Lots of people have been asking me what they can do to start their consultancy when they don’t have an idea of where to begin. Well one thing you can do is offer an event – a workshop, seminar or short day course at a company, chamber of commerce, college, university, business forum, or a local association.
There are lots of ways to do this but I just want to give you a very simple formula to begin with rather than go through all the possibilities. So you will have to use your imagination as to how my suggestions apply to your own market.
Finding the ‘hungry’ ones
The most important thing that you need to do to market your event is to find a crowd that is ‘hungry’. Hungry that is for your information. This is what will guarantee getting lots of paying people attending. This is all about getting a list of people that you can market your event directly to. You can do this by doing a press release, putting out a small ad in an association publication or newsletter, you can set up an ‘ask’ campaign online. You can go through your local business directory (if you are selling to businesses).
Pleasure and pain
It is important to bear in mind that when you are marketing you aren’t really selling your event at all. You are really selling a means of gaining pleasure or a means of avoiding pain. This is based on the theory that whatever we do it is usually to gain some kind of pleasure or to avoid some kind of pain.
So when you market your event you have to inform your prospects of what ‘pleasure’ they are going to get if they come to your event (e.g. increased sales, more money, better products), or what pain they are going to avoid (e.g not many clients, low or lost income, poor marketing).
So within your salescopy on your leaflet or salesletter you need to be explaining what people will get from attending your event. You need to explain what ‘pleasure’ they will get and what pain they will avoid. It is these that you are selling.
Your content and title
Do you have content that your ‘hungry crowd’ wants to have? Is your salescopy compelling? A great title can account for up to 80% of those who book on your event. That means that if you have 10 people on your event up to 8 of them came because they were attracted by the title. So once you have located the ‘hungry’ group, the next thing is getting the title of your event right.
Another trick is to explain the content of what is in the title. So provide detail and try to answer all the questions that people might have about the event within the salescopy. Remember to emphasize the benefits not the features.
Free stuff
The next thing to do is to make sure you include something ‘free’ – such as follow-up advice session or coaching. You could even offer a podcast for them to download providing answers to two or three of their main questions which they can submit to you.
Pricing
Pricing is important as a marketing technique so let me go into a bit of detail on this. When you price your event don’t be tempted to make it as cheap as possible. People often think that price that is the main thing that people buy on. But it isn’t. Price your event fairly and use your pricing to demonstrate your quality. This is important for your reputation and for your room-booking costs. You need to cover your costs with as few bookings as possible. So, for example, try to cover the cost of your room-booking with 5 or 6 bookings. Then anyone else who comes will be profit for you. The average cost of attending a day event in the UK is around $150 for personal development, $400 for self-funded professional development, and $600 for business/company training. So use these as a guide – it will of course depend on where you are running your business.
Advertise exclusivity
Another important technique is to communicate the ‘exclusivity’ of your event – say on your sales letter that you are only accepting 10 people as you are testing this market. Which, if you are just starting, is quite accurate. Because of this you are also offering the event at an introductory low price and that this may increase if the event is successful so that future attendees will have to pay more. So, you are emphasizing the exclusivity and rarity of the event and with only a small number of people underlining the personal nature of the event – so that attendees get personal attention. A small number of people will also keep you organizing burden very small and means that you only need to get a small number of people booked on the event. So, if you have 200 people on your list of prospects an you only have to sell to 10 then you have a much better chance of making your event profitable.
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