In Part II of Seminar Marketing, find out how to increase your chances of conducting a successful seminar and generate new leads.
The first part of this article stressed upon the need and relevance of seminar marketing. The second part looks at how to conduct an effective and efficient seminar. Cafemutual spoke to some of the leading financial advisers in order to get their perspective on conducting effective seminar marketing to acquire clients. Read on to know more.
Maintain a Record – In order to enable you to follow up with the audience, you must collect and maintain a record of the people who attended the seminar. It must contain the basic information such as name, address, phone number, email-id and professional background. In fact, a small basket should be kept at the entrance for people to drop their business cards. You could incentivize them to drop their cards by telling them about a ‘Lucky Draw’ at the end of the seminar.
Duration – Stevan Fernandes of Proficient Financial Planners believes that the ideal duration for a seminar should be around 2 ½ hours. The first two hours could be devoted for the presentation, while the audience could use the remaining 30 minutes to clear their doubts.
However, Suresh Sadagopan of Ladders 7 Financial Advisories argues that a presentation should not last more than an hour. He believes that people’s retention power diminishes after the first 60 minutes.
Whatever be the duration in mind, do keep two things in mind:
1. Make it interesting and keep the audience involved
2. In this day and age, remember people value time more than anything else. A lot of people may stay away if they are told to take out 2-3 hours of their precious time.
Homogenous Audience – Sadagopan believes that you can tailor your seminars on the needs of groups with similar backgrounds and interests. “This way, you can maximize the output with minimum efforts. For instance, you can make a presentation on retirement planning for the 50 - 60 age group”, says Sadagopan.
It always helps when you target a niche group rather than a group of diversified professionals.
Amit Trivedi of Karmayog Knowledge Academy supports this argument. He says, “If you target a group of doctors then you should first understand their aspirations and make a presentation accordingly.”
Select Your Topic Wisely – Shifali Satsangee of Funds Vedaa says, “The topic for the seminar should be interesting and connect with your target audience instantly. Also, make the session interactive and lively by introducing games/quizzes.”
According to Fernandes, the title of your presentation should be clearly defined with caption and punch-line so as to generate a certain buzz.
Body language & Presentation Skills – Nisreen Mamaji of Moneyworks Financial Advisers says, “The speaker at the seminar must be well dressed. During the presentation, efforts should be on to maintain regular eye contact with the audience.”
Besides, ensure that the presentation is a mix of audio/visual. This would help the audience to understand the subject better.
“Quoting examples & case studies has worked out well for me while delivering a presentation. I must state here that advisors should try to break the monotony by cracking jokes every now and then. This would keep the audience glued to your presentation,” says Fernandes.
Memento – While concluding the seminar, Trivedi suggests that a note containing major points of the presentation should be handed over to the visitors.
However, Sadagopan adds that it should be in a one page format so that they could easily go through it even while travelling.
Feedback Form – At the end of the presentation, make sure to collect feedback from the audience. This exercise would help you to measure the success rate of the event while ensuring a better presentation for the next time.
Follow up – According to Vishal Dhawan of Plan Ahead Wealth Advisors, it is a good idea to follow up with the people who attended the seminar. Ideally, these follow ups should be done through emails and phone calls. He suggests that financial advisers should send write ups, newsletters related to personal finance to the target audience through emails.
“The presentations should be uploaded on YouTube as well as on other social networking websites. The links should be shared with people who attended the seminar so that they could go through the presentation whenever they require any assistance,” concludes Trivedi.
