Are you making the most of your healthcare conference speeches and public wellness seminars? Doing the right things Before, After and During your presentation maximizes the business payoff.
1) Do the right things BEFORE the speech
- Establish evaluation criteria for speaking opportunities. The audience, topic and the group’s overall focus should be compatible with your business.
- Set realistic expectations for the results of your speech. Unpaid speeches usually produce the following results in the following order: publicity that reinforces your reputation as an authority; increased awareness that your business exists; and lead generation. It’s rare that a public presentation results in immediate sales. It may be reasonable to expect some leads and newsletter sign-ups. It’s not usually realistic to expect outright sales.
- Announce the speech in your newsletter and on social — repeatedly, not just once.
- Post signs and other promotional material in your physical facility. Consider a postcard marketing campaign if justified by the scope of the event.
- Personally invite selected prospects or existing customers who’d be interested in your topic or the organization.
- Provide your preferred introduction to the person who will introduce you.
- Meet and greet attendees as they enter the presentation venue. Introduce yourself.
- Put your contact info on all of the materials you’ll use or hand out.
2) Do the right things AFTER the speech
- Follow up with everyone — on a prioritized basis. For example, you can send a general follow-up to everyone, and place a phone call to the contacts that seemed most promising.
- Email attendees a link to the recorded session on your website.
- Important: Incorporate attendees into your ongoing marketing processes. Don’t just throw business cards in a drawer.
- If you don’t have an ongoing marketing process through which you can continue building your relationship with attendees, you’re wasting most of the business potential created by the speech or presentation.
- Add them to your mailing list if they’ve agreed.
- Keep your promises. Promptly send anything you promised to send – the name of a book, an article, an email introduction to someone else.
- Convert your presentation into a short article. Then, include it in your sales kit, post it on your website, hand it to prospective clients – whatever’s suitable.
- Schedule a future presentation with the same group. Repeated exposure will increase your perceived authority.
- Incorporate each new speaking engagement into your speaker kit, as appropriate.
3) Do the right things DURING the speech
- Circulate a sign-up sheet for your newsletter.
- Invite people to leave business cards if they’d like to receive a complimentary item (say, a pedometer or tip sheet) or a copy of your presentation.
- Make it interesting. For example, work with a colleague and demonstrate what you’re recommending. Or use props – for example, a giant box of cereal or the “fake fat” teaching products that illustrate what a pound of fat really looks like.
- Consider embedding prerecorded video snippets of existing customers in your presentation.
- Incorporate anecdotes or references to the brief conversations you had with attendees before the speech.
- Keep it interactive. For example, pose questions that can be answered by raising hands: “How many people ate breakfast this morning?”.
- Record the presentation. Post it on your website. Promote the link in your newsletter or print ads.
- Have someone take pictures of you and the audience. Post them on the website and in your business to promote your expertise and availability as a speaker.
