Summit Trends in 2024: Summit Series Part 4 | 158
In this week's Saturday Strategy Session, we’re discussing Virtual Summits! 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:
What a summit is and why you might want to host one? (Ep. 155)
My predictions for summit trends in 2024 (Ep. 158)
In this episode: Who knows where this year will take us, but we can have some fun considering where we are right now and how things will change. That's exactly what I'm doing in this episode with my thoughts on how to increase engagement and participation, micro summits, repeat event, switches to live events, and more!
Key Takeaways:
Participant participation is key... how can we maximize their success?
From micro summits to audio-only summits - my thoughts on these new spins on the classic Virtual Summits
The pros and cons of repeat events... should you host your summit again and again?
Should you get rid of the "Free Ticket" and/or switch to an in-person event?
Want to work with Jenzaia to promote your summit with paid ads?
Episode Transcript:
Hello. Welcome to this final segment of the summit series. Today we're going to be talking about my predictions for trends with summits in 2024. We're going to talk about what is really, really important when it comes to summits. We're going to talk about micro summits, audio summits, other variations of the summit.
We're going to talk about the pros and cons of repeat events, and then I know last week I talked about free tickets being kind of my gold standard and that I highly recommend, but we are going to chat about considering to make it a paid event with no free tier. And then we're also going to talk about considering an actual live event in person and what my thoughts are about that.
So if you're new here, Go back and listen to the previous three episodes. I talked about, like, what exactly is a summit. I talked about how to promote your summit. I talked about monetizing your summit. And then today we're going to be talking about the trends. If this is your first time listening to the summit series, in full transparency, I have not hosted my own summit, but I have been behind the scenes as a speaker or presenter for multiple dozen at this point, like lots and lots.
I have also been the behind the scenes as the marketing expert Facebook ads strategist for probably 10 to 20 in the last year or two. So, I have a lot of behind the scenes experience with summits and that is kind of where I'm coming at. For this podcast episode, this podcast series, if you will. So let's dive in and talk about the main goal that I see for Summit hosts this year.
And that is getting people to actually engage and consume the content. The first time that I signed up for an online virtual event, I booked my calendar out for the two days. And I had a quiet place in my house. I got rid of my kids for the two days. By got rid of the kids, I mean my in laws. So I didn't have any kids, my husband was working, and I was able to focus 110 percent of my energy on the event.
I took notes, I listened to as many of the presentations that interested me that I could, and I followed up with multiple people in, from the Summit Multiple, the presenters. If I remember correctly, they had like a networking or a co working space or some sort of like, I don't even, I can't remember. This is, we're talking back like early to mid 2020, so it's been a while, but they had some sort of like connection room or something like that.
And so I connected with a bunch of other participants and speakers and followed up with all of them. And then fast forward to 2024, the last event that I signed up for, I was really, really excited and I consumed one presentation and I was really excited for specifically the presentation that I consumed, but I knew that there was other presentations and speakers that I wanted to hear, and my kids were going crazy, and there was report cards, and there was, and there was, and there was, right?
And life got busy, and I knew I had extended access to the, the portal, so I could continue to watch them later on. Uh, and did I? No. No, I did not. I did not. I did not watch any of the other ones. I didn't download a single one of the bonus resources. I could if I wanted to go back. I didn't connect with a single other participant.
I did connect with some of the speakers, which is really awesome. And the host as well. So I call that a win. But I didn't consume anything. Which is awful. It gets so awful when you're excited about a conference or a summit and you sign up for it because you're like, Oh, I'm going to get so much great information.
And then if you don't consume the information, you get nothing. And so that's why as the host, your goal is to get people to actually engage and consume the content. Because if they don't, then the whole point of the summit is mute. Right? Like, if they're not consuming the content, you're not nurturing them, they're not building that relationship, they're not gaining your trust, none of that is happening, and so Here are some of my thoughts on ways to increase engagement.
So the first one is live experiences. Whether it's panels of the speakers, live Q& A with you as the host, hot seats. I talked about that in the last episode. So you can open the hot seat up to everyone. or maybe VIP pass holders only and the people that you're VI, that you're coaching in the hotspot would be those ultra extreme next level VIP pass holders, the one that have paid to get your one on one attention.
And so that's a really great way to offer a live experience for everybody and then that better level, next level for the people who are paying that, that higher price point, right? You can, I've also seen things like yoga. Campfires, where like, games or songs or things like that are happening, sing alongs, co working, not sure how I feel about co working, I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before on the podcast, but I typically find that co working is supposed to be like, five minutes, share what you're gonna do.
50 minutes of work, 5 more minutes to share what you did during that time. And they typically end up being like 20 minutes of chat, chat, chat. 20 minutes of like, oh, I'm trying to organize myself and I don't know. And there's people on Zoom and oh my gosh, look at their background and trying to organize stuff.
