Posts Tagged ‘seminars’

New venues for educational content

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Like incentive meetings, fam trips — those hospitality tours to showcase hotels and locations — are undergoing an extreme makeover.  What’s hot now:  education sessions for meeting planner attendees.  Topics are wide-ranging, with the main criteria being CEU credits.  Including seminars with these credits has boosted attendance for Las Vegas Harrah’s trip, which gets 1200 applications for just 175 slots.

Why do you care?  Let’s stop and think…where do you think they get the speakers for these sessions?  Some will be other meeting planners/industry insiders and some will be local folks with something to share.  In this age of competing venues for attendees, watch this trend steadily grow next year.

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Posted in Marketing, Speaking, branding, strategy | 1 Comment »

Top draw to trade shows

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Interesting study from Meetings and Conventions magazine:  the biggest draw to trade shows is not the booths.  According to 83 percent of the respondents, the #1 reason for attending is the education seminars.  And 93 percent cite that these events are extremely / somewhat important.

So why are trade shows less attended?  Yep, it’s the economy and lack of time.  And…one-third of respondents report that they are attending just as many shows as last year.

What’s going to happen next year?  Education will continue to be the major draw, but don’t expect the inclusion of the general motivational speaker.  Prediction:  prominent industry folks will reign, along with tactic-driven sessions.

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“Nice to Have” Topics Revealed

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

No, it’s not your imagination. Corporate America has but back on training. Key question: what topics are considered “nice to have” and therefore being cut?

Workplace Options sheds some light on that question. Their recent poll shows only 39% of employers make time management, communications and leadership training available, and 32% offer personal growth topics, such as wellness, stress, and financial management. That’s an 18% drop for work-related skills training and a 15 percent drop on personal growth from the results in November last year.

Folks still need this information, so look for associations to pick up the slack. It won’t be in classroom format though. Webinars and other online formats will dominate these topics well into 2010. If you haven’t jumped on this bandwagon yet, now might be a good time.

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Posted in Marketing, Speaking, strategy | 1 Comment »

Cool content for free

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

Last month I talked about the content bar being raised by seminars with no registration fees. Just ran across a perfect example from a long-time colleague: Blog Marketing Experts CEO Bruce Inouye is conducting a seminar with absolutely no pitching and no registration fee. He keeps his events small and intimate — only 25 people can attend — so that folks get individual attention. That’s right: all content, for free. Why? Because he has enough confidence that his content will get him all the clients he needs.

His next event in Scottsdale, Arizona is June 25th if you want to check it out. Here’s the link: http://blogmarketingexperts.com/seminars/

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