There was a time five or so years ago when the average manager could attend a product seminar in his or her city, five days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.

Today, the volume of seminar campaigns has fallen off dramatically, and response rates have also shown a precipitous decline. Even online seminars, at one time hailed as the next big thing in high-tech marketing, are generating hit-and-miss results.

Many blame the Web, and the fact that product information in all forms - from ordinary white papers to dynamic, animated presentations - is now so readily and immediately available as to render events like seminars obsolete. Others blame the earlier glut of seminars, many of them mere product demos thinly disguised as "executive briefings," as having turned off a whole generation of potential prospects.

Which begs the question: are seminars dead? And is there a place for them in today's Web-dominated marketing mix?

We think so, but seminars play a different role now then they did five or ten years ago. Today, when the response to a seminar invitation can be half (or less) compared to a campaign that offers say, a free information kit, choosing seminars as a lead generation strategy is an option few companies can afford.

Instead, more and more technology companies are using seminars to QUALIFY leads, rather than generate them. They're employing more cost-effective media - broadcast e-mail, newsletter sponsorships, direct mail - to drive initial inquiries, and then using seminars - say, a quarterly Web broadcast event - to qualify those prospects and identify those interested in taking the "next step."

As a lead generation tool, seminars demand more of an investment in time than all but the most qualified prospects are prepared to make, and therefore tend to eliminate a large subset of potential leads. As a lead qualification device, however, the fact that seminars naturally attract more qualified prospects, those interested in hearing first-hand about a product or service, makes them ideal for the purpose.