5 minutes of, okay, I'm finally focused on what I need to be. And then 10, 20 minutes of more chat at the end. And so I don't love and I don't typically go to co working sessions anymore because I find that I'm better able to just focus on whatever I need to do in that hour when I just focus and do what I need to do in that hour instead of having a Zoom call up and kind of distracting me.
So that's my personal thoughts on co working, but you might have some sort of twist on it. Or you might really like the energy of the chatting and the networking and the like brain power that can come out of coworking sessions. So totally an option. You can do like a speed networking or other type of networking event where you use breakout rooms and people have like two to five minutes to just chat with those people in the breakout rooms and exchange information and find some new connections.
So having those live experiences that. People have to be live to really get the benefits of is a great idea and a great way to Take your event to the next level. The next one is the limited time and this creates a sense of urgency I did talk about this last week as well If you give me six months to consume something and I haven't consumed it within two weeks I probably won't unless I absolutely have to for like credits or professional development or some sort of, like, legal requirement.
But something like this, if I have two weeks to consume it and then I have extended access for, like, another six months, if I haven't done it in that first two weeks, I'm not going to do it. So I do still like extended access. I don't want that to be mis understood. I like extended access, but I just don't think it should be forever long access or even like six months.
I think that having the presentations live for the day that they are live or maybe the weekend or like two days of the summit itself and then if you have the free ticket Sorry, they're gone after that really short 24 48 hour viewing period and then your extended watch time is only like an extra two to four weeks, kind of, would be my recommendation and that creates a sense of urgency.
And you want to make sure that there are emails going along with that, so after the summit, highlighting some of the presentations, making sure that there's emails going out with links directly to some of the really, really valuable presentations to your own presentation, if you're doing one to really make a difference and really get people to consume that content.
Another really great idea to get people engaging and consuming. is what I just said, and that's emails. Having an email sequence that keeps people in the loop, in the know, they don't forget that the summit's coming, and they're really getting excited before, during, and after from the emails is important.
And then something that I've more recently been toying with the idea of is live presentations. And so we do use the word live summit, even when they're pre recorded. Presentations or speeches, because they're going live at a specific time, but as you know, I was part of a summit a few months ago now, where the presentation itself was live, and I had to show up at my designated time, I went live, and that is when the recording was made of the presentation, there was no pre recording involved, and that was really cool, because the people were there with me, there's that raw vulnerability of being live.
So whether all of the sessions are live, or you give your speakers a time that they can sign up and they go live in the Facebook group is another one that I've seen, and I've actually participated in that. And those are great because usually the presentation, there's a specific topic and a specific goal, but And when you're going live in the Facebook group, I, as far as I can remember, every time I've been told, like I can do pretty much whatever I want, like live Q and a teach about another topic or go deeper into the topic, do some sort of tutorial.
Like it's really my choice of what I'm going to do with that time. So giving your presenters the opportunity to do like a second mini training in the Facebook group is another great way. and encouraging them to reference back to their pre recorded training in that live so that if someone is watching the Facebook live and it's like, Oh, this is really great.
Then they know to go and watch the pre recorded one as well. Okay. The next trend that is becoming more and more popular is summit alternatives. So these are like micro summits, audio summits, that type of thing So micro summits are short, really, really impactful events. So it might be just a half a day. There may only be like five speakers.
I did something that would probably be considered a micro summit a couple years ago. I want to say like fall of 2022. I think it was, yeah, I think it was fall 2022, but it might've been fall 2023. No, it wasn't fall 2023. It was definitely fall 2022, uh, where it was like an Instagram. Micro summit. I don't know if summit's the right word for it, but I went live and did kind of like an interview style Summit with I think it was like five or eight people Over the course of like three or four days and so that was really great because well, it was a lot of work because they were live And it was a really short time frame to be going live that many times But it was really great because it was live It was short impactful content because these were Instagram lives We kept each prep like conversation to 15 minutes or less and so people really were able to consume that content and we created a Like a landing page where all of the lives were linked so that someone didn't have to like, scroll through my Instagram or try and like, find the links.
I'm pretty sure I took them down off of Instagram after like, the week as well and then was just sending out emails to my list about The, the recording so that if they wanted to go they could consume it, but it was really just in that week. So Microsummits are going to be shorter, hopefully high impact, and easier to digest and consume because they are shorter and there's less content.
When there's 30, speakers at something and there's multiple different breakout rooms or events that are live at the same time, it can be really hard to Like digest and consume all of that content. So a micro summit, a micro summit that only has like four or five presentations. would be much easier for people to sit down and watch those four or five presentations.
They're only about 20 minutes each, so they can consume all of it in less than like an hour, an hour and a half, which is, is fantastic. My math is totally wrong. It would probably take closer to like an hour and a half, two hours, but Point still being you can consume it faster and with the audio only summits This is where it's a podcast feed.
