Meeting Minute With Marilu

Getting the Most Traction Out of Your Session Title – Inquiring Minds Want to Know

So you’re presenting at an upcoming event, and you’re already daydreaming about having a captive audience that hangs on your every word, diligently takes notes, begs you to sell them your product or service and…wait wait wait, we’ve forgotten one key step here – Getting them in the room.

You can invite, tweet, post and spread the word ‘til you’re blue in the face, but if you don’t have a session title that grabs people’s attention you’re going to shoot yourself in the foot straight out of the gate. The goal of your session title? I’ll give you a hint – it’s NOT to get the reader to attend your session. It’s to get the reader to actually read your session description. Once you’ve hooked them with your session title, they’ve read your description AND learned the objectives THEN the goal is to turn your reader into an attendee.

Take into consideration the four “U’s” approach offered by the American Writers & Artists Inc (AWAI):

• URGENCY. Give the prospect a reason to desire the benefit of the product/service sooner rather than later.
• UNIQUENESS. Make the prospect feel that there is one particular thing about the product/service that is different – in at least one small way – from every other product/service of that type. Uniqueness also suggests that you are talking about something real and concrete.
• ULTRA-SPECIFICITY. Be as precise as possible, stating facts and figures
• USEFULNESS. Promise the prospect something that has value for him.

Some real life examples:
Web Design for Developers
OR
Little Known Ways to Enhance Your Web Design

Online Media – The State of the Industry
OR
What Everyone Ought to Know About Their Online Presence

How to Write a Successful Session Title
OR
Getting the Most Traction Out of Your Session Title – Inquiring Minds Want to Know (like how I threw that one in there?)

Now all you have to do is write your session description. And create your slides. And write your talking points. And seed the audience with some questions. And, my favorite part, stand in front of a group with all eyes on you and deliver your presentation. But all of that is for a different day, different blog post. Until then…