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“What’s In It For Me?” – affectionately known as WIIFM among marketers – is the question that’s constantly running through prospects’ heads. To effectively promote a seminar, you must provide the answer. An easy way to do so is by identifying how prospective attendees will benefit by participating in your training.

Developing a list of powerful benefits involves identifying all of the things attendees will learn at your seminar … and then explaining how learning those new skills will pay off. Benefits include both measurable results, such as increasing revenue and productivity, as well as intangible results, such as gaining peace of mind and greater confidence.

As you create the list of benefits your seminar offers, remember that there are two audiences that may be reading your promotions and making a buying decision:

• Participants. These individuals are very focused on WIIFM. They have specific frustrations, challenges and goals, and they’ll be evaluating whether your event will teach them the skills and information they need to solve their problems and achieve their targets.

• Decision makers. Depending on your target audience, there may be a second group of buyers involved in the decision to purchase a seat at your event. This group consists of decision makers – supervisors, company owners, HR personnel and other professionals who control the education dollars at organizations. If you are marketing events to employees, they typically will need to get approval from someone higher up the corporate food chain to attend.

This group wants to see benefits that pertain specifically to them and their needs. As you develop their list of benefits, think about:

• What problems you’ll help them solve

• What challenges and pressures they face in their jobs – how does your seminar help them?

• The skills they’ll learn at your program… and what this will help them do

• Their career goals – can your training help them move up the ladder?

Then develop a second list of benefits targeted to the decision makers. Decision makers review your marketing materials with a different focus. Their goal is to protect the organization’s resources. They need to ensure that spending money to send workers to your program is a wise investment, or the decision could come back to haunt them.

Decision makers will be evaluating your seminar in relation to two things:

• Investment in human resources. Supervisors will be reading your promotions to determine how and if their employees will benefit from participating in your seminar. After all, they have (or should have) a clear understanding of what skills their employees need to improve and the goals they’ve been assigned.
• Investment of financial resources. Decision makers also will be evaluating your offer with a bigger picture in mind: is this the best place to invest part of the organization’s limited training and travel budget?

To address both set of concerns, include a second list of benefits – “How Your Organization Will Benefit.” Think about the bigger-picture goals that supervisors and managers are focused on. Show them how sending their employees to your seminar will help their organization achieve its goals, as well.

An often-shared piece of marketing advice is that prospects seek pleasure instead of or to avoid pain. Applied to seminar promotion, this means that prospects will be attracted by the benefits your event offers, more so if you can show them how attending your training will help to them move away from the pain of their problems.

In most cases, it is easy to figure out what problem your seminar solves. For example, teaching someone the proper way to cold call solves the problem of not generating enough sales leads or not closing enough sales. People who are interested in quality management training typically are dealing with poor quality control or an unacceptable level of error somewhere in their production.

To effectively promote a seminar, it is important to zero in on the main problem or challenge your program solves. From there, though, expand your list of problems solved. The more closely your marketing copy matches the conversations going on in your prospects’ heads, the more likely you are to generate registrations.

Here are three ways to identify the problems your seminar solves:

1. Use common sense. What do you know of the problems your audience is dealing with? Which challenges does your seminar address? Write down as many problems as possible – even if you think they are minor.
2. Flip your benefits. Start by drafting a list of benefits that attendees get by participating in your event. Now go back through your list, one by one, and ask what would happen if your prospect didn’t attend and wasn’t able to enjoy the benefit.
3. Interview past attendees. Ask them what problems they were trying to solve when they found your seminar. Also ask them which problems they have been able to address with your training.

Once you have a list, identify which are the top two or three challenges. Stress these problems the most in your seminar promotions.

Then use the remainder to provide a bulleted list of problems that your seminar solves. Your list can be presented under its own subhead, such as “Do You Struggle With These Challenges?” or incorporated into your description of who should attend.

The more problems you identify, the greater the chances any single individual will read your copy and say “Hey, that’s sounds just like me.” Plus, there is always a chance that the problem you think is the most pressing for your audience is overshadowed by a different issue. By discovering what truly concerns your audience, you may stumble upon a unique selling proposition that will make your seminar stand out in your marketplace.

Want to learn more? Join me in Los Angeles on May 4th at Speaker Secrets Exposed. This exciting 1-day seminar is designed for new speakers and professionals who want to use speaking to generate more leads and revenue for their business. Learn how to find your voice, develop your message and connect with your audience … even if you have ZERO speaking experience! I'll be there sharing my strategies for developing your marketing message and plan to promote your seminars, speaking services and products. Get full details here.