And so instead of it being video presentations It really is just like audio only which is really great If you're considering how people consume Content and who your audience is if you're talking to moms who are in the pickup line and driving their kids to to soccer practice and hockey practice and karate and swimming and whatever else they're doing, they're going to be in the car often or washing dishes, making dinner, busy with their kids, and they might want to have the podcast on in the background and consuming the content through audio instead of, I feel like, well, yes, I can just sit and listen to a video.
I don't necessarily need to see if there's video. I want to watch it because my Brain tells me whether it's true or not that watching the video increases the impact of the video. So even if it's just someone talking to the screen without slides or anything and they're not showing examples or anything that are, like, highly valuable, or tutorials where I need to see, like, the step by step walkthrough.
So even when there aren't those things and I really could just be listening, my brain's telling me, well, there's video, so you should watch it. Which absolutely isn't true, so taking away that part of it might make it easier for some of your audience to participate. Which is why I mentioned it last week as one of the bonuses is having the audio, like having a podcast feed, audios of the recordings available to the participants in the VIP tier.
But you might decide, like, that's just what we're doing. We're just doing audio only and it's gonna be great. So, and I kind of said this already with the microsummit, but just thinking about how multi event, multi day events requires to stop our lives and consume just, and that just can feel unreasonable.
So, when it's smaller and more digestible, it's much more likely that somebody is going to Really take it in if you're thinking about doing the micro summit, but you are you have tons of people in your Orbit in your world that would want to present you could always break it up I see a lot of summits that like day one is classroom management strategies and day two is Activities and day three is tools and day four is planning or whatever, right?
So you could have those four different topics still, and instead of doing like one gigantic event in July, you do MicroSummit 1 in July, MicroSummit 2 in September, MicroSummit 3 in January, and MicroSummit 4 in March. So once a quarter, you're doing a summit instead of Just like that gigantic event, there's a little bit less for you to organize.
You're only dealing with four or five presenters at a time. You're spacing it out so you have constant lead generation, constant nurture through these summits for your people. You might even have like a mini course attached to each one of these topics. Which would go perfectly with the post launch piece too.
And you could tailor all of your content leading up to the summit to that particular topic. So people are really primed for the information that they're getting. So those are just some of the things that you might want to think of with the alternative type of summit. Let's dive into repeated events.
Should you repeat your event? And this is something that I'm seeing more and more happen. Probably because summits kind of, virtual summits, kind of started to gain popularity in I would say like late 2021, early 2022. And they've just snowballed since then. Tons and tons and tons of people are running summits now.
So because they've been doing like they might have done their first event in 2021 and then 2022 and 2023 And so now you're like, okay. Well, I'm thinking of doing it. Should I? Similarly do an event every single year Some of the pros are it helps to create an amazing experience. You get people coming back.
They really love it They know what to expect and it really builds on the community Every single year, uh, it can be easy to repeat it yearly or quarterly because you have a lot of the assets already in place. You have landing pages, registration pages, sales pages, everything like that already built and you are definitely going to have to fine tune it every year.
But a lot of the hard work will be done and I do have a client who we've done her summit. She did it in 2020. Herself, and then I've been working with her since then. So 2021, 2022, 2023, and the results have just built and built and built. And so by repeating it, she's been able to take all of the things that have really, really worked.
In the last year or two years or three years and kept all those things and then made improvements and changes to the things that were clunky or that just didn't work or that felt misaligned or updated for the current year without having to really start from scratch. So that's really great. And then you can also build hype with your audience if they know it is coming, then they're going to get really excited.
And a great example of this, now it isn't a summit, but a really great example of this is Amy Porterfield's main course. What is it? Her like build a course course. What is it? Oh, I'm googling it right now. Amy Porterfield course. Digital course academy. Her DCA. So she launches it once a year. And every single year, her launch is just bigger and better.
And there's people who are what right now it's February and people are already planning and saving up and excited to get into it in the fall when it opens. So every single year there's gonna be more hype more excitement more energy and you can just really capitalize on that Now some of the cons are If you have the mentality of it worked once, so it's going to work again, or it has to work again, or there's no other option, but for it to work again, that is really, really dangerous just because something worked once does not mean it's going to work again, even if it worked 345 times in a row, that doesn't mean it's going to continue working, and that's why in my prose, I said, Okay.
I really recommend that you update it and tweak it and change it and really keep what's working and get rid of those things that aren't. And another con is, is if you don't make changes, right? Like if you keep everything the same, it's going to be stale and that's not the energy that you want. So if you're going to be repeating the event, I think the big lesson there is that you have to be willing to update it.
Not a full fresh start. But just update it for the current times and If it did, if it does work amazing, great, keep building on that success, but don't get complacent because it does not have to work just because it's worked before. Personally, I do like repeat events. I like participating in repeat events.
