Marketing your event and getting people to register - and attend - is the cornerstone of a successful event, so it's important to map out your seminar marketing plan and set realistic goals and expectations for your seminar.

It's easy to think to yourself, when you're just getting ready to launch your seminar, "No problem, I can get 500 people to my seminar by sending out a few emails." It's important to "grow" into your events and set up the marketing from the beginning. Set yourself - and your other speakers - up for success by being realistic about your seminar.

There are hundreds of ways you can market your seminar or event, here are a few favorites of top seminar marketers. Just keep in mind "Who, What, When, Where, Why and How" are you going to use each:

Email

Email is essential in marketing your seminar or event. Email allows you to continually market your seminar for FREE! Plus, you can schedule all of your seminar marketing emails in advance and simply let it run itself. It saves you so much time while your focusing on other methods of marketing your seminar.

Email also keeps you in contact with your seminar attendees right up to the day your seminar starts so you don't lose people to cancellations!

Brochures/Fliers

If you are marketing your event locally, consider having some professionally designed brochures or fliers made up to give out at local networking events or to distribute in your community.

Post Cards

Depending on the kind of seminar or event you are marketing, you may decide to buy a list of prospective seminar attendees. Postcards are cheaper than direct mail and you don't have to "hope" that the recipient opens your letter. You can also use postcards in a two-step seminar marketing campaign.

Sales Letter

People want the details of your seminar or event before they commit - even if you're holding a free seminar. People don't have time to waste so they want to be sure they're going to get valuable information from your event. When using a salesletter to market your event, include all of the important topics you'll be covering at your event, who else will be there, the location of your seminar, the dates of your seminar, the time of your seminar and any other networking activities that may occur outside of the seminar hours, contact information, etc.

Don't forget to include a link to register for your seminar on your salespage if it's online or if it's printed, include a registration form that they can mail or fax in as well as a phone number so they can register for your event over the phone.

Teleseminars

Teleseminars are a great way to market your event and allow attendees to "get to know" you and any other speakers that may be presenting at your seminar. You build the relationship BEFORE your seminar, so you'll not only increase the number of people that come to your event, but also the number of sales that you'll have at your event.

Ads

If you;re marketing a seminar that will draw largely from a specific area, classified ads and print ads are great ideas for seminar marketing. But, think globally as well and consider using resources like craigslist.org, for example. Place ads in e-zines and newsletters of people or companies that have subscribers likely to be interested in your event topic.

Joint Ventures with organizations

Joint ventures are the fastest and easiest way to market your seminar. Use any of the above methods with joint ventures and watch your seminar fill up! Depending on the type of seminar or event you're holding, you may even give your joint venture partner as much as 100% of the tickets they sell to your event.

These are just a handful of things that you can do to market your seminar or event. Start looking at all the different things that you can do to help you get "butts" in your seminar seats and give yourself enough time to do it! Seminar marketing is a process, if you take the time to do it RIGHT, you can deposit 5, 6, even 7-figure, paychecks in your bank account in one single weekend.