Every professional speaker hopes for a standing room only crowd. There are several ways to increase the odds of meeting this goal – besides removing all the chairs from the room. Knowing your target audience and leveraging good promotional efforts are at the top of the list. For example, a recent email promoting a client’s free educational seminar produced rock star-like results. The communication was basic in nature and contained no super whiz-bang graphic elements, but still managed to generate an overwhelming response.
Kevin Campbell is the president of
College Planning Authority and is passionate about saving families money on the cost of college tuition. He works with dozens of clients one-on-one, and as a community service Campbell speaks to civic and professional groups about college planning. We recently began contacting employee wellness groups about his free presentations. Companies who value their employees enough to have a wellness program know the stress related to money management spills over into work productivity. The organization we targeted had never presented this topic before so we had no idea what our results might be. Campbell's typical engagements garner about 40-50 people, so we hoped for at least that many. However, we never imagined to “sell out” the free event. We provided the following email, and managed to get 90 reservations in 90 minutes.
The Wellness Committee presents "How to Pay for College Without Going Broke" - noon, Jan. 20 at (location).
College Planning Authority is Fort Worth's first comprehensive college planning company. Kevin Campbell is a college planning expert who has been interviewed by
WFAA and
CBS 11 news. As a service to (business name) employees, he will provide all the inside secrets to saving thousands of dollars on your child's college tuition. Parents of high school students are highly encouraged to attend.
Today, a four-year degree at a state school costs approximately $100,000 and the price is expected to increase. Find out what you can do to lower the expense - by thousands of dollars. You'll get inside tips on filling out application forms, financial aid, scholarships, standardized testing and more. You will also see specific examples of how hard working families have missed out on savings. Sign up today so you're in the know!
That's it! The registration email was far from revolutionary, but incredibly successful. The key elements to the high response rate include:
• the built-in audience for the employee wellness program
• the source – the email came from the program director program - not the client
• the client’s expertise and results
• we made them care, if they didn’t already, about the topic by providing the facts on the astronomical cost of tuition
• a sense of urgency communicated at the end of the email
Target your audience, have the information sent from a trusted resource, communicate the problem and objective in a concise manner, and you too could be speaking to a packed house.
