Once you decide to have an online seminar, you will need to market it to make it successful. If you want anyone to come, you have to tell people about it. And of course the more people you tell, the more people who will sign up and come to your online seminar.
Blog about Your Seminar
Don’t keep the seminar a secret until it’s time to have it. Instead, starting about six weeks before the seminar, start talking about it on your blog. Build buzz by hinting about the entire event from start to finish. You can talk about the topics you’ll be speaking on, what others will be speaking on, how you’ll be giving away prizes and more. The more you blog about it, the more excited people will be about attending.
Promote through Social Media
Every time you or someone else blogs about the event, or the topic of the event, share via social media and hint about the event. Social media is a great place to market your seminars because people see seminars as live events even when they are online. It’s more social than an information product, and it is exciting to your audience to get to mingle with you “live”.
Use Your Email Lists
Of course, if you are having a seminar online you should market it to your email list members. Start mentioning it and promoting your blog posts and the planning process the moment you know you’re going to have an online seminar. The more your email list sees it mentioned, the more they will want to sign up and go to the event.
Get Your Affiliates Involved
Even if you offer a free seminar, you should get your affiliates involved and pay them for registrations. Even if you only pay one dollar per registrant, it’s a good use of your marketing budget. This is especially true if you’ve vetted your affiliates and only have affiliates who have purchased products through you or are part of your membership website if you have one.
Charge Money Even If It’s a Dollar
Turn-out is low for unpaid seminars even for those who have registered in advance. People are more likely to attend a seminar if they had to pay something, even if it was a dollar. The willingness to spend money on the event is a good sign that the audience is ready to hear what you have to say too. It’s a good weeding out mechanism. Plus, you can simply give the entire dollar to your affiliates.
Recruit Joint Ventures and Guest Speakers
One of the best ways to market an online seminar is to get other people to do it for you. If you have guest speakers and joint venture partners who are part of the seminar, make it a requirement that everyone has to promote the event on their social media, email lists, and blogs. You can even help them out by providing editable text for them to use on their online real estate.
Finally, don’t overlook the added advantage of reminding the people who signed up about the event, and asking them to invite others. The people who are going to attend can be some of your best fans, and we all know that word-of-mouth marketing is the best type of marketing that there is.