I like helping behind the scenes of repeat events. You get to know the host, you get to know the other speakers, you get to know the audience. And so as a presenter and as a marketer, it's great. It's really great. And as an audience member, there are some summit that I know they're coming and I'm excited about them coming and I look forward to them coming every year.
So yeah, repeat events are really great as long as you with anything, right? Like you can't just let it sit there and be the same thing year after year after year without innovating, changing, keeping up with the times. So, yeah, okay, end rant about repeat events. And then my final thought about Summit Trends in 2024 is considering paid live events.
So I'm gonna com I'm gonna combine paid events and live events into one. I think there's a lot of people that have the belief that what we pay for is more important, and I don't disagree. I do not disagree. I think that people value Things that they paid for so a personal example a few years ago I wanted to run a half marathon and so I was like casually running.
I love running Casually running and then I was like, okay. Somebody needs to help me. So I signed up for like a marathon training a half marathon training program through The Running Room, which is a running shoe company in Canada, in Ontario, where I live. I don't know how widespread it is. So I signed up for one of their running programs, where they have like a little mini class thing once a week, and then you run afterwards, and then on Sundays, they have a group run that you're invited to.
I think they have another one. Yeah, so there's like a class on Tuesdays, or whatever, and then a group run on Wednesdays. And then the group run on Sundays. So there's three runs that you can do with the group, and then all the other runs you do independently. So there's a lot of accountability, plus there's a class that once a week, so we did things like stretching and nutrition and proper shoe fit and gear and like all of these really important things, especially having never ran a half marathon before, I, there was things I didn't.
Know about right and I had never really considered like the energy gel packets or whatever I ended up forgetting mine I forgot to buy more and so the morning of my half marathon I bought a pack of Swedish berries, and that was my my energy booster and it worked fine, it worked fine It probably would have been better if it was like what it was supposed to be but the Swedish berries worked fine anyway Once I had paid for not only the training program course thing, but also the marathon, I had money behind it.
And I was like, I am not wasting this money. I'm gonna show up for that class every single week. I'm gonna be ready for the half marathon because I don't want to hurt myself and I really want like it to be a good positive experience. And so, What we pay for, we put more time, energy, and importance behind.
And your audience is going to too. They're more likely to show up. You're going to likely have a higher attendance rate. But, it's probably also going to be a significantly smaller event. Even if it's that small ticket price, like we talked about, you have your free ticket and then a 19 upgrade or whatever.
Even if the ticket itself is only 19, you're still going to have a much smaller registration than if it were free, because people love the word free. They're much more likely to give you your email address if the word free is attached to it than if they have to get out their credit card. So your registration is going to be smaller, but these are already people who have said, yes, I will pay you money and they're going to be A higher quality audience likely and by that I mean they're more likely to show up, they're more likely to pay attention, they're more likely to engage, and they're more likely to buy from you again.
And so, if you're willing to have a smaller event, and if you're willing to, Not collect the email addresses that you can continue to use for months and probably years down the road then Considering having a paid event and I think that they were going to gain Popularity going forward. I haven't seen a ton of them, but I have a feeling that they were going to Become more popular because people really do like summits and they want people to consume the content and I think that there's this Shift towards, I've seen more, uh, small, like, slow funnels, so those self liquidating offers where it's a, it's a tiny offer off the bat, there's no free anything, I've been seeing more of those recently, and I think that summits will take that same shift towards a paid event so that everyone who's there wants to be there, wants, is valuing the content, and Your email list, yes, it won't grow as much, but, uh, Yeah, they'll just be high quality, valuable people who are there and showing up, it'll be a more intimate event with a better chance to build those relationships and nurture the leads.
So definitely recommend that if that's something that you're open to, that you consider just not having the free tier at all. And then live events, again, same thing, I think people, especially since restrictions have been lifted for 18 months at this point. I'm not going to do the math. I have no idea and obviously that'll depend on where you are too.
I think Ontario had restrictions in place a lot longer than other places did, but they've been gone for a really long time. And so live events have definitely come back, but I think that they've been bigger events. And so one of the trends that I would love to see is more. Small events, more community type events, getting together in small groups of people who are networking, collaborating and working together with PD and speakers and really valuable content in all of those ways.
There's definitely more logistics, more upfront costs, more details that you need to consider, but They're coming back and there is probably like a tenfold in nurturing that happens and relationship building that happens when you are with people face to face and you're talking to them and you're there in real life and you could reach out and touch them, you know, like there's that there's just a different level of conduction and different level of openness and everything when you're truly there, like in person with someone.
So, if that's something that you're interested in, also highly recommend you think about that. And yeah, host that live event. Do it. Do it. And if you're in Ontario, invite me. I would love to go. Okay. This wraps up our summit series. If you have an upcoming summit, I am currently booking for summits that are happening in April, May, and June.
