I have a guest speaking slot coming up with KRM Information Services in an educational webinar for their clients and potential clients. They handle webinar services targeted primarily at associations and affinity groups and I’ll be speaking about marketing considerations when promoting fee-based association webinars.
You are certainly welcome to sign up if the topic interests you, but that’s not why I’m writing this post. I was intrigued by the nonstandard way they are handling promotion and registration. I’m not involved in the design and tactics of marketing this webinar, so I’m just looking at it as an interested outsider.
First of all, the email invitation that went out to their house list was remarkably short on details about content. No big list of bullet points and fancy graphic headers. It’s a simple text format email that briefly promotes me and my expertise as the teaser. That’s concentration on the personal aspect of the event. Then there is a single-sentence value proposition: “On January 27th, you are eligible to get private access to Ken Molay for 60 content-rich minutes during a LIVE! webinar – to be broadcast worldwide.”
Very interesting sentence construction. It manages to convey the date and duration, the type of event, builds the scope as large (“worldwide”) and yet plays up exclusivity and limited supply (“you are eligible”, “private access”). Then the implied value proposition is the valuable access to an in-demand professional (blush).
The next sentences build a powerful appeal to the reader’s self-interest: “Here’s the best part: You can influence the content of our discussion by participating in this online survey!” Ken and I are giving you a rare opportunity to ask ANY specific question you want about marketing non-dues revenue webinars in this down economy.”
Now we have the topic established (without any reliance on a formal title for the event) and we have enlisted the reader as an ally in its creation. Nice.
That’s all that’s in the message except the prominent link to the online landing page for the event. The landing page has its own explicit domain and URL -- www.nonduesrevenueexperts.com -- Easier to remember and tell colleagues about than a long subdomain with multiple backslashes.
Once you visit the landing page, you get a quick audio message, a view of my smilin’ mug, and a box to type a question for the speaker. Enter your name and email, and that’s it! You’re registered. No long set of registration fields about phone, address, size of organization, plans to implement solutions, or anything. Name and email are plenty enough to initiate a conversation and gradually open the door to further communications.
KRM admits that this is an experimental marketing approach for them. We all know that in the world of marketing, nobody knows ahead of time what will work and what won’t. Experimentation is the only true determinant. I’m fascinated to see how this works out for them, but I have to say that I find it a refreshing change from the hoops I have to jump through in order to attend most free introductory webinars!
