In this article, we will discover how to market workshops using 10 ways.
Event marketing is still one of the most profitable marketing strategies out there. You are having a chance to meet your prospect face to face and connect on a deeper level, create a higher level of trust, and give them more attention.
And it is one of the great ways to educate your prospects about your products or services and bring them some value.
What is a Workshop
The workshop is a long educational seminar held in person with potential prospects that might be interested in your products or services. Workshops are typically smaller and longer than events, conferences, or business meetings and are also more interactive as they require active participation from the audience which makes it a great marketing strategy to introduce your products or services.
However, because of that workshops also require more preparation beforehand, and depending on your industry they might require more technological preparation as well.
Workshops are often dedicated to one topic throughout one to two days. This helps you to deep dive into the subject and help your attendees properly understand the discussed topic.
Why do You Need a Workshop for Your Business?
Conducting a workshop has numerous benefits for your business and can be a great addition to your marketing and lead generation effort.
Since the post-covid-19, a lot of small businesses reintroduce these types of events and could see improvements in engagement and interest from participants than before covid-19.
This gives you the opportunity to again drive interest in your products and services using more traditional marketing strategies, yet still very effective.
With that, let’s discuss some of the top reasons why workshops are important for business:
Increase Brand Awareness
Workshops can be a great way to engage with your prospects in a more interactive way. And it can also be a great way to promote your brand to B2C or B2B target audiences.
According to Bizzabo, 54% of event marketers in the professional services industry host events to drive brand awareness.
This can help you in the future when prospects will need your products or services as past interaction with your brand can boost the trust in your brand when customers decide with whom to engage.
Drive High-Quality Leads
The main benefit of the running workshop is that you can drive high-quality leads, especially in B2B.
In the B2B space, offline lead generation may still be effective. A study from Marketing Charts found that events help B2-B businesses to generate the most leads. It also found that case studies help B2-B businesses to convert the most leads.
However, even in the B2C industry workshops can be an excellent way to bring leads to your business. Many educational experts heavily depend on conducting free workshops to generate leads.
Educating on Your Product or Services
When it comes to workshops, you can easily educate your current customers and prospects at the same time about your new products or services.
Not only that, but workshops are more engaging and more fun than virtual or traditional events. According to research, 26% of event attendees say virtual events aren’t fun.
10 Best Ways for How to Market Workshops
There are plenty of b2b marketing strategies for how to market workshops out there that you can use to generate demand and bring people to your workshop. These are my favorites, and I had a lot of success creating workshops every month with around 20 Pax and 40-50% conversion.
So please feel free to use them to create more business. Remember that some of them are more costly and some of them are cheaper as well as their effectiveness can vary. But that is depending on many factors like for example your industry.
I like to divide event marketing strategies into two categories which are Internal and External. Let me explain it to you.
Internal Source (Free or Very Cheap)
These strategies are the ones that are already utilized in your marketing plan, and you can use them already. Usually, you do not need to pay extra as you already use them, or it is very cheap to bring them on for your workshop.
So, use these tools as they can bring you more than you would expect it. Once in a while, I use only these internal sources to bring leads to our workshop and absolutely for free.
The only that we paid for is the workshops stuff like food, rent, gifts, etc. But bringing people to the workshop cost us nothing and it generated a quite nice bit for the business.
Website
First is your website, if you have people coming in, that means some people could be interested in your workshop. The easiest way is to create a landing page for your workshop with the link in your menu and you are ready to go. Check out these best landing page tips to improve conversions.
Also, if you would create a pop-up that there is a workshop coming up soon, let’s say 3-4 weeks before, you will generate extra leads too, and again, it cost nothing, or it is very cheap.
It is a very important asset, so please use it!
Email Database
I can’t explain enough how important is to be collecting emails. So if you do not do that then start doing it now, here are some email usage statistics which will give you reasons to start.
If you have an email database, then start sending emails to your subscribers that you are preparing a workshop. Start 2 months before. I recommend sending 4-5 emails in total about your workshop. It can be mixed with other notifications for your subscribers.
But please do not spam them, otherwise, they just get annoyed and will leave your email list. People are busy and don’t have time to read your emails every day, especially in B2B.
Social Media
Having social media became a must for every company, whether you are in B2B or B2C. There are a few I like to use for a b2b marketing workshop.
It is a great source of good-quality leads with all the data you need to attract the right prospects.
Start preparing posts about your workshop, even include your previous workshops to show them how it looked and what is it about.
It is another way if you are using social media, you can utilize it in promoting your workshop.
Well, I can’t tell you much as we do not have a page on it, but I bet most of you do have it, so use it too, as you find there many people who are interested in your workshop.
But as I said, I do not use it even though it is another great marketing channel to bring leads to your workshop.
External Source (Paid)
These sources are usually more costly, but they are working well, and you can still make a very nice profit out of them if you will use them the right way.
Yes, you need to be a bit more careful, and some research and preparation need to be done, but because you will not always attract enough people to your workshop using free methods, so you will need to use these external sources for your lead generation.
Partners
Partners are a great way to bring more business and more people to your workshops. Usually, it will cost you something, but then it is not as expensive as other strategies.
Try to create some JV, where both of you will benefit so you can put the price as low as possible.
Event Listing Websites
There are many websites where you can put your workshops so people can easily find you. Some of them are for free and some you need to pay for.
I show you my favorite websites where I post our events and workshop every time:
Just go through some of those and you will find the best suitable for you to organize an event. Do your research to get the best possible outcome.
I have used all of them and some bring more success and some less, but that depends on which industry you are in.
Social Media
This is a paid option where you pay on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other social media to promote your workshop.
For example, I like to use Facebook Events with great options to target your audience, so you show it only to the right people.
So, for B2B Companies, I recommend using LinkedIn and Facebook, which is more than enough and most of the time is not that expensive again with targeting you can achieve very good results.
Associations
If you are participating in events, then most likely you are already in contact with some associations. This one offers a large and narrow list of contacts you can use to attract people to your workshop.
Also, they have the data to offer your workshop only to relevant people so you wouldn’t waste your money on the people who are not relevant.
So, if C-Levels and Senior management are your target audience then you can ask them to target only those people.
Remember, that it is not for free, and they can charge a premium price. But it can bring great leads with a high conversion rate.
These associations you could:
- Institute of Chartered Accountants
- Chamber of Commerce
- SME Associations
- Federation of Manufactures
These are just for you to get the idea, but again, find the one which is related to your business, so you do not waste your time and money.
Influencers
This one is a new trend in marketing which can bring you a lot of success. People spend more and more time online, and these influencers capture them.
You can use their audience for your benefit. I like to get connect with them and create a relationship because they can bring you a long-term benefit for a relatively small price.
Also, if you invite them, they will tweet it, Instagram it, or post it somewhere so another great exposure for your brand.
So, think of a way how you can use it in your marketing to bring more leads to your workshop.
Summary
As I said, there are plenty of b2b marketing strategies out there to attract people to your workshop. These are my favorites and I hope they will help you to create successful workshops. Remember, it is about the right audience, so do your research and prepare properly so you can target the right people.
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Disclaimer
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