How to Promote Your Summit: Summit Series Part 2 | 156
In this week's Saturday Strategy Session, we’re discussing Virtual Summits, again! Whether you're gearing up for a virtual summit or you just want to learn more about them, this series will give you tons of information to help you make the most of it.
In this 4 part series, we'll be covering:
5 ways to promote your summit
how to monetize your summit
my predictions for summit trends in 2024
In this episode: To make the most of a virtual summit, you'll need a strategic marketing plan. This can include organic promo on social media, leveraging your email list, collaborating with speakers and presenters, using paid ads (I can help with this if you'd like!), and inviting sponsors to help promote.
Key Takeaways:
Creating a buzz on your social media
Leveraging your warmest audience via your email list
Collaborating with speakers (and using an affiliate plan to incentive speakers)
Implementing a paid promotion strategy
Getting sponsors in on the promo
Want to work with Jenzaia to promote your summit with paid ads?
Episode Transcript:
Hello, welcome to part two of the summit series, how to promote your summit. So if you weren't here last week and you missed part one, definitely go back, check it out. We talked about exactly what a summit is and how it can be beneficial to your business. Plus some of the benefits for the speakers and participants and I also dove into a little bit of the behind the scenes or I guess inside of my brain of why I haven't hosted my own summit.
I have helped dozens, I mean, maybe not dozens, it's been like a dozen in the last year of my clients run summits. I've also participated in, probably like 20 to 25 summits in the last few years. So I feel like as a participant and as a behind the scenes facilitator and marketer, I have seen a good number of summits.
So I feel confident about that, especially today's topic about promoting your summit. We're going to talk about using social media, leveraging your email list, collaborating with speakers. Also sponsors, and then considering paid advertisements as ways to promote your summit. So let's dive in.
Number one is using your social media to promote and to create buzz, really. That's what social media is going to do. It's going to create a buzz. Hopefully, we get a post to go viral, a reel to go viral, we get lots of interest. And so, one of the ways you can do that is by going live, either by yourself or collaborating with speakers or sponsors to go live to both of your audiences so that it pops up for a bigger group of people.
That's the great thing about going live with multiple people. And you can talk about the same or similar topics to those speakers, their live or their presentations, what they will be. That way your audience, their audience will get a bit of a tidbit of what the presentation is going to be. And it's a really great way to, to just get people excited about who the speakers are and to find out in advance what they're going to be learning.
The second way that you can use social media is creating a Facebook group. I wrote in my notes and or a page, but I, unless you're creating like a really, really big event that I don't know. I just, I don't know if an event needs a page, definitely a Facebook group potentially, or a Facebook event might not need its own group.
I do love a good pop up group. So if you have a Facebook group that's only active during your summit, and it might be one of my favorite summits to participate in, I She uses the same Facebook group every single year, but it, I don't know if she actually archives it between events, or if it just kind of goes dormant because nobody's in there, but yeah, using a Facebook group and then within that Facebook group or if you're not doing a Facebook group You could do it on your business page or wherever but creating Facebook events and then that's so cool because then people get reminders of the events you can promote it Like promote the event to your audience. So I do really like the idea of using events.
Now, another way that you can use social media to create a buzz is by having your participants share about it. And so what I love is when there's like an image that participants get after they've signed up in their email. That they can share on their social media and typically there does need to be some sort of incentive so if you're doing prizes or giveaways then those posts on social media sharing the image to their stories and tagging you is a way that they could gain an extra entry to the giveaway or it could be on a bingo like a bingo sheet or a tic tac toe card, whatever it might be, if you're doing something like that, then having them share that image and tagging you is a really great incentive to get people sharing.
And then when they share, their friends will see the image and might be interested in going to the event as well. So I really like that. And that's a way to leverage not only your social media, but also the social medias of the participants.
Then the last way that you can be leveraging social media is by putting out posts for each of the speakers and then inviting the speaker as a collaborator. I've been told in a couple of different summits that after the summit's done, it's fine if you remove it from your profile. And I appreciate that. I don't love promoting events whether it's my own event or someone else's event I don't love promoting it after it's done and someone can't access it.
So if someone's scrolling through my Instagram I don't necessarily want them to see My, like, live event that I did six months ago because it's no longer accessible and I don't want them to be, like, trying to find it and being frustrated and upset that it's no longer available. So I do tend to remove any sort of promotion like that from my feed.
Again, whether it's my own or somebody else's. And I appreciate when the summit host explicitly says that, but yeah, after the summit's done, they, the collaborator might want to remove it from their feed. But if you add them as a collaborator and they accept, then the post goes out to their audience as well as your audience, which is a really great way to get those additional eyes on something about the summit. So that's another way.
