Big Mistake: Don’t Kill Reg Form

Don’t give up your registration form.  Unless you want registrations to go down.  Both Paul Franklin and Julie Coates say the evidence is that dropping your registration form reduces your registrations and income.

Franklin is a direct marketing expert specializing in analyzing print brochures and catalogs.  Coates is LERN’s top lifelong learning program brochure expert.

No, No! Please No
Already 10 percent of lifelong learning programs have dropped the registration form in their print brochures. And that’s a big mistake.

The registration form is a ‘call to action,’ says Franklin, which is a motivation and marketing page that increases registrations.  It is also another way to register, and programs should keep many options for ways people can register.

Even with websites and digital brochures, Franklin reports that people spend five-times more time with a print brochure than on your website and that increased attention means you can and should keep every marketing tool in your print brochure to enhance registrations.

He reports the data shows that just putting a dotted line and image of scissors along the edge of the registration form increases registrations 3 percent.

Two Mistaken Reasons
Without data, some programs are dropping their registration form for two mistaken reasons, notes Coates.

• The registration form page in your print brochure does cost money, but like your course descriptions, pictures, and marketing copy, the registration form page generates more income than it costs.
• And, with people moving to online registration, there is a mistaken notion that the registration form is unnecessary.

Actually, the data shows that people reading your print brochure register for more courses, or higher priced courses, than people not receiving a print brochure.  Again, the data comes from the highly sophisticated direct marketing business, where companies measure everything.

Want more proof?  Check out the next catalogs you receive in the mail.  Most catalogs will have an order form.

Keep your registration form in the print brochure. And maximize your registration income.

Latest Marketing Best Practice
The evidence for keeping your registration form is just one of the latest new and advanced marketing recommendations coming from LERN.   Franklin will give you can get all of the new recommendations to boost your registrations and income at the Marketing Institute, which he will lead in San Diego, April 11-14, 2016.

Franklin’s ‘Power Up Your Copy’ is a classic session that has made lots of money for LERN members, as has another of his classic presentations on ‘Stomping Your Competition.’  Franklin’s no-nonsense data-driven evidence on what works and what does not work make him one of the foremost marketing authorities for lifelong learning and continuing education programs.

Crucial Time for Marketing
This is a particularly crucial time in marketing for lifelong learning and continuing education programs. Too many central administrators and other staff are making recommendations by-the-seat-of-their-pants, with no evidence and just beliefs. Those supposedly ‘common sense’ approaches are proving devastating to registrations and income in the field of lifelong learning and continuing education.  What Franklin and LERN does is to analyze the evidence based on what other lifelong learning and continuing education programs are reporting, and then give you evidence-based recommendations.

For information on The Marketing Institute in San Diego, April 11-14, just click here.

Register online, or with the registration form in our 2016 LERN Institutes print brochure!

Or call us at (800) 678-5376.

Questions?  Just email Tammy at info@lern.org