I approached radio stations especially community radio, special tv shows, local newspapers etc.

I was blown away with the response as my story is not only about business online but also has a community and personal aspect.

As one of the reps said they are looking for interesting and quality content so if you can provide this and not make it too hype then contact some of the local offline media and you may be surprised how much free advertising you can get that will touch thousands.

Maybe then 90 is too small.

Quentin