We typically have like a six week lead up to prepare for the summit, do registration for two to three weeks. The summit happens and we get you tons of registrations. So if you have a summit, whether it's like a full blown summit or it's a micro summit, an audio only summit, or something else completely new, I would love to hear about it.
The link is in the descriptions for you to book a free call so we can chat about possibly running ads for your upcoming event. And, uh, I'll be back next week with the episode. I'm super excited about Taylor Swift and her marketing genius. So keep your eyes out for that one and have a wonderful, wonderful day.
And thank you for spending your Saturday with me.
We're going to talk about the pros and cons of repeat events, and then I know last week I talked about free tickets being kind of my gold standard and that I highly recommend, but we are going to chat about considering to make it a paid event with no free tier. And then we're also going to talk about considering an actual live event in person and what my thoughts are about that.
So if you're new here, Go back and listen to the previous three episodes. I talked about, like, what exactly is a summit. I talked about how to promote your summit. I talked about monetizing your summit. And then today we're going to be talking about the trends. If this is your first time listening to the summit series, in full transparency, I have not hosted my own summit, but I have been behind the scenes as a speaker or presenter for multiple dozen at this point, like lots and lots.
I have also been the behind the scenes as the marketing expert Facebook ads strategist for probably 10 to 20 in the last year or two. So, I have a lot of behind the scenes experience with summits and that is kind of where I'm coming at. For this podcast episode, this podcast series, if you will. So let's dive in and talk about the main goal that I see for Summit hosts this year.
And that is getting people to actually engage and consume the content. The first time that I signed up for an online virtual event, I booked my calendar out for the two days. And I had a quiet place in my house. I got rid of my kids for the two days. By got rid of the kids, I mean my in laws. So I didn't have any kids, my husband was working, and I was able to focus 110 percent of my energy on the event.
I took notes, I listened to as many of the presentations that interested me that I could, and I followed up with multiple people in, from the Summit Multiple, the presenters. If I remember correctly, they had like a networking or a co working space or some sort of like, I don't even, I can't remember. This is, we're talking back like early to mid 2020, so it's been a while, but they had some sort of like connection room or something like that.
And so I connected with a bunch of other participants and speakers and followed up with all of them. And then fast forward to 2024, the last event that I signed up for, I was really, really excited and I consumed one presentation and I was really excited for specifically the presentation that I consumed, but I knew that there was other presentations and speakers that I wanted to hear, and my kids were going crazy, and there was report cards, and there was, and there was, and there was, right?
And life got busy, and I knew I had extended access to the, the portal, so I could continue to watch them later on. Uh, and did I? No. No, I did not. I did not. I did not watch any of the other ones. I didn't download a single one of the bonus resources. I could if I wanted to go back. I didn't connect with a single other participant.
I did connect with some of the speakers, which is really awesome. And the host as well. So I call that a win. But I didn't consume anything. Which is awful. It gets so awful when you're excited about a conference or a summit and you sign up for it because you're like, Oh, I'm going to get so much great information.
And then if you don't consume the information, you get nothing. And so that's why as the host, your goal is to get people to actually engage and consume the content. Because if they don't, then the whole point of the summit is mute. Right? Like, if they're not consuming the content, you're not nurturing them, they're not building that relationship, they're not gaining your trust, none of that is happening, and so Here are some of my thoughts on ways to increase engagement.
So the first one is live experiences. Whether it's panels of the speakers, live Q& A with you as the host, hot seats. I talked about that in the last episode. So you can open the hot seat up to everyone. or maybe VIP pass holders only and the people that you're VI, that you're coaching in the hotspot would be those ultra extreme next level VIP pass holders, the one that have paid to get your one on one attention.
And so that's a really great way to offer a live experience for everybody and then that better level, next level for the people who are paying that, that higher price point, right? You can, I've also seen things like yoga. Campfires, where like, games or songs or things like that are happening, sing alongs, co working, not sure how I feel about co working, I'm pretty sure I've talked about it before on the podcast, but I typically find that co working is supposed to be like, five minutes, share what you're gonna do.
50 minutes of work, 5 more minutes to share what you did during that time. And they typically end up being like 20 minutes of chat, chat, chat. 20 minutes of like, oh, I'm trying to organize myself and I don't know. And there's people on Zoom and oh my gosh, look at their background and trying to organize stuff.
5 minutes of, okay, I'm finally focused on what I need to be. And then 10, 20 minutes of more chat at the end. And so I don't love and I don't typically go to co working sessions anymore because I find that I'm better able to just focus on whatever I need to do in that hour when I just focus and do what I need to do in that hour instead of having a Zoom call up and kind of distracting me.
So that's my personal thoughts on co working, but you might have some sort of twist on it. Or you might really like the energy of the chatting and the networking and the like brain power that can come out of coworking sessions. So totally an option. You can do like a speed networking or other type of networking event where you use breakout rooms and people have like two to five minutes to just chat with those people in the breakout rooms and exchange information and find some new connections.
