6 Tips for Promoting your Next Workplace Seminar
When you plan a workplace seminar, you need to make sure people actually look forward to attending it. A seminar is essentially there to expand knowledge and raise important discussions, so you need your employees to have some enthusiasm about it. This sort of event is harder to promote than client events, because you don’t use conventional marketing methods.
Instead, all your efforts are directed internally and you want to make sure people realize the value the seminar is bringing to them as individuals and to the company as a whole. So, you need to use different methods for this purpose. Here are a few ideas to help you.
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Put up posters
Make some posters about the upcoming seminar and put them in common areas around the workplace. Check out the corporate posters on PosterMyWall and choose the right template for your needs. You’ll just have to change up the details. This way, you won’t have to worry about the design aspect.
You can also share this poster on your online mediums and in your communication channels and emails. Make sure all the relevant details like date, time, venue, and speakers are prominent on this poster.
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Send out an email blast
An email blast will help you get the word out across your company. You just have to make an attractive email blast, and send it out to everyone in the organization. This is the easiest way to get the message across, as people usually do keep an eye on their work emails. This will help hype up your seminar.
Make sure you build excitement by showcasing the value the seminar will have for your employees. Let them know about the career development opportunity this seminar presents, and how it will be good for networking as well.
Share speaker videos
Often, the personal touch works better than anything. So, have the speakers at your seminar make short videos directly addressing your employees. They should share a bit about who they are, what they’ll be talking about, and how they’re excited to talk to everyone.
Share these videos on your internal communications platforms, so that employees get hyped up. They’ll be more interested when they see that the speakers are there for them, and will offer them valuable information.
Share networking opportunities
This is a given, but you should do this the first chance you get. Once the details such as time and date are confirmed, you should work on the complete event brief. This should include the schedule, topics, agenda, and other details. Also talk about the guests’ previous expertise and experiences.
Make sure you share a complete agenda, along with information about any question and answer sessions or networking opportunities. You should also add extra networking opportunities like a coffee hour with the speaker, or invite guests from other organizations. This will help increase attendance and also generate interest. People will look forward to the networking opportunities and be more likely to attend the whole seminar.
Utilize internal communication mediums
As a workplace seminar is very different from client-facing events, you need to tackle the promotion differently. The standard social media and marketing campaigns will not work for this purpose. In addition, if you just tell people they need to show up, they won’t really be interested and won’t appreciate the value.
Use internal communication mediums to hype up the seminar. If you use tools like Slack, have key team members talk about the seminar and hype it up in their relevant departments. You can also highlight the seminar in your regular office newsletters and talk about how it will be valuable for everyone. Bringing it up in team meetings is also a good idea, so that each department can learn what specific value they can take from the seminar.
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Take questions in advance
Make your employees feel included and involved by having them drive the seminar, in a way. Run public polls and questions on Slack or your email blasts a week or so before the seminar. In these, ask employees what they want the speakers to talk about, and if they have any questions they want addressed.
The speaker can pick out a few of these questions, and answer them on the day of the seminar. This will ensure that people get the answers they want. Also open up the floor for discussion and have a Q&A session at the event itself. Make sure time is allotted for this purpose.
In conclusion, a workplace seminar is an excellent way to promote corporate learning and offer decent networking opportunities. You just need to hype people up in the right way.