Remember, social media, maybe not remember, but my personal philosophy about social media is it's primary usage, it's primary, yeah, use, is to create buzz and excitement about things. And then there needs to be additional steps after social media that are getting people into your world through your email list, through smaller offers, through programs that you have, so that they can continue working with you in a more like a deeper level, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, so that's utilizing your social media tip.
Number two for promoting your summit is to leverage your email marketing. and your email list so you can be reaching your existing warm audience. I would say that your email list is probably your warmest audience. That's maybe not true for like everybody, but most people I would say your email list is probably your warmest audience.
They have chosen to opt in. They have self selected and said, yes, I want to be getting these emails. And if you are doing a good job of scrubbing your email list every three to six months, then anyone who is no longer interested in your emails and what you have to offer will be removed. And so that keeps the people who are on your email list engaged and excited about your content.
So some of the ways you can use your email list to promote your summit are creating a wait list for Sometimes you see waitlists like something exciting's coming sign up to be the first to know And other times you see a waitlist. That's the blank blank summit is coming sign up so you'll be the first to know about the summit.
So sometimes they're a little bit vague and just something exciting is coming. And other times it's like this summit is coming on this date. Sign up so you know. Either way the point is sign up so that you can be the first to know. And then you could also incentivize people to get on the wait list by letting them know that there will be some sort of early bird promo only available to the waitlist or available first to the waitlist and there's only a certain amount so they will get a chance before it sells out something like that
I do like using Like an early bird coupon. So they save like 50 or whatever it might be. That obviously depends on the price point of your summit. Like if it's a 47 VIP upgrade, then saving 50 is a little bit extreme because now you're paying out 3, but. You know my point of the early bird gets something for being on the list and for signing up.
It encourages people to go onto the list and I do like to promote the the waitlist for an event to both the existing email list and then also people who might be following along on social media or like Instagram, Facebook, wherever it might be.
You also want to make sure that you have dedicated email promotions about the registration period. So a couple weeks before having the waitlist or early bird excitement and then once the the registration period begins making sure that you're sending out your at least one extra email every single week and that you're including it in your regular weekly emails so that they're hearing about it twice every single week during the registration.
And I would say that that's a bare, absolute bare minimum. You're also going to want to have like 24 hours left to register. like last minute registration, like within the last hour, you're going to want to have some like Q and A type of email that are going out. Like, here's the questions we're getting about the summit.
Honestly, whether they're real questions or not, people won't know if anyone actually asked the question, but you want to think about those things that the key information that people need to have and form it in a question using testimonials. So if you've ran this event before, pulling from testimonials of people who participated last time, using those in your emails is a really, really great way to build the social proof.
I guess I probably should have mentioned this before, but you do want to be consistently emailing your list leading up to the event. So before you open registration, you want to be extra consistent with those emails. Make sure, make sure, make sure they're going out every single week. I would say for like the three to six months before the event, every single week, making sure that you are nurturing that audience.
and creating like excitement to get people on your list. So whether that's a new lead magnet, whether you're hosting some sort of free live mini event, whatever it might be, but try and get people, more people onto your list three to six months out and then be emailing them consistently. So by the time the registration period comes around, they're really, really excited for this big event that you have to offer.
And then making sure, too, that once someone is registry, registrated, registered, that you have specific email content going out. I know some people like to set this up as a workflow, and then other people prefer to set them up as individual emails, so people aren't getting Like if it's a workflow, sometimes the emails will continue to go out after the summit started or potentially even like if they registered the last possible day, those emails are going to be going out for like a couple weeks after the summit, so I know some people prefer to send out emails as schedule, like individual emails that they schedule, but I do recommend that you pre write these emails, you pre schedule them so that you have content ready to go out about the summit, about your offer, about your business before the event happens so that those people who get onto your, Like, who register for the event are being engaged with.
Very similar to a welcome sequence after someone gets onto your email list for that freebie. You don't want to ghost people. You want to be showing up frequently in their inbox so that they remember that the event is coming, that it's happening, and that they'll actually show up. Because if they don't actually show up, then they're not getting the nurturing, they're not getting the value, and they might as well have not even signed up, right?
Okay, now tip number three is to collaborate with the speakers and sponsors. So let's start with sponsors first. These are people who have paid you in some way to, in exchange for, Brand recognition at your summit. So sometimes I'm thinking I have a friend who's hosting a live event and they really really wanted to have Like a donut wall.
