Are you in charge of filling the seats at your events? Here's a checklist designed to help you increase your potential attendees' response rate.

Marketing Tactics - Direct mail

- Telemarketing

- Online services

- Advertising

- Fax on demand

- Direct marketing

Increase Your Response (in descending order of importance)

- Concentrate your mailing list on past attendees.

- Use dramatic headlines in promotional materials.

- Cultivate inquiries with follow-up phone calls.

- Create an irresistible offer.

- For workshops, use a title that is the key benefit of attending.

- Consider the best time of week and best month for your audience.

- Use the active voice in all your copy.

- Use an attention-grabber as your P.S. in your cover letter.

Make an Irresistible Offer - Offer easy registration options: phone, fax, mail, e-mail, Web.

- Accept several different types of payment.

- Explain the cancellation policy.

- Name a specific person to call for more information or to register.

- Offer a guarantee, such as: refund plus guarantee; refund plus free registration in another program.

- Provide hotel contact details.

- Offer discounts: reduced hotel rates; volume (group) discounts, bring-a-colleague discounts; tuition agreements with organizations that send a large number of registrants each year.

Online Marketing Tips - Encourage participants to e-mail questions to speakers.

- Create a pre- and post-seminar listserv so registrants can network.

- Post upcoming events.

- Allow online registration.

- Offer site visitors an option to send e-mail requests for information.

- Create links with affinity groups.

Reduce Cancellations - Continue marketing after people register.

- Mail questionnaires to registrants asking what they expect from the seminar.

- Send follow-up thank yous.

- Send e-mail encouragement.

- Tell constituents what they will receive after they register.

Brochure Essentials - A title that suggests the key benefit of the conference

- A program agenda (at least 30 percent of the brochure)

- A summary of at least 10 benefits of attending

- A quantification of the benefits of attending

- Instructor(s) background

- A pledge (quote) from the instructor(s): "After you take this course, you'll be able to ... "

Brochure Copy Tips - Talk to your audience; use "you" statements rather than "we" statements.

- Stress benefits.

- Use short sentences with one idea per sentence.

- Paragraphs should be no longer than seven lines.

- Restrict two-thirds of your words to five letters or fewer.

- Use serif type for body copy; sans serif for headlines.