So having those live experiences that. People have to be live to really get the benefits of is a great idea and a great way to Take your event to the next level. The next one is the limited time and this creates a sense of urgency I did talk about this last week as well If you give me six months to consume something and I haven't consumed it within two weeks I probably won't unless I absolutely have to for like credits or professional development or some sort of, like, legal requirement.
But something like this, if I have two weeks to consume it and then I have extended access for, like, another six months, if I haven't done it in that first two weeks, I'm not going to do it. So I do still like extended access. I don't want that to be mis understood. I like extended access, but I just don't think it should be forever long access or even like six months.
I think that having the presentations live for the day that they are live or maybe the weekend or like two days of the summit itself and then if you have the free ticket Sorry, they're gone after that really short 24 48 hour viewing period and then your extended watch time is only like an extra two to four weeks, kind of, would be my recommendation and that creates a sense of urgency.
And you want to make sure that there are emails going along with that, so after the summit, highlighting some of the presentations, making sure that there's emails going out with links directly to some of the really, really valuable presentations to your own presentation, if you're doing one to really make a difference and really get people to consume that content.
Another really great idea to get people engaging and consuming. is what I just said, and that's emails. Having an email sequence that keeps people in the loop, in the know, they don't forget that the summit's coming, and they're really getting excited before, during, and after from the emails is important.
And then something that I've more recently been toying with the idea of is live presentations. And so we do use the word live summit, even when they're pre recorded. Presentations or speeches, because they're going live at a specific time, but as you know, I was part of a summit a few months ago now, where the presentation itself was live, and I had to show up at my designated time, I went live, and that is when the recording was made of the presentation, there was no pre recording involved, and that was really cool, because the people were there with me, there's that raw vulnerability of being live.
So whether all of the sessions are live, or you give your speakers a time that they can sign up and they go live in the Facebook group is another one that I've seen, and I've actually participated in that. And those are great because usually the presentation, there's a specific topic and a specific goal, but And when you're going live in the Facebook group, I, as far as I can remember, every time I've been told, like I can do pretty much whatever I want, like live Q and a teach about another topic or go deeper into the topic, do some sort of tutorial.
Like it's really my choice of what I'm going to do with that time. So giving your presenters the opportunity to do like a second mini training in the Facebook group is another great way. and encouraging them to reference back to their pre recorded training in that live so that if someone is watching the Facebook live and it's like, Oh, this is really great.
Then they know to go and watch the pre recorded one as well. Okay. The next trend that is becoming more and more popular is summit alternatives. So these are like micro summits, audio summits, that type of thing So micro summits are short, really, really impactful events. So it might be just a half a day. There may only be like five speakers.
I did something that would probably be considered a micro summit a couple years ago. I want to say like fall of 2022. I think it was, yeah, I think it was fall 2022, but it might've been fall 2023. No, it wasn't fall 2023. It was definitely fall 2022, uh, where it was like an Instagram. Micro summit. I don't know if summit's the right word for it, but I went live and did kind of like an interview style Summit with I think it was like five or eight people Over the course of like three or four days and so that was really great because well, it was a lot of work because they were live And it was a really short time frame to be going live that many times But it was really great because it was live It was short impactful content because these were Instagram lives We kept each prep like conversation to 15 minutes or less and so people really were able to consume that content and we created a Like a landing page where all of the lives were linked so that someone didn't have to like, scroll through my Instagram or try and like, find the links.
I'm pretty sure I took them down off of Instagram after like, the week as well and then was just sending out emails to my list about The, the recording so that if they wanted to go they could consume it, but it was really just in that week. So Microsummits are going to be shorter, hopefully high impact, and easier to digest and consume because they are shorter and there's less content.
When there's 30, speakers at something and there's multiple different breakout rooms or events that are live at the same time, it can be really hard to Like digest and consume all of that content. So a micro summit, a micro summit that only has like four or five presentations. would be much easier for people to sit down and watch those four or five presentations.
They're only about 20 minutes each, so they can consume all of it in less than like an hour, an hour and a half, which is, is fantastic. My math is totally wrong. It would probably take closer to like an hour and a half, two hours, but Point still being you can consume it faster and with the audio only summits This is where it's a podcast feed.
And so instead of it being video presentations It really is just like audio only which is really great If you're considering how people consume Content and who your audience is if you're talking to moms who are in the pickup line and driving their kids to to soccer practice and hockey practice and karate and swimming and whatever else they're doing, they're going to be in the car often or washing dishes, making dinner, busy with their kids, and they might want to have the podcast on in the background and consuming the content through audio instead of, I feel like, well, yes, I can just sit and listen to a video.
