Law Firm Marketing – Paid Seminars

Question:

I am a partner in a six-attorney estate planning firm in Dallas, Texas. For many years our primary marketing activity has been seminars that we put on for clients, prospective clients, and referral sources. These seminars have been either put on solely by our firm or in partnership with other organizations such as nursing homes, hospitals, etc. These seminars have been free of charge. We provide a lot of value at these seminars and have been wondering whether we should charge a fee. We would appreciate your thoughts.

Reponse:

Do not assume that you must offer free seminars to get a marketing-benefit spinoff nor that only free seminars produce other business. In some respects paid-attendance seminars are even more powerful as marketing media than are free seminars. For one thing, the attendees who pay to attend are serious prospects. They are prospects that are qualified at least to the extent of having demonstrated serious interest in the subject, whereas at least some attendees at a free seminar are curiosity seekers with nothing better to do that afternoon or evening.

This is balanced by the heavier attendance at the free seminar, which may produce a greater number of good prospects, if not a better ratio of good prospects to curiosity seekers. That is there is a presumption of heavy attendance, for there is no guarantee of heavy attendance even at a free seminar.

There is a compromise position possible. You may opt to subsidize your own seminars by keeping the cost of attendance low which should produce good attendance, while still screening out the idle curiosity seekers. This would enable you to have modest registration and attendance fees.

I suggest that you review your past attendance history, ratio of attendees that have become paying clients, and determine whether you have an issue of curiosity seekers. If you have been doing a good job converting attendees to clients and have not had a problem of curiosity seekers I would probably stay with free seminars. If you have problems with curiosity seekers and your costs are getting out of control – I would consider modest registration and attendance fees. I would not look to these seminars as being a profit center for the firm.

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John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Posted at 10:09 AM in Uncategorized

Nov 15, 2017

Law Firm Marketing – Paid Seminars

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