Seminar promoters love email marketing. And why
not? It's cheap, it's easy, and it's fast. You can
wake up one morning and within an hour have a
promotional offer whizzing its way through cyberspace
to your prospective customers ... and if everything
works as planned, you'll start counting orders
before the end of the day.
But email isn't without its flaws.
Hypervigilant spam filters intercept messages sent
to people who have requested your communication.
Busy servers and network errors make it impossible
to deliver messages to chunks of your database. (On
one recent email campaign, 19.7% of my messages were
undeliverable because of technical errors out of my
control.)
Prospects fly through their inboxes with a trigger
finger, deleting your messages before they even have
a chance to fully grasp the subject line.
The bad news is ... as more businesses use email to
promote their products and services, the problem will
just get worse.
That's why it makes sense to incorporate direct mail
into your marketing mix. Direct mail stands out,
especially if most (or all) of your communication
with your list takes place online. And for many
people, direct mail makes your company "real" to them.
Case in point: I sent a direct mail promotion to a
portion of my list last week. Not only has it spurred
sign-ups for a teleseminar I'm hosting, I've even been
receiving complimentary emails from recipients who
wanted to let me know how much they like the piece.
(Thanks again for the feedback!)
Direct mail helps protect your company in two
ways. The more promotional tools you use to promote
your seminars, the more likely you are to find the
tool that any one prospect will respond to. (While some
people are highly responsive to email campaigns, others
will never respond, no matter what.) End result -- you
get more registrations.
Plus, the more tools you use to promote your seminars,
the less you'll be affected if one of those tools
suddenly becomes unuseable.
So, get those direct mail pieces ready to throw into the
mix. You'll be happy with the results.
Jenny Hamby is a Certified Guerrilla Marketer and direct-
response copywriter who helps speakers, coaches and
consultants fill seminar seats and make more money from
their own seminars and workshops. Her on- and offline
direct marketing campaigns have netted response rates
as high as 84 percent -- on budgets as small as $125.
For more free seminar marketing secrets, visit www.SeminarPromotionTips.com