I don't necessarily need to see if there's video. I want to watch it because my Brain tells me whether it's true or not that watching the video increases the impact of the video. So even if it's just someone talking to the screen without slides or anything and they're not showing examples or anything that are, like, highly valuable, or tutorials where I need to see, like, the step by step walkthrough.
So even when there aren't those things and I really could just be listening, my brain's telling me, well, there's video, so you should watch it. Which absolutely isn't true, so taking away that part of it might make it easier for some of your audience to participate. Which is why I mentioned it last week as one of the bonuses is having the audio, like having a podcast feed, audios of the recordings available to the participants in the VIP tier.
But you might decide, like, that's just what we're doing. We're just doing audio only and it's gonna be great. So, and I kind of said this already with the microsummit, but just thinking about how multi event, multi day events requires to stop our lives and consume just, and that just can feel unreasonable.
So, when it's smaller and more digestible, it's much more likely that somebody is going to Really take it in if you're thinking about doing the micro summit, but you are you have tons of people in your Orbit in your world that would want to present you could always break it up I see a lot of summits that like day one is classroom management strategies and day two is Activities and day three is tools and day four is planning or whatever, right?
So you could have those four different topics still, and instead of doing like one gigantic event in July, you do MicroSummit 1 in July, MicroSummit 2 in September, MicroSummit 3 in January, and MicroSummit 4 in March. So once a quarter, you're doing a summit instead of Just like that gigantic event, there's a little bit less for you to organize.
You're only dealing with four or five presenters at a time. You're spacing it out so you have constant lead generation, constant nurture through these summits for your people. You might even have like a mini course attached to each one of these topics. Which would go perfectly with the post launch piece too.
And you could tailor all of your content leading up to the summit to that particular topic. So people are really primed for the information that they're getting. So those are just some of the things that you might want to think of with the alternative type of summit. Let's dive into repeated events.
Should you repeat your event? And this is something that I'm seeing more and more happen. Probably because summits kind of, virtual summits, kind of started to gain popularity in I would say like late 2021, early 2022. And they've just snowballed since then. Tons and tons and tons of people are running summits now.
So because they've been doing like they might have done their first event in 2021 and then 2022 and 2023 And so now you're like, okay. Well, I'm thinking of doing it. Should I? Similarly do an event every single year Some of the pros are it helps to create an amazing experience. You get people coming back.
They really love it They know what to expect and it really builds on the community Every single year, uh, it can be easy to repeat it yearly or quarterly because you have a lot of the assets already in place. You have landing pages, registration pages, sales pages, everything like that already built and you are definitely going to have to fine tune it every year.
But a lot of the hard work will be done and I do have a client who we've done her summit. She did it in 2020. Herself, and then I've been working with her since then. So 2021, 2022, 2023, and the results have just built and built and built. And so by repeating it, she's been able to take all of the things that have really, really worked.
In the last year or two years or three years and kept all those things and then made improvements and changes to the things that were clunky or that just didn't work or that felt misaligned or updated for the current year without having to really start from scratch. So that's really great. And then you can also build hype with your audience if they know it is coming, then they're going to get really excited.
And a great example of this, now it isn't a summit, but a really great example of this is Amy Porterfield's main course. What is it? Her like build a course course. What is it? Oh, I'm googling it right now. Amy Porterfield course. Digital course academy. Her DCA. So she launches it once a year. And every single year, her launch is just bigger and better.
And there's people who are what right now it's February and people are already planning and saving up and excited to get into it in the fall when it opens. So every single year there's gonna be more hype more excitement more energy and you can just really capitalize on that Now some of the cons are If you have the mentality of it worked once, so it's going to work again, or it has to work again, or there's no other option, but for it to work again, that is really, really dangerous just because something worked once does not mean it's going to work again, even if it worked 345 times in a row, that doesn't mean it's going to continue working, and that's why in my prose, I said, Okay.
I really recommend that you update it and tweak it and change it and really keep what's working and get rid of those things that aren't. And another con is, is if you don't make changes, right? Like if you keep everything the same, it's going to be stale and that's not the energy that you want. So if you're going to be repeating the event, I think the big lesson there is that you have to be willing to update it.
Not a full fresh start. But just update it for the current times and If it did, if it does work amazing, great, keep building on that success, but don't get complacent because it does not have to work just because it's worked before. Personally, I do like repeat events. I like participating in repeat events.
I like helping behind the scenes of repeat events. You get to know the host, you get to know the other speakers, you get to know the audience. And so as a presenter and as a marketer, it's great. It's really great. And as an audience member, there are some summit that I know they're coming and I'm excited about them coming and I look forward to them coming every year.
So yeah, repeat events are really great as long as you with anything, right? Like you can't just let it sit there and be the same thing year after year after year without innovating, changing, keeping up with the times. So, yeah, okay, end rant about repeat events. And then my final thought about Summit Trends in 2024 is considering paid live events.
