Seminars and Demonstrations

Seminars and demonstrations are held in person; therefore they will usually have some
expense attached to them. You will need to rent a meeting room in most cases, and you
might want to offer some light refreshments. As a guerrilla marketer, always be thinking of
how you can keep these costs down. For example, is there a joint venture partner you can
work with who has a space where you can hold the seminar, and in return, you would
provide something useful for their business? Get creative – how can you help each other?



Who do you know that has a place of business that would make sense for the product or
service you are selling and the information you are providing. For example, if you are a
landscaper and you want to hold a demonstration, you might choose a friend who has a
farm as your joint venture partner. This friend could let you hold the demonstration on
their property and they would get some free landscaping done during that event in return.
If you are a business coach for holistic-type businesses, you could think of a person you
know who might have the same target market as you do. If for example, you know a person
who owns a spa, you could hold the seminar in her spa. The setting would be perfect for
holistic-minded people and your friend would benefit as well because more people would
be introduced to her spa.

During the seminar or demonstration, be sure to provide useful, valuable information for
the majority of the time (at least 45 minutes) and then give your commercial for your
offering for a short period of time (15 minutes tops). The most successful seminars are the
ones that provide a content-rich program that leaves the audience feeling like they would
be a fool not to hire you because you have so much valuable information to give. They will
say to themselves, “If he/she gives that much information for free, just imagine what
he/she will give when I pay for his/her services.”

When you make your offer, you will want to make it as enticing as possible. Provide several
added bonuses for signing up during the seminar or demonstration. This helps to make the
offer a no-brainer, but it also helps them act immediately. If they walk out the door, your
chances of making the sale go down drastically, so whenever possible, make the sale at the
event. Free bonuses can include complimentary products or services that they can only get
by signing up at the event. You can even offer products and services from joint venture
partners or friends in related industries. Just make sure your bonuses complement your
offer.

You can advertise for your seminars in the newspaper and on your free classified online
listings as discussed in Chapter 24. You can even advertise them in your own ezines and
newsletters or in other people’s newsletters as we went over in Chapter 17. Be sure to
stress that you are offering the seminar for free if you are.

In deciding if you will offer the seminar for free, consider the outcome you are going for. If
you want to attract a lot of attendees, offering the event for free is the best way to go. If,
however, you are okay with getting less attendees and are more interested in getting more
qualified leads to attend, go for a low priced event. When people pay for a seminar, they are
more likely to be serious, and therefore, they are more likely to buy your services or
products. Having said that, free seminars are often a great way to get started with this type
of marketing.

If you are providing a demonstration of a product you are selling, the attendees will get to
see and touch the product, and may even get to sample it, which helps considerably with
making sales. The more you can get them involved, the more sales you will make.

Demonstrations can be held almost anywhere. They are often held in homes, at fairs and
shows, in parks, in stores, etc. The added bonus of holding your demonstration in a public
place is that you will probably increase your attendee numbers since people are attracted
to crowds and they will be curious to see what is going on. This makes demonstrations very
easy to market because it often isn’t even necessary to advertise the event if you show up at
a high-trafficked area.