There's simply no excuse for not showing your product to prospects. To aid our presentations, we have portable computers, liquid crystal panels that fit on top of overhead projectors, frequent flights at reasonable costs, and software that's often so easy, it can be shown to novices in short sessions. But it's not always enough to invite your prospects to you. Sometimes you have to reach out to them...and seminars are a terrific way to reach out. Seminars bring a controlled demonstration / presentation environment to your prospect's home town.
Seminars aren't new. I used them 15 years ago, when I first entered this business. Of course, back then, seminars were all presentation, no demonstration. It was too expensive to bring the show on the road. Today, seminars are a breeze. You waltz into town with your computer under your arm; stage your demonstration at the hotel of your choice, collect the purchase orders from the attendees, and ship the product.
Well...maybe not that easy. There are plenty of challenges facing the software company that does marketing seminars. In reality, though, seminars are among the most cost effective ways for you to attract new customers because seminars combine the broad appeal of marketing communications with the face-to-face effectiveness of direct sales.
I know of no other marketing activity with which you can combine the reach of targeted marketing with the interactivity of direct sales. That's because there are two major opportunities associated with seminars -- the marketing communications component that attracts prospects into the door, and the direct sales component in which you turn your prospects into customers or move them through the sales cycle.
From a marketing communications perspective, your seminar campaign reaches a large number of prospects in your target markets. You normally do this with direct mail invitations that go out to suspects* that meet specific criteria. By aiming your invitations at a broad target, you can attract a fairly large audience. If you aim your invitations at a narrow set of recipients and target your piece tightly, you won't get as many attendees, but you will attract an audience consisting of your most qualified candidates. And you'll probably attract multiple decision makers from key prospect organizations, a particularly good sign if your product requires multiple sign offs before a purchase is made.
Your invitations help you reach prospects who might not make it to your seminar by creating visibility for you within your target market. In addition, these invitations show the essence of the problem that your product solves, and maybe a glimpse of the solution you offer. If your seminar program is aimed at your "usual set of suspects", your invitations will complement your other marketing actions, and set you up for future sales as well.
The most overlooked benefit of your seminar program is that you command the entire attention of your audience while they're with you. Attendees aren't distracted by their phones, associates or piles of work. They're yours. Your office is the hotel or conference center in which you present your seminar -- so you have a local presence. That's even better if you use a first class meeting facility, because the image of the facility rubs off on your image. The point is subtle perhaps, but important. Customers want to rely on companies that have local presence because it increases their confidence that you'll be available when they need you. Multiple trips to the same city make you seem like an old friend.
The sales aspect is just as important as the marketing communications aspect. Here the numbers speak for themselves. Let's say that your typical sales call takes one-half day (including travel and incidental activities). That means your sales person can effectively do no more than 20 sales calls during a two week period. With some administrative help, though, your sales person can reach those same 20 people with a half day seminar. The presentation and/or demonstration will be the same. The prospects will still be able to ask questions and get immediate answers. Your sales person will still be able to handle objections and move the prospects through the sales cycle. Yet he's gained two extra weeks of productivity. If his annual quota is $1,000,000, that's like gaining $40,000 in revenue from a single seminar!
What's more, your sales person is able to develop rapport with the audience. Any sales person will tell you that "people buy from people", and that his customers buy from him because they want to buy from him. That's right. In many cases, lack of rapport loses the sale. Rapport is something that you just can't build with a mailer or print ad.
Unlike other tactics, seminars give you the time to tell your complete story, and it's that complete story that makes the prospect want to buy. With advertisements you get a still photo and some text. At trade shows, if you're lucky, you'll hold the prospect's complete attention for two minutes. At a seminar, you have control for the duration of your seminar. That might be one hour, or as long as a week depending on your product and market. In either case, it should be enough time to demonstrate your product and your company's expertise at solving your customers' problems.
There are many companies with products that are well suited for team selling, where various members of your staff play different roles in the customer sales cycle. Seminars are perfect for team selling. If you have a technical product, technical support people can step aside to speak with technical decision makers; your sales people can talk about the purchase issues with the business decision makers; and your executives can be available for high level pow-wows and making the attendee feel welcome.
Don't take my word about the intelligence of seminars. I'm biased because I've been orchestrating seminars for my employers and many clients for 15 years. Instead, just look at your situation as a prospect. In a given week you probably get several invitations to seminars. But you only go to those that cover a topic important to you. That's the intelligence of seminars. The attendees are all pre-qualified. If they're not interested, they won't come. You get a quality audience!
Recently, Mergent International, along with two business partners, ran a seminar tour that covered seven major cities to market its security software to corporate decision makers. Two different sessions were held in each city: a breakfast session that served as an executive briefing about the management issues, and a general morning session to speak to the recommenders and implementers about the solutions. Around 700 people attended these sessions. According to Bob Buchanan former Director of Marketing at Mergent, "Our challenge at Mergent is to get senior level decision makers to recognize the issues related to network security. Our executive briefings attained the recognition we sought. Our general sessions showed how we could solve the problem. By all measures, our seminar tour was a success."
Mergent has a history of successful seminars. In fact, seminars have become an integral part of its marketing strategy. Buchanan says he can present his entire story to his best prospects for less than 5% of what it would cost him to do individual sales calls on the same group. "Face to face is wonderful, but to meet individually with suspects is too expensive. With seminars, you can get a number of your best prospects in a room for 3 hours. It's a persuasive way to tell your story."
Don't limit your seminar thinking to the final purchasers. If you sell through a distribution channel, use your seminars to reach resellers, VARs and analysts. They too are looking for efficient, comfortable ways to learn more about the types of products that they feel are important. The Santa Cruz Operation, for instance, aimed its highly successful "Get Connected to SCO" seminars at prospective SCO-UNIX resellers and played to full houses across the continent.
No marketing or sales tactics is perfect, and seminars are no exception. You need a good concept, a strong appeal for your target market, and a willingness to deal with lots of details to make your seminars succeed. There are thousands of details to manage with each seminar program. If only a few details get lost or drop through the cracks, your cost-effectiveness can plummet. To be successful, you must be vigilant in your administration of the details, and you must have back up plans for certain seminar related items that are critical to your tour.
The bottom line is seminars are an effective, efficient way to reach your market and should be part of the sales & marketing strategies of most software companies.
* footnote: We use the term suspect to denote a person that has the general demographic characteristics of your most logical customers, but whom you have not previously contacted.
Sidebar: Making Your Seminars Work