THE ART OF SEMINAR MARKETING.

No question, seminars are an absurdly primitive way to sell technology products. We lure a few dozen people to a windowless hotel room, force them to sit through mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations, and then hope they'll turn into loyal clients. This is a marketing strategy?

Yet surprisingly, seminars do work. In fact, there's probably no other technology marketing tactic that works nearly as well. If the topic and speakers are on target, seminars almost always attract top-quality leads--prospects who are eager to learn about sophisticated, hard-to- explain products, and who are often ready to make buying decisions soon.

The one drawback to seminar marketing, of course, is that even a small event can take a huge amount of effort to organize. The details are endless--promotion, logistics, scripting, rehearsals, budgets, registrations, audio-visual equipment, menus. Worse, a few glitches can make a company look (and feel) like the Keystone Kops.

Still, there are many marketers who've turned seminar production into a near-science. We recently invited Soft-letter subscribers and friends to share their best seminar marketing tips. Here's what they said:

HOW TO ATTRACT A QUALITY AUDIENCE

* Write copy that sells: Often, seminar invitations (especially for free events) sound stuffy and formal. That's a mistake, argues free- lance copywriter Ivan Levison. "Write with enthusiasm," he advises. "Most people are terribly busy. You've got to fire them up and motivate them with sparkling prose." In particular, there are several tried-and- true tactics that Levison recommends for seminar copy:

--"Explain how you'll be teaching as well as what you'll be teaching. Will there be several speakers? Slides? A computer demo for every attendee? Spell it out!"

--"Sell the credentials of the person who's talking. Let readers know that they'll be picking up pearls of wisdom from a true industry leader, a guru, a living legend."

--"If you have the space, include raves from past attendees. Be sure to use full names--initials alone just don't work."

--"Let them know what valuable materials they'll receive free. If they'll be getting $395 worth of information, let them know it."

--"Let them know that your seminar won't be offered again (or soon, anyway). They're in danger of missing out big time if they blow this chance to attend. Tell them seats are available on a first-come, first- served basis and they'd better get moving."

Ivan Levison, principal, Ivan Levison & Associates, 14 Los Cerros Dr., Greenbrae, Calif. 94904; 415/461-0672. E-mail: ivan@levison.com.

* Keep e-mail invitations simple: Laura Biggs of Vocus reports that her company "quadrupled our response rate" for its seminar and open house events just by switching from direct mail to e-mail invitations. Biggs says she deliberately left most of the event details--for instance, directions--on the Vocus Web site. She also carefully streamlined the signup process. "Forms should be as simple as possible," she advises, "and if you can provide a secure connection, processing registrations with credit cards makes everything super easy to track."

Laura Biggs, director of marketing, Vocus, 4296 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, Md. 20706; 301/459-2590. E-mail: lbiggs@vocus.com

* Recruit co-promoters: Joining forces with a sponsor or business partner is often a good way to reach additional seminar prospects at very little cost, says Judd Kessler of Abacus Data Systems, a developer of software for lawyers. "We get great turnout when we offer continuing education credits which lawyers need to renew their law licenses," says Kessler. "We get the credits by having the State Bar co-sponsor the seminar. We give their members a discount, so the Bar gets to provide a member benefit at no effort or cost to them, and we get to use their accreditation at no effort or cost to us."

Judd Kessler, president, Abacus Data Systems, 6725 Mesa Ridge Rd., San Diego, Calif. 92121; 858/452-4280. E-mail: juddk@abacuslaw.com.

* Emphasize "affinity" relationships: "People enjoy being 'members' of an exclusive group, whether that group is defined as subscribers to research, members of an association, or anything similar," PC Data founder Ann Stephens notes. "Addressing them as members encourages their participation in seminars. They'll also provide very good feedback."

Ann Stephens, 11504 Links Dr., Reston, Va. 20190; 703/435-1025. E-mail: annstephen@aol.com.

* Reward early signups: "Offer books as giveaways for early-bird registration," suggests Ian Tang of the Software Productivity Center. "Books tend to be more valuable to attendees than a dollar discount, which just benefits their company."

Ian Tang, training manager, Software Productivity Center, 1122 Mainland St., Vancouver, B.C V6B 5L1; 604/662-8181. E-mail: itang@spc.ca.

* Test a postcard mailing: SoftPro's Tyler Townsend points out that a well-executed postcard campaign is sometimes exactly the right approach to fill seminar seats. "For a new-product seminar at a large industry trade show, I sent a mailer to attendees two weeks prior to the show," he says. "The postcard had fake movie-style 'reviews' of the software, with typical movie jargon (Five Stars! Two Thumbs Up!). The bottom of the software resembled a movie ticket--'Now Showing at a Seminar Near You!'" Townsend says trade show attendees often came to the booth with postcards in their hands, "and we had ample traffic in relation to other vendors."

