Scheduling your seminar dates is an important element to a seminar marketing success. It is important to plan well in advance. In fact, in some highly competitive markets, advisors will schedule their seminar events as far as 12 months in advance to reserve the very best venues at the best available price. While it is important to plan ahead, it is equally important to have some flexibility. Many factors, beyond your control, such as inclement weather, world events and your own unforeseen conflicts can affect your schedule. Make sure to read the fine print of your venue’s cancellation policy.

Even if you don’t actually book your events months in advance, you should at least have a working game plan and a tentative schedule in place. In order to accomplish this you will first need to determine how frequently you want to hold your seminars. To a large extent your geographic market and the size of your universe of prospects will determine how often you should hold your events. Ideally, you do not want mail invitations to the same prospects more than once every 3-4 months. Depending on the size of your market and the size of each mailing, you are now able to determine how many events you can hold without over-saturating your market.

Next, you have to decide on which days of the week you want to hold your events. Generally, the best days of the week to hold seminars are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Your location will play a part in your decision. In some parts of the country many people attend church on Wednesday nights.

Instead of scheduling two event dates in the same week – say a Tuesday and a Thursday – some advisors will spread out the dates. For example: hold one event on a Thursday and the next event on the following Tuesday. That way, if bad weather has set in, it will have time to pass. If the prospect has guests or is on vacation, you have a better chance that they will still be able to attend on one of your dates that month. If they are sick, they may have time to get well. You can also privately set aside a date and time for any overflow, or in case nasty weather affects one of your other dates. 

Choosing the best time of day is extremely important. In most cases, dinner seminars outdraw lunch events by at least a two to one ratio. The primary reason for this is because some of your prospects will be available for a dinner event (5:30 or later) while only a percentage of them will be able to attend a lunch or afternoon event since some of your prospects are still working. If you plan on mailing to anyone younger than 65, it’s critical that you offer at least one dinner event.

Seasons and Holidays

Many advisors make the mistake of discontinuing their events over the summer months.  While attendance may wane slightly, you have the benefit of fewer advisors marketing during the summer.  Remember, there is no best time of the year for a prospect to seek a second opinion on their financial situation.  Why not take advantage of a less competitive environment?

Major Holidays present a challenge for seminar marketers. Never schedule a seminar event directly before or after a big holiday. Starting with Thanksgiving right on through New Years – and even into early January – things get particularly tricky.  Ideally, you want to hold your seminar one week, have the first appointment the second week, and have the second appointment the third week; ending with a close. The holidays at the end of the year interrupt that flow, and that flow is critical to building momentum.  We recommend holding November and December seminars as early as possible in the month to allow time for you to complete the appointment/sales cycle. In January, events scheduled in the first or second week mean the mail will arrive in home either right before or right after Christmas – which is not good.  Even though advisors want to hit the ground running at the first of the year, it pays to wait until the third week of January so the mail can be delivered after the Holidays.

For more help with scheduling strategies, contact us at 800-771-9898 or click here to download our updated Seminar Planning Calendar.