Think back on your big romances.
Yes, I know that’s an odd way to start a blog about building an audience for a talk.
But bear with me. All will make sense. Hopefully!
Ask yourself: what led you in to that big relationship?
I’m willing to bet there was an air of mystery about the person.
Something interesting, which you felt the need to find out more about.
So it goes with building an audience for a talk, presentation, or any form of event.
It’s a classic error to try to say too much when putting out the promotional material.
If you tell the audience everything they’re going to experience…
They might just wonder what is the point of turning up.
But! If you tease them a little, offer a sense of mystery, that can work well.
Of course, you have to get the right balance.
You don’t want to say nothing, which could just as easily lead to no one wanting to come along.
Instead, you need to give an idea of what will be featured, but still leave plenty to the imagination.
It’s a trick I use repeatedly, and it always seems to work.
Here are a couple of recent examples of effective teasers:
When I was teaching at the wonderful Swanwick Writers' Summer School last month, I covered The Path to Publication.
The blurb said we would look at common errors that writers make in the submissions to agents and publishers.
Which was pretty much what you would expect to hear.
But I also included something else:
That early in the course, I’ll demonstrate a critical principle of an effective application.
For that, I'll need a volunteer to join me on stage…
Someone who can catch.
That little tease helped to get a good crowd in, with quite a few aspiring authors mentioning they were fascinated to see what would happen.
And no, I'm not telling you. You'll just have to come along to one of my sessions!
Equally, in the most recent run of my Compelling Communication skills course...
To tease ahead to a lecture, this is what we sent the group:
I’ve been trying to put together an important presentation, but I’m struggling.
I think I’ve made some fundamental errors.
I wonder if you’d mind if I went through it with you, to see if you can help?
In fact, I’ll even ask you to mark me out of 10 on how it’s looking.
Now, it might have been the irresistible opportunity to humiliate me, by giving me ultra low scores.
I can understand the temptation!
But nonetheless, that tease ensured, once again, I got lots of people coming along to the lecture.
So, when you’re promoting an event…
Remember to say a little about what you’ll be covering...
But not too much.
Because, as I hope I’ve shown, a sense of mystery can really sell.