Tyler Townsend, vice president of marketing, SoftPro Corp., 333 E. Six Forks Rd., Raleigh, N.C. 27609; 800/848-0143; E-mail: tyler@softprocorp.com.

* Make personal contact with attendees: E-mail invitations definitely save money, says Jeff Hunt of OpenAir Corp., an ASP hosting service, "but we found the percentage of people who actually showed up was lower than we wanted. The whole process was anonymous for the registrant, so they could decide at the last minute not to attend without feeling guilty." The solution: "We devoted considerable personal attention to anyone who signed up," says Hunt. "We sent them a personal e-mail and made a follow-up phone call to establish a dialog. This approach increased attendance rates by 15%-20%."

Jeff Hunt, vice president of marketing, OpenAir Corp., 80 Lincoln St., Boston, Mass. 02111; 617/351-0230. E-mail: jeffhunt@openair.com.

* Don't neglect the fun factor: Even for seminars with serious content, attendees are more likely to show up if there's a promise of entertainment. Tucows president Elliot Noss says his company recently hosted a series of Linux seminars with a "Feed the Penguin" theme. The event promotion included photos of Noss feeding live penguins, and Tucows distributed 3,000 chocolate penguins at the trade show where the seminars took place. "Transforming the call to action into a fun and creative idea helped make these seminars some of the best-attended at the entire show," he notes.

Elliot Noss, president, Tucows, 96 Mowat Ave., Toronto, Ont. M6K 3M1; 416/538-5494. E-mail: enoss@tucows.com.

* Get the sales force involved: Icarian's Carl Steffens argues that "the real octane-boost" to getting good turnout is "a strong sense of ownership by the field sales force." Although marketing promotions can generate interest, "the sales force has the direct relationships with customers and prospects, and a personal touch is highly effective at generating interest."

Carl Steffens, vice president of field and partner marketing, Icarian, 555 N. Mathilda Ave., Sunnyvale, Calif. 94086; 408/743-5700. E-mail: csteffens@icarian.com.

* Invest in audience quality: "Reaching the right people is often the hardest part of running a seminar," says WRQ's Scott Merrick. "Magazine lists seldom work. The best formula for us has been to buy a list and then pay good telemarketers to find the real contacts we're trying to reach." In some cases, he adds, "we have our sales reps offer to pick up key prospects with a town car, to make sure they get there and stay."

Scott Merrick, director of integration marketing, WRQ, 1500 Dexter Ave. N., Seattle, Wash. 98109; 206/217-7978. E-mail: scottm@wrq.com.

* Host an awards event: Lee Duffey of Duffey Communications reports that one of his clients, Best Software, presented "Oscar-style" awards as part of a recent conference for resellers. "Categories included 'Best Use of a Celebrity Name,' 'Quickest Sales,' 'Most Innovative,' 'Strangest Sales,' 'Best ROI,' etc.," he says. "Every reseller who registered attended the event, and after the conference, Best followed up with silver trophies incorporating Best's logo."

Lee Duffey, president, Duffey Communications, 3379 Peachtree Rd., NE, Atlanta, Ga. 30326; 404/266-2600. E-mail: lee@duffey.com.

* Be prepared for attendees who don't register: Walk-ins and last- minute signups can be remarkably disruptive, especially if they miss essential information that's been sent to registered attendees. One way to enforce registration, says Jacky Hood of Crescent Project Management, is to publish only the city and date, not the actual location. "Before we came up with this approach, we had a guy show up at a seminar we'd cancelled--he didn't think pre-registration was necessary."

Jacky Hood, president, Crescent Project Management, Box 4217, Mountain View, Calif. 94040; 650/361-0799. E-mail: jacky@crescentproject.com.

HOW TO MAKE PROGRAM CONTENT MEMORABLE

* Showcase independent perspectives: One of the classic models for a half-day seminar is to feature three speakers--an industry analyst or consultant, a local customer, and a company representative. "For our seminars, an analyst/consultant starts by getting the audience to consider the exciting possibilities of where to take their companies in the future," says Justin Phillips of InSystems Technologies. "Then we bring out a customer who discusses how our product is being used and how it lines up with industry trends. Finally, an internal company speaker presents our vision of how the product will help attendees solve their business issues." After the formal presentations, Phillips adds, "we open the floor for questions, and this is typically the most valuable part of the session: A room full of prospects has a chance to ask a satisfied customer how the whole relationship has worked."

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