So I'm gonna com I'm gonna combine paid events and live events into one. I think there's a lot of people that have the belief that what we pay for is more important, and I don't disagree. I do not disagree. I think that people value Things that they paid for so a personal example a few years ago I wanted to run a half marathon and so I was like casually running.
I love running Casually running and then I was like, okay. Somebody needs to help me. So I signed up for like a marathon training a half marathon training program through The Running Room, which is a running shoe company in Canada, in Ontario, where I live. I don't know how widespread it is. So I signed up for one of their running programs, where they have like a little mini class thing once a week, and then you run afterwards, and then on Sundays, they have a group run that you're invited to.
I think they have another one. Yeah, so there's like a class on Tuesdays, or whatever, and then a group run on Wednesdays. And then the group run on Sundays. So there's three runs that you can do with the group, and then all the other runs you do independently. So there's a lot of accountability, plus there's a class that once a week, so we did things like stretching and nutrition and proper shoe fit and gear and like all of these really important things, especially having never ran a half marathon before, I, there was things I didn't.
Know about right and I had never really considered like the energy gel packets or whatever I ended up forgetting mine I forgot to buy more and so the morning of my half marathon I bought a pack of Swedish berries, and that was my my energy booster and it worked fine, it worked fine It probably would have been better if it was like what it was supposed to be but the Swedish berries worked fine anyway Once I had paid for not only the training program course thing, but also the marathon, I had money behind it.
And I was like, I am not wasting this money. I'm gonna show up for that class every single week. I'm gonna be ready for the half marathon because I don't want to hurt myself and I really want like it to be a good positive experience. And so, What we pay for, we put more time, energy, and importance behind.
And your audience is going to too. They're more likely to show up. You're going to likely have a higher attendance rate. But, it's probably also going to be a significantly smaller event. Even if it's that small ticket price, like we talked about, you have your free ticket and then a 19 upgrade or whatever.
Even if the ticket itself is only 19, you're still going to have a much smaller registration than if it were free, because people love the word free. They're much more likely to give you your email address if the word free is attached to it than if they have to get out their credit card. So your registration is going to be smaller, but these are already people who have said, yes, I will pay you money and they're going to be A higher quality audience likely and by that I mean they're more likely to show up, they're more likely to pay attention, they're more likely to engage, and they're more likely to buy from you again.
And so, if you're willing to have a smaller event, and if you're willing to, Not collect the email addresses that you can continue to use for months and probably years down the road then Considering having a paid event and I think that they were going to gain Popularity going forward. I haven't seen a ton of them, but I have a feeling that they were going to Become more popular because people really do like summits and they want people to consume the content and I think that there's this Shift towards, I've seen more, uh, small, like, slow funnels, so those self liquidating offers where it's a, it's a tiny offer off the bat, there's no free anything, I've been seeing more of those recently, and I think that summits will take that same shift towards a paid event so that everyone who's there wants to be there, wants, is valuing the content, and Your email list, yes, it won't grow as much, but, uh, Yeah, they'll just be high quality, valuable people who are there and showing up, it'll be a more intimate event with a better chance to build those relationships and nurture the leads.
So definitely recommend that if that's something that you're open to, that you consider just not having the free tier at all. And then live events, again, same thing, I think people, especially since restrictions have been lifted for 18 months at this point. I'm not going to do the math. I have no idea and obviously that'll depend on where you are too.
I think Ontario had restrictions in place a lot longer than other places did, but they've been gone for a really long time. And so live events have definitely come back, but I think that they've been bigger events. And so one of the trends that I would love to see is more. Small events, more community type events, getting together in small groups of people who are networking, collaborating and working together with PD and speakers and really valuable content in all of those ways.
There's definitely more logistics, more upfront costs, more details that you need to consider, but They're coming back and there is probably like a tenfold in nurturing that happens and relationship building that happens when you are with people face to face and you're talking to them and you're there in real life and you could reach out and touch them, you know, like there's that there's just a different level of conduction and different level of openness and everything when you're truly there, like in person with someone.
So, if that's something that you're interested in, also highly recommend you think about that. And yeah, host that live event. Do it. Do it. And if you're in Ontario, invite me. I would love to go. Okay. This wraps up our summit series. If you have an upcoming summit, I am currently booking for summits that are happening in April, May, and June.
We typically have like a six week lead up to prepare for the summit, do registration for two to three weeks. The summit happens and we get you tons of registrations. So if you have a summit, whether it's like a full blown summit or it's a micro summit, an audio only summit, or something else completely new, I would love to hear about it.
The link is in the descriptions for you to book a free call so we can chat about possibly running ads for your upcoming event. And, uh, I'll be back next week with the episode. I'm super excited about Taylor Swift and her marketing genius. So keep your eyes out for that one and have a wonderful, wonderful day.
And thank you for spending your Saturday with me.
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