By Mike Gabriele
As fall season approaches, you’re a financial advisor with growth in mind, important topics to discuss, and are comfortable in front of an audience. You know that if you can assemble the right prospects for an hour of your time, new clients will be had. Enter the investment seminar, an efficient and cost effective way to present your investment approach to a targeted group of prospective clients. But even the most timely financial topic that strikes a resonant chord and gets potential investors in the right frame of mind, is lost if it falls on the wrong ears, or no ears at all.
So how can you be sure to fill your seminar seats with quality prospects? Here are a few things to consider.
Your target: Think about the type of prospects you want to attract first. Then select your topic. These decisions drive how you tailor your mailing list and seminar preparations. Are your target audience empty-nesters close to retirement? Seniors and retirees? Business owners? Planning a seminar for each of these groups can be as diverse as their investment needs.
Budget: The key budget items for a seminar are mailing list, invitations/postage, food and venue. When setting your budget, allow your expenses to cover a two-seminar wave. While many branches may cover postage, mailing lists range in price based on target criteria and quantity. A good, focused list for 5,000 quality invites will range between $600 and $1,000. As for food, depending on whether you’re serving bagels and coffee or a nice steak with wine, the scale can be anywhere from $5 to $25 a person.
Location, location, location: The days of booking the Holiday Inn by the interstate are long gone. When folks see an invitation to a seminar in a hotel meeting room, one thing springs to mind… sales pitch. Investors are much more willing to commit to a morning or evening of information gathering if it’s in a more personal setting like a restaurant or even your office conference room. Lunch-and-learns can be attractive for small groups where your office is centrally located. Think about traffic, parking and building access before you lock in your location.
Food: Your seminars are an opportunity to create a welcoming presence, much like a welcoming investment practice. Always provide refreshments. When people are satisfying their palate, their mood improves and they become more receptive.
Time of day: Here convenience is the key. If you want business professionals with a busy schedule and family life, a morning seminar with a continental breakfast before their business day starts might work best. Those with older children or empty nesters may prefer the dinner seminar. For seniors, a lunch or daytime seminar is your best bet. And if your target is women specifically, avoid seminars that let out at night or have insecure parking.
Easy to respond: Plan to purchase a list to introduce new names into your prospecting pipeline. A purchased list of 5,000 from a specific area and targeted demographic may yield 25-50 people for your seminar. Supplement the list with your own prospects and perhaps some clients. And the easier it is for them to respond with a “yes” the better. Give invitees a choice to either call or email their response. Many seniors may not have easy access to email, others may prefer it. An 800# can work well too. Most importantly, arrange to call all positive respondents the day before the seminar – call is better, but email is okay too.
Seminar topic: How do you put a fresh spin on your fall seminar? Think about topics that resonate most with your prospects, and we’ll address in a future blog how to grab their attention and leave them wanting answers and information.
More financial advisors are looking for strategies to build assets and new relationships. But as the markets ebbed and flowed last month, they did little to envigorate most RIAs’ marketing efforts. We talked to one, however, who was continuing to schedule his Fall seminar nights, for a total of 45 nights in 2011. The subject is always retirement planning. “Study after study tells you it is what everyone is concerned about. Why talk about anything else?” What does he know that others don’t? Well, the numbers. Patrick Horan figures he will convert from 2-8% of a roomful, although some nights he’ll go home empty-handed. Read our article here in RIAbiz to find out his secrets of successful seminars. The debate rages: some seminar givers who tried and abandoned seminars weighed in to question the numbers. The pragmatic Horan replies point by point: believe me, if the seminars weren’t delivering, there’s no doubt Horan wouldn’t be dedicating 45 nights to the effort in 2011. Here’s the article: 