I think it was and so they found a local donut vendor to Sponsor the donut wall for them. And so now they have their donut wall and that business gets to have their logo up and on the, the live event page, like this is an in person live event, so it's a little bit different, but on the registration website they're the donut sponsor is recognized They have a little booth in there's like a little promo marketing area kind of thing so the donut sponsor has a little booth there as part of the sponsorship package and the there, I don't think that in this case there was any actual money exchanged hands. I think the payment was in the form of the donuts, so my friend doesn't need to buy the donuts. But The sponsor gets the, the business recognition, right? And so you could do a sponsor like that, where they're providing something to your business for free, or you could have people financially sponsor your business.
And that helps offset some of the upfront costs. I actually think I go into this more in next week's. Yeah, I'm monetizing. So we're going to talk more about sponsorships next week. I'm probably just going to reiterate basically what I just said and go a little bit deeper, but some sponsors will be willing to promote the event for you.
And because what you need to remind sponsors and what they hopefully will be aware of already is what's good for the event is also good for them. The more people who attend the event, the more people are excited about the event, the more people who will see their brand and be excited about those donuts or whatever they might have to offer.
So getting more attendees in the door is really great and That that sponsors can help with that collaborators. Same thing. Most of the time, your speakers will be perfect for cross promoting to their audience and getting their audience to come and show up for them so that, and then their audience, if they're part of it.
Like have registered for the summit will now have access to all the other speakers as well. And so some of the ways that you can collaborate with those speakers, I already said you can go live together on social media. You could also do some sort of podcast guesting or blog post like a guest blog where you Similar to the social media, like the live, you're going on their show or they're coming on yours so that you can cross pollinate and get their audience more aware of you and your audience more aware of them.
So that when that, that speaker's name shows up at the event, your audience is really, really excited about it. And then when, Your speaker promotes your event. The listeners to their podcast will be like, Oh, well, she was on the podcast. Like amazing. I really want to learn more from her.
You can also do giveaways. So most events, the speakers will have affiliate links. These affiliate links, sponsors can also get affiliate links, will pay out. And so, to get your affiliates, whether they're speakers or sponsors or just affiliates, someone who just wants to promote your event, they can participate in some sort of giveaway based on like the most affiliate link clicks in a specific 24 hour period.
It does need to be something that is within The collaborators, like it within your speaker, within your affiliates control. So getting more people to click on the link is within their control, getting people to buy less. So because they can put out stories about clicks and they can send out emails about the clicks, they can put a post.
There's a lot that they can do and the more actions that they take, the more people who will click. So that is, and it's also very, very measurable, right? The number of clicks should be measurable for your affiliates. And so that's a really great one. I love when I see that when I'm a participant, like when I'm speaking at a summit, I love when there's a giveaway and it's based on most affiliate link clicks because I'm like, Oh, I can definitely bump my link clicks up.
I'm just going to send it a quick email or whatever. Right. So that's a really great way to incentivize your affiliates to promote the event. And then the last way is within Facebook groups now. I say that every time I talk about promoting something in a Facebook group, you need to be very, very cautious about what group you are posting it in for two reasons.
And those two reasons are opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one end of the spectrum, there are groups where it's a absolutely no tolerance, zero self promotion allowed. And on the other end of the spectrum is Basically, this group is designed for self promotion. Promote yourself every single day. As many times as you want, sometimes.
Many groups there's like a once a day limit or you have to promote it on the special thread. I'm not saying that those don't work. What I am going to say is that often there is so much promotion happening in those groups that it doesn't do anything. So you need to kind of find a group where there's a bit of a happy medium where self promotion is allowed but under very specific restraints and restrictions where people are actually going to see your promotion and it's not in a string of a thousand other promotions so they'll be able to actually take it away.
This might mean you're friends with the group owner or it's your own group or there are some groups that just and it doesn't get out of control. Moderators kind of in check of like spammy promotion versus helpful promotion. So you have to be very careful. Hopefully you can find the right group for you to promote your event.
The other way that you can do it is by commenting on people's posts when it's really, really relevant and appropriate, especially in those groups who don't allow self promotion. You can comment on post and say, Oh, one of my speakers is talking about that in my summit. And then like put the name of the summit and not necessarily like even a link.
Or, like, be a little bit more strategic about it. And then also in those groups that don't allow for self promotion and in those comment kind of situations, you could have your affiliates looking out for situations where they can share it in groups and then it isn't self promotion, technically. There's still groups that it will not be allowed.
No links are really allowed at all. But that is one way that, Potentially it could get promoted and to avoid that self promotion piece. So that's how you can have your speakers, affiliates, sponsors helping you out.
And then the last one, as a Facebook ad strategist, I could not leave this one out. And that is to run paid ads. this is a really great way to increase registrations. Actually, let's back up. You can start running ads for your summit 3, 6 months before. These are not registration ads. These would be lead generation list building ads to get more people on to your list, nurture them with those emails, and then they will get all of the email promotions and hopefully get on to the summit.
That way. The, but. So you can start there with the lead generation ads and then you can run Registration ads, which are also lead generation ads to increase the registrations through your for your summit. I love these ads. I love Promoting summits. I love the energy because they are These types of ads these types of promotions are very similar to a live launch but with less of that pressure until after The summit right the the real salesy part happens after the summit the I find a lot of people Enjoy promoting their summits because the summit is so high value.
It's full of great information and people walk away with so much good information, good energy, good vibes. And so promoting a summit with ads doesn't feel salesy. It doesn't feel like, oh, I'm getting them to a webinar so that I can sell to them. And now I have all these cool audience members that I need to sell to.
No, it feels good. It feels energizing to get people on to your list and you can also run ads to retarget your people who have registered but didn't buy the VIP upgrades. And so just to remind them of like, Hey, the VIP upgrade is here. If you're interested, bump up. These are the bonuses. These are the great things that are going to come from it.
Highly recommend. And again, yes, those are more salesy, but there really is those added benefits and added bonuses, especially if you structured your VIP package well, that should make that bump into the VIP just like a non negotiable. So I also really like running those ads for people so registrations and also increase sales before the summit has even started, right?
So that's A lot of fun, obviously.
You can, if you're going into a Promotion on the back end of the summit. So you're launching something, either opening the doors for a course or a program or a membership. You can run ads there. I don't love that one as much. I think that they've got so much good value from you at the summit and they're getting those emails and you really are only opening your doors to the summit participants.
So I don't necessarily like running ads on the back end. I do have that like preference to the front. Of the sale, like of the entire process, like on the registration and the VIP. If you're running ads, especially if you're running registration ads to cold audiences. So these are people who have never heard of you before.
They would be joining your list for the summit. I just want to remind you that these are still cold audience members that may have never heard of you before. We're not part of your world. And these are, this is their first glimpse at your content and what you offer. So they may or may not, and I'm going to lean towards probably are not going to buy from you right after the summit.
And that's okay. That's to be expected. It takes people three to six to 12 months of being on your list of being part of your world in your audience before they're ready to buy. So what typically happens I noticed with my clients is they get that influx of people for the summit. They get a couple hundred, a couple thousand people registered for the summit.
And then six months down the road when they host their next, either their next summit or another live event, and they do another launch. Many of the summit participants. then are excited, then are ready to buy because they've been on the list. And so this is part of the snowball effect of rapidly growing your email list and then nurture, nurture, nurture, so that the next time you promote they're ready, willing and excited to buy.
So I guess that that that goes for like all of your promotion, but especially the, the ads that it's going to, they're going to take a little bit longer because people who come to you from someone else, a person that they already trust, whether it's a friend who registered for the event and posted about it on social media was like, Hey, I'm going to so and so's live summit, really excited about it.
You should join. And then if their friend joins, then they trust you implicitly because of that. The person's opinion. Same thing when a speaker shares about your event, and then their audience joins, those people will trust you more because they trust your speaker. And so They're not, yes, they're going to be cold audiences, the friend of the, of the participant or the audience member of the speaker.
Those are cold audiences, but they have this level of trust already built that a cold audience person from a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad or TikTok ads, whatever you might choose to run, that a person who's coming in from an ad doesn't have the layer of trust already that those other people do. And so the extended like runway not runway is the wrong word, but the extended customer journey or the time it takes them to buy is normal, natural and expected. So that's why I just, I like to remind people if they're running ads that there is going to be a bit more of a lag before these new people are going to buy from you.
And that is. Absolutely 100 percent normal and to be expected and you just have to plan for it. So hosting something else, doing another launch, whether it's a public launch on your social media, big, huge thing, or if it's more of a private launch, only going out to your email list, three, six, 12 months after your summit, make sure you have events.
So I'm going to talk a little bit about how to get your list lined up or planned so that you can take advantage of that audience growth that you got from the summit before the summit, and then also from the summit, and I never recommend that people stop audience building, and so even after the summit, I do recommend that you go back into lead generation mode and continue building your list so that that momentum continues to grow and build slowly, consistently over time.
Okay, so let's recap. Tip number one for promoting your summit is to utilize your social media platforms. Create a buzz with your own audience, your speakers audience, and then also your participants audiences. Tip number two is to leverage your email list by reaching out to your existing audience, creating a wait list, getting them really, really excited.
Tip number three is to collaborate with your speakers and affiliates and sponsors to cross promote the event because what is good for the event is also good for those people. They will get more visibility. The bigger the event is, the more visibility that they will get. And then the final tip for promoting your summit is to consider running paid ads to reach cold audiences that may not have heard of you.
Otherwise, we are continuing this summit series next week with part three on monetizing your summit. Really excited about that. And then week four is my. guesses about summit trends in 2024. So definitely come back next week and the week after. And if you still haven't listened to last week's episode, that was part one all about exactly what a live summit is.
Check that out. And thanks again for being here. Happy Saturday. I will be back next week with another Saturday strategy session.
I have helped dozens, I mean, maybe not dozens, it's been like a dozen in the last year of my clients run summits. I've also participated in, probably like 20 to 25 summits in the last few years. So I feel like as a participant and as a behind the scenes facilitator and marketer, I have seen a good number of summits.
So I feel confident about that, especially today's topic about promoting your summit. We're going to talk about using social media, leveraging your email list, collaborating with speakers. Also sponsors, and then considering paid advertisements as ways to promote your summit. So let's dive in.
Number one is using your social media to promote and to create buzz, really. That's what social media is going to do. It's going to create a buzz. Hopefully, we get a post to go viral, a reel to go viral, we get lots of interest. And so, one of the ways you can do that is by going live, either by yourself or collaborating with speakers or sponsors to go live to both of your audiences so that it pops up for a bigger group of people.
That's the great thing about going live with multiple people. And you can talk about the same or similar topics to those speakers, their live or their presentations, what they will be. That way your audience, their audience will get a bit of a tidbit of what the presentation is going to be. And it's a really great way to, to just get people excited about who the speakers are and to find out in advance what they're going to be learning.
The second way that you can use social media is creating a Facebook group. I wrote in my notes and or a page, but I, unless you're creating like a really, really big event that I don't know. I just, I don't know if an event needs a page, definitely a Facebook group potentially, or a Facebook event might not need its own group.
I do love a good pop up group. So if you have a Facebook group that's only active during your summit, and it might be one of my favorite summits to participate in, I She uses the same Facebook group every single year, but it, I don't know if she actually archives it between events, or if it just kind of goes dormant because nobody's in there, but yeah, using a Facebook group and then within that Facebook group or if you're not doing a Facebook group You could do it on your business page or wherever but creating Facebook events and then that's so cool because then people get reminders of the events you can promote it Like promote the event to your audience. So I do really like the idea of using events.
Now, another way that you can use social media to create a buzz is by having your participants share about it. And so what I love is when there's like an image that participants get after they've signed up in their email. That they can share on their social media and typically there does need to be some sort of incentive so if you're doing prizes or giveaways then those posts on social media sharing the image to their stories and tagging you is a way that they could gain an extra entry to the giveaway or it could be on a bingo like a bingo sheet or a tic tac toe card, whatever it might be, if you're doing something like that, then having them share that image and tagging you is a really great incentive to get people sharing.
And then when they share, their friends will see the image and might be interested in going to the event as well. So I really like that. And that's a way to leverage not only your social media, but also the social medias of the participants.
Then the last way that you can be leveraging social media is by putting out posts for each of the speakers and then inviting the speaker as a collaborator. I've been told in a couple of different summits that after the summit's done, it's fine if you remove it from your profile. And I appreciate that. I don't love promoting events whether it's my own event or someone else's event I don't love promoting it after it's done and someone can't access it.
So if someone's scrolling through my Instagram I don't necessarily want them to see My, like, live event that I did six months ago because it's no longer accessible and I don't want them to be, like, trying to find it and being frustrated and upset that it's no longer available. So I do tend to remove any sort of promotion like that from my feed.
Again, whether it's my own or somebody else's. And I appreciate when the summit host explicitly says that, but yeah, after the summit's done, they, the collaborator might want to remove it from their feed. But if you add them as a collaborator and they accept, then the post goes out to their audience as well as your audience, which is a really great way to get those additional eyes on something about the summit. So that's another way.
Remember, social media, maybe not remember, but my personal philosophy about social media is it's primary usage, it's primary, yeah, use, is to create buzz and excitement about things. And then there needs to be additional steps after social media that are getting people into your world through your email list, through smaller offers, through programs that you have, so that they can continue working with you in a more like a deeper level, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, so that's utilizing your social media tip.
Number two for promoting your summit is to leverage your email marketing. and your email list so you can be reaching your existing warm audience. I would say that your email list is probably your warmest audience. That's maybe not true for like everybody, but most people I would say your email list is probably your warmest audience.
They have chosen to opt in. They have self selected and said, yes, I want to be getting these emails. And if you are doing a good job of scrubbing your email list every three to six months, then anyone who is no longer interested in your emails and what you have to offer will be removed. And so that keeps the people who are on your email list engaged and excited about your content.
So some of the ways you can use your email list to promote your summit are creating a wait list for Sometimes you see waitlists like something exciting's coming sign up to be the first to know And other times you see a waitlist. That's the blank blank summit is coming sign up so you'll be the first to know about the summit.
So sometimes they're a little bit vague and just something exciting is coming. And other times it's like this summit is coming on this date. Sign up so you know. Either way the point is sign up so that you can be the first to know. And then you could also incentivize people to get on the wait list by letting them know that there will be some sort of early bird promo only available to the waitlist or available first to the waitlist and there's only a certain amount so they will get a chance before it sells out something like that
I do like using Like an early bird coupon. So they save like 50 or whatever it might be. That obviously depends on the price point of your summit. Like if it's a 47 VIP upgrade, then saving 50 is a little bit extreme because now you're paying out 3, but. You know my point of the early bird gets something for being on the list and for signing up.
It encourages people to go onto the list and I do like to promote the the waitlist for an event to both the existing email list and then also people who might be following along on social media or like Instagram, Facebook, wherever it might be.
You also want to make sure that you have dedicated email promotions about the registration period. So a couple weeks before having the waitlist or early bird excitement and then once the the registration period begins making sure that you're sending out your at least one extra email every single week and that you're including it in your regular weekly emails so that they're hearing about it twice every single week during the registration.
And I would say that that's a bare, absolute bare minimum. You're also going to want to have like 24 hours left to register. like last minute registration, like within the last hour, you're going to want to have some like Q and A type of email that are going out. Like, here's the questions we're getting about the summit.
Honestly, whether they're real questions or not, people won't know if anyone actually asked the question, but you want to think about those things that the key information that people need to have and form it in a question using testimonials. So if you've ran this event before, pulling from testimonials of people who participated last time, using those in your emails is a really, really great way to build the social proof.
I guess I probably should have mentioned this before, but you do want to be consistently emailing your list leading up to the event. So before you open registration, you want to be extra consistent with those emails. Make sure, make sure, make sure they're going out every single week. I would say for like the three to six months before the event, every single week, making sure that you are nurturing that audience.
and creating like excitement to get people on your list. So whether that's a new lead magnet, whether you're hosting some sort of free live mini event, whatever it might be, but try and get people, more people onto your list three to six months out and then be emailing them consistently. So by the time the registration period comes around, they're really, really excited for this big event that you have to offer.
And then making sure, too, that once someone is registry, registrated, registered, that you have specific email content going out. I know some people like to set this up as a workflow, and then other people prefer to set them up as individual emails, so people aren't getting Like if it's a workflow, sometimes the emails will continue to go out after the summit started or potentially even like if they registered the last possible day, those emails are going to be going out for like a couple weeks after the summit, so I know some people prefer to send out emails as schedule, like individual emails that they schedule, but I do recommend that you pre write these emails, you pre schedule them so that you have content ready to go out about the summit, about your offer, about your business before the event happens so that those people who get onto your, Like, who register for the event are being engaged with.
Very similar to a welcome sequence after someone gets onto your email list for that freebie. You don't want to ghost people. You want to be showing up frequently in their inbox so that they remember that the event is coming, that it's happening, and that they'll actually show up. Because if they don't actually show up, then they're not getting the nurturing, they're not getting the value, and they might as well have not even signed up, right?
Okay, now tip number three is to collaborate with the speakers and sponsors. So let's start with sponsors first. These are people who have paid you in some way to, in exchange for, Brand recognition at your summit. So sometimes I'm thinking I have a friend who's hosting a live event and they really really wanted to have Like a donut wall.
I think it was and so they found a local donut vendor to Sponsor the donut wall for them. And so now they have their donut wall and that business gets to have their logo up and on the, the live event page, like this is an in person live event, so it's a little bit different, but on the registration website they're the donut sponsor is recognized They have a little booth in there's like a little promo marketing area kind of thing so the donut sponsor has a little booth there as part of the sponsorship package and the there, I don't think that in this case there was any actual money exchanged hands. I think the payment was in the form of the donuts, so my friend doesn't need to buy the donuts. But The sponsor gets the, the business recognition, right? And so you could do a sponsor like that, where they're providing something to your business for free, or you could have people financially sponsor your business.
And that helps offset some of the upfront costs. I actually think I go into this more in next week's. Yeah, I'm monetizing. So we're going to talk more about sponsorships next week. I'm probably just going to reiterate basically what I just said and go a little bit deeper, but some sponsors will be willing to promote the event for you.
And because what you need to remind sponsors and what they hopefully will be aware of already is what's good for the event is also good for them. The more people who attend the event, the more people are excited about the event, the more people who will see their brand and be excited about those donuts or whatever they might have to offer.
So getting more attendees in the door is really great and That that sponsors can help with that collaborators. Same thing. Most of the time, your speakers will be perfect for cross promoting to their audience and getting their audience to come and show up for them so that, and then their audience, if they're part of it.
Like have registered for the summit will now have access to all the other speakers as well. And so some of the ways that you can collaborate with those speakers, I already said you can go live together on social media. You could also do some sort of podcast guesting or blog post like a guest blog where you Similar to the social media, like the live, you're going on their show or they're coming on yours so that you can cross pollinate and get their audience more aware of you and your audience more aware of them.
So that when that, that speaker's name shows up at the event, your audience is really, really excited about it. And then when, Your speaker promotes your event. The listeners to their podcast will be like, Oh, well, she was on the podcast. Like amazing. I really want to learn more from her.
You can also do giveaways. So most events, the speakers will have affiliate links. These affiliate links, sponsors can also get affiliate links, will pay out. And so, to get your affiliates, whether they're speakers or sponsors or just affiliates, someone who just wants to promote your event, they can participate in some sort of giveaway based on like the most affiliate link clicks in a specific 24 hour period.
It does need to be something that is within The collaborators, like it within your speaker, within your affiliates control. So getting more people to click on the link is within their control, getting people to buy less. So because they can put out stories about clicks and they can send out emails about the clicks, they can put a post.
There's a lot that they can do and the more actions that they take, the more people who will click. So that is, and it's also very, very measurable, right? The number of clicks should be measurable for your affiliates. And so that's a really great one. I love when I see that when I'm a participant, like when I'm speaking at a summit, I love when there's a giveaway and it's based on most affiliate link clicks because I'm like, Oh, I can definitely bump my link clicks up.
I'm just going to send it a quick email or whatever. Right. So that's a really great way to incentivize your affiliates to promote the event. And then the last way is within Facebook groups now. I say that every time I talk about promoting something in a Facebook group, you need to be very, very cautious about what group you are posting it in for two reasons.
And those two reasons are opposite ends of the spectrum. On the one end of the spectrum, there are groups where it's a absolutely no tolerance, zero self promotion allowed. And on the other end of the spectrum is Basically, this group is designed for self promotion. Promote yourself every single day. As many times as you want, sometimes.
Many groups there's like a once a day limit or you have to promote it on the special thread. I'm not saying that those don't work. What I am going to say is that often there is so much promotion happening in those groups that it doesn't do anything. So you need to kind of find a group where there's a bit of a happy medium where self promotion is allowed but under very specific restraints and restrictions where people are actually going to see your promotion and it's not in a string of a thousand other promotions so they'll be able to actually take it away.
This might mean you're friends with the group owner or it's your own group or there are some groups that just and it doesn't get out of control. Moderators kind of in check of like spammy promotion versus helpful promotion. So you have to be very careful. Hopefully you can find the right group for you to promote your event.
The other way that you can do it is by commenting on people's posts when it's really, really relevant and appropriate, especially in those groups who don't allow self promotion. You can comment on post and say, Oh, one of my speakers is talking about that in my summit. And then like put the name of the summit and not necessarily like even a link.
Or, like, be a little bit more strategic about it. And then also in those groups that don't allow for self promotion and in those comment kind of situations, you could have your affiliates looking out for situations where they can share it in groups and then it isn't self promotion, technically. There's still groups that it will not be allowed.
No links are really allowed at all. But that is one way that, Potentially it could get promoted and to avoid that self promotion piece. So that's how you can have your speakers, affiliates, sponsors helping you out.
And then the last one, as a Facebook ad strategist, I could not leave this one out. And that is to run paid ads. this is a really great way to increase registrations. Actually, let's back up. You can start running ads for your summit 3, 6 months before. These are not registration ads. These would be lead generation list building ads to get more people on to your list, nurture them with those emails, and then they will get all of the email promotions and hopefully get on to the summit.
That way. The, but. So you can start there with the lead generation ads and then you can run Registration ads, which are also lead generation ads to increase the registrations through your for your summit. I love these ads. I love Promoting summits. I love the energy because they are These types of ads these types of promotions are very similar to a live launch but with less of that pressure until after The summit right the the real salesy part happens after the summit the I find a lot of people Enjoy promoting their summits because the summit is so high value.
It's full of great information and people walk away with so much good information, good energy, good vibes. And so promoting a summit with ads doesn't feel salesy. It doesn't feel like, oh, I'm getting them to a webinar so that I can sell to them. And now I have all these cool audience members that I need to sell to.
No, it feels good. It feels energizing to get people on to your list and you can also run ads to retarget your people who have registered but didn't buy the VIP upgrades. And so just to remind them of like, Hey, the VIP upgrade is here. If you're interested, bump up. These are the bonuses. These are the great things that are going to come from it.
Highly recommend. And again, yes, those are more salesy, but there really is those added benefits and added bonuses, especially if you structured your VIP package well, that should make that bump into the VIP just like a non negotiable. So I also really like running those ads for people so registrations and also increase sales before the summit has even started, right?
So that's A lot of fun, obviously.
You can, if you're going into a Promotion on the back end of the summit. So you're launching something, either opening the doors for a course or a program or a membership. You can run ads there. I don't love that one as much. I think that they've got so much good value from you at the summit and they're getting those emails and you really are only opening your doors to the summit participants.
So I don't necessarily like running ads on the back end. I do have that like preference to the front. Of the sale, like of the entire process, like on the registration and the VIP. If you're running ads, especially if you're running registration ads to cold audiences. So these are people who have never heard of you before.
They would be joining your list for the summit. I just want to remind you that these are still cold audience members that may have never heard of you before. We're not part of your world. And these are, this is their first glimpse at your content and what you offer. So they may or may not, and I'm going to lean towards probably are not going to buy from you right after the summit.
And that's okay. That's to be expected. It takes people three to six to 12 months of being on your list of being part of your world in your audience before they're ready to buy. So what typically happens I noticed with my clients is they get that influx of people for the summit. They get a couple hundred, a couple thousand people registered for the summit.
And then six months down the road when they host their next, either their next summit or another live event, and they do another launch. Many of the summit participants. then are excited, then are ready to buy because they've been on the list. And so this is part of the snowball effect of rapidly growing your email list and then nurture, nurture, nurture, so that the next time you promote they're ready, willing and excited to buy.
So I guess that that that goes for like all of your promotion, but especially the, the ads that it's going to, they're going to take a little bit longer because people who come to you from someone else, a person that they already trust, whether it's a friend who registered for the event and posted about it on social media was like, Hey, I'm going to so and so's live summit, really excited about it.
You should join. And then if their friend joins, then they trust you implicitly because of that. The person's opinion. Same thing when a speaker shares about your event, and then their audience joins, those people will trust you more because they trust your speaker. And so They're not, yes, they're going to be cold audiences, the friend of the, of the participant or the audience member of the speaker.
Those are cold audiences, but they have this level of trust already built that a cold audience person from a Facebook ad or an Instagram ad or TikTok ads, whatever you might choose to run, that a person who's coming in from an ad doesn't have the layer of trust already that those other people do. And so the extended like runway not runway is the wrong word, but the extended customer journey or the time it takes them to buy is normal, natural and expected. So that's why I just, I like to remind people if they're running ads that there is going to be a bit more of a lag before these new people are going to buy from you.
And that is. Absolutely 100 percent normal and to be expected and you just have to plan for it. So hosting something else, doing another launch, whether it's a public launch on your social media, big, huge thing, or if it's more of a private launch, only going out to your email list, three, six, 12 months after your summit, make sure you have events.
So I'm going to talk a little bit about how to get your list lined up or planned so that you can take advantage of that audience growth that you got from the summit before the summit, and then also from the summit, and I never recommend that people stop audience building, and so even after the summit, I do recommend that you go back into lead generation mode and continue building your list so that that momentum continues to grow and build slowly, consistently over time.
Okay, so let's recap. Tip number one for promoting your summit is to utilize your social media platforms. Create a buzz with your own audience, your speakers audience, and then also your participants audiences. Tip number two is to leverage your email list by reaching out to your existing audience, creating a wait list, getting them really, really excited.
Tip number three is to collaborate with your speakers and affiliates and sponsors to cross promote the event because what is good for the event is also good for those people. They will get more visibility. The bigger the event is, the more visibility that they will get. And then the final tip for promoting your summit is to consider running paid ads to reach cold audiences that may not have heard of you.
Otherwise, we are continuing this summit series next week with part three on monetizing your summit. Really excited about that. And then week four is my. guesses about summit trends in 2024. So definitely come back next week and the week after. And if you still haven't listened to last week's episode, that was part one all about exactly what a live summit is.
Check that out. And thanks again for being here. Happy Saturday. I will be back next week with another Saturday strategy session.
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