Client Event Seminar Training: Relevant Events

Do live events still make an impact in the age of Siri, Alexa, texts, emails and chatbots everywhere? Can human interaction and face-to-face connection still work when it comes to marketing? It’s possible for the financial industry to still put seminars to work to cultivate relationships. In fact, in our client event seminar training we explore this idea.

To get started, consider a few stats on whether live events still matter in the age of virtual events, webinars and video on demand.

Most (41%) marketers believe that events are the single-most effective marketing channel over digital advertising, email marketing and content marketing. This reflects a 32% increase since 2017.

68% of B2B marketers use in-person events for lead generation initiatives. This is particularly important considering 73% of marketers prioritized lead quality in 2018.

If facts and stats aren’t your thing, here’s a story for you. Marketing strategist, speaker and author Joe Pulizzi founded the digital juggernaut Content Marketing Institute. Over the first few years, it existed as a website, email content and webinars. Eventually enough people asked Joe about getting like-minded people together, so he founded the event Content Marketing World.

Joe says in his book Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses that it was one of the best decisions he could have made. The first year the event turned a profit.

Sure, you’re not looking to launch a conference for marketers. But as Joe essentially points out, as much as the internet can connect us, it really doesn’t. Human interaction and bringing people together remains very powerful when it comes to building experiences, educating people and getting us to do business.

You can also ride this wave with your continued execution of educational seminars in person with your practice partners in conjunction with online experiences. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

The question remains, how do you make in-person events relevant today?

Here are two ways to make your live event relevant in the digital age.

First, we’ll start with some digital appetizers: Mini-webinars leading up to the event.

Launch 5-to-15-minute mini webinars, live or recorded, going over some of the information you or your local adviser will present at the actual event. You can give away a lot of information up front, using the live event to reiterate the lessons and answer questions. In fact, encourage the attendees to bring questions to the live event, seeding the idea that a real-life, face-to-face seminar will have so much more information and interaction.

Promote the live seminar in each of the mini-webinars, and promote all of it in the usual channels like emails, social media and even direct mail.

Also, live social media “events” can draw interest and turn a live event into a digital experience. For instance, social media “chats” can bring people together online. Whether it’s a Reddit based “ask me anything” or an intimate Facebook group, interacting with your audience through social media and once again building that trust can help drive interest in the live event. Sometimes you can only answer so much in social, before people just really need face to face. They’ll see that, and you’ll have built that trust with them.

However you bring digital into the strategy – we have more ideas in the training available – you’ll do well to keep your live seminars going in partnership with new technology and ideas.

Check out the client event seminar training below. We’re here to help!

Seminar photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash