The importance of passing it on: How to use email to market your workshops

I recently put together flyers for a series of workshops that I'm offering, starting in mid-October on how to Market and Publish Your Book. I went to the local Kinko's and got a bunch of copies made up and then brought them with me to networking meetings. As I watched people stuff the flyer into their purses or briefcases, I began to wonder if they'd remember to pass the flyer on or post it. I recognized on one hand that they probably would give it to one person or post the flyer up on the local office bulletin board, and on the other hand I also realized that there was a good chance they wouldn't remember to tell other people about the workshop. I decided that while having a physical copy of the flyer was a good idea, it might also help if I used another medium to not only remind them of the workshop, but also give them the opportunity to pass it on to other people with just the click of a mouse button.

That medium is email. While I don't believe in spamming people, I do believe in passing information onto people who might be interested in it. After I passed my flyers out, I emailed the members of my networking group, with the flyer attached, and asked them to forward the flyer to anyone they knew that might be interested in publishing and marketing a book. By emailing them the flyer, I conveniently provided them an electronic copy, which they could easily pass on to any of the people they knew who might be interested in the workshop.

Email can be effective marketing tool, provided that it isn't abused. It's abused when you send spam out to lists of people without checking whether they are interested or not. In fact, everyday we get spam mail promising us medical miracles, busier sex lives, and all kinds of other products that most of us probably aren't interested in. Spam is annoying and usually ends up in the delete file.

However email offering a service or product doesn't have to be spam, provided you follow the rule of sending the email to a warm lead or referrer. Instead of purchasing a list of emails and bombarding the people with spam, it's wiser to email people information they either want to have or can pass on to people they know. When I email my networking group the flyer, I'm passing it on to warm referrers, people who know about my service and who are willing to pass the flyer on because they want to help me get business. And when my networking group passes the flyer on, they'll pass it on to the people they know who would actually be interested in learning more about to how to market and publish their own books. Those people are warm leads and consequently will be more likely to open the email and look at the flyer. There's still no guarantee they'll sign up for the workshop, but at least I have a better chance of exposing them to my products and services than if I were to randomly email people and send them the flyer without considering whether or not they were interested in its contents.

Another way to use email to pass on workshops is to use e-lists. If you're on a relevant e-list, you can copy and paste your workshops to the e-list, as long as they accept workshop notifications. This can be useful for informing the people on that list about your services, and there's always the chance that once again they'll forward your email to other interested parties.

One final way to pass on workshops through email is ultimately dependent on how curious people are. In my email signature I have links to my website, and several of my blogs, all with the sole hope that people who get my email will consider clicking those links to find out more about me. If they do click those links, they'll visit my website or blog and consequently could learn about my workshops and my services. Signatures really only become effective when you have a link to be clicked or a phone number to be called, because that information provides an additional way for people to learn about you. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten further interaction with a potential client because I had a signature in my email where they could click a link and learn more about me. The more contact a potential client has with you the more chance s/he will consider following up on your products.

As I wrote above, email can be an effective marketing tool, if it's used wisely. Don't abuse it and spam people with your services. Instead, limit how it's used for marketing purposes so that if you email someone with information about your service it's a warm lead or a warm referrer or a relevant e-list. Also remember to always include your signature in your email. You never know who will click a link and find out more about you and your services.