I have seen people holding internet marketing seminars for over $500 per person per day. It seems that there is a lot of money to be made for people who can do this.
My main profession is a teacher, so I have a lot of experience in teaching people and I have been an internet marketer for more than 3 years. I think I have what it takes to present some useful seminars or workshops for people who are interested in internet marketing. I would book a room with computers so that I can help the clients personally with hands on experience.
I would probably use locally targeted PPC and offline ads to advertise a seminar/workshop like this and start small. (10-20 people) and focus on one particular aspect of internet marketing, like setting up a sales funnel, affiliate marketing, micro niche blogging, seo etc. And charge small fees ($50/person?) until I build up a good repitation and scale it up a bit, maybe even getting other internet marketers in.
My question:
I have no experience in this. How would one go about in doing this? Are there anyone here who is currently doing something like this or who can give some advice on where to get started?
I will be relocating to my home country, South Africa, end of this year and am thinking about doing something like this. Internet marketing is still a bit new there, so I think that there will be a good market for something like that.
Whenever people book themselves for Seminars, Workshops or Conferences the main selling point (in opposition to simply buying a video, book or viewing a tutorial about the subject) is the individual who is imparting the knowledge. People pay money to be trained by such experts in their field because their known industry-wide for the services they have provided (and the awareness they have brought to themselves as a result). It’s one thing to be a competent teacher who is simply giving a lesson as per a standardised plan in an academic institution but it’s something else to be marketing yourself (as a talent and worthwhile investment) to be worthy of privately using your experience to help others. My recommendation would be to establish yourself before you attempt to setup any kind of session (if you get some recognition - you’re more likely to see interest). Perhaps write some articles for marketing websites (well known ones), there’s tonnes of blogs that have guest authoring sessions, put yourself forward to speak at recognised industry events or gigs (again, many of these places are looking for talent), build yourself up as a brand and recognisable identity and from there you’ll have the foundations to actually start using that to fuel your own training sessions.
Good advice, thanks. I understand that I wont be able to start big, but I am sure that It will be possible to start small just by getting a few people who have never done internet marketeing to do an internet marketing 101 course and then after that go into more detailed courses for more money.
I have seen people holding internet marketing seminars for over $500 per person per day.
Quite a few of these guys have a customer base of people who’ve bought at lower price points, the $500-$1,000 seminar you see is preceded by a lot of little steps you don’t see.
Those people are paying, in large part, based on an established reputation of a person they’ve done business with before (quite probably several times before).
That seminar speaker didn’t wake up one day and figure he’d run an ad in the local paper. It’s the logical progression of a coherent marketing campaign.
If you’re funding it yourself, figure to your cost to be around $20,000 for the hotel/meeting space. Call the place you’re considering and they’ll connect you to the person doing the booking. They probably have different size rooms handling different amounts of seats. You need to know you can fill the room – don’t book what you can’t fill.
Start as a guest speaker. For example I was a guest speaker on an internet marketing power summit held by copywriting guru Bob Serling. When you establish yourself as an expert, with something of unique value they’ll ask you.
Much like the topic of your course, this all comes down to being an effective marketer. Since you don’t have an established following for these courses you will need to combine brand building (your brand) with more immediate advertising solutions to build up an audiance and get attendees. Whether it’s blog posts or ppc, the measurement is ultimately the same – return (time or hard cost) vs sales from attendee sign ups.
Of course there’s a lot of work to get someone to attend a class vs just trying to self-educate so you’ll need to research the competition, the free offerings and see how to set yourself apart.
Point is, to pull off a $500 and up seminar, you had better have some original ideas. An innovator or thought leader.
And I’d go so far as to say useful doesn’t cut it. You’d better knock someone’s socks off, both in information value and delivery. Nobody is compelling your audience to be there. There are no truant officers to round 'em up and dump them in a seat. It’s all you.
Teaching isn’t the ideal profession for keeping an audience spellbound. Although I can see the thinking, it’s generally mistaken. It’s entertainment, not a lecture.
Write it out like a lesson plan and pull that stuff you get away with in class, you’re going to have people fleeing …once they wake up.
