Virtual Summit Success

Have you ever wished that you could maybe just borrow somebody else's audience and bring them into your course launch? I mean, we've probably all looked at someone else's audience and thought, "man they're perfect. They're exactly the kind of people who need my course and they're over there and I don't know how to get in front of them without being weird and feeling like I'm stealing them." And you just aren't quite sure how to organically and naturally, and in a good way, bring them into your own audience. 

Well, I've got a way that you can do that. So virtual summits are kind of the perfect way to borrow someone else's audience, because you're not just borrowing someone else's audience, you're also helping that person whose audience it is build their authority as well. And you're introducing them to new audiences too, which is always a bonus for everybody. 

So virtual summits are the way that I like to do that without being sleazy and you can borrow my tactic - you can totally swipe that - 'cause you can go invite people who might not otherwise be interested in partnering with you to be part of a virtual summit and you'll be surprised at how many people say yes. Virtual summits are fun, they're a really great way to network with other speakers and the attendees, and people like being part of them a lot of the time, if they're done well. We've probably all seen summits that are not done very well, they feel sleazy. Well, let's move away from that. 

You can be part of the movement to make virtual summits great, make them feel more like an actual in-person conference, something people want to attend. And by doing that, you'll be able to network with people who you really genuinely may never have been able to network with otherwise because you don't have a reason to approach them and give them a really good reason to partner with you.

It also gives you an opportunity to.Build those networking relationships like we talked about, because those are some of the most valuable things that you, as a host, will get out of the summit. Forget about all the money, forget about anything else like that. Networking is one of my favorite things about virtual summits.

I've made some really great friends out of virtual summits by talking to the speakers and just getting to know them and giving them opportunities to interact with each other and with me throughout the summit, because that's really what we all want is we want to be able to get deeper relationships with other people in our industry. And it can be really hard to start those friendships, but sometimes those friendships can get really amazing, they can get deep and genuine and be actual friends, not just business friends. So take advantage of that if you decide to host a virtual summit as part of your course launch. 

And you'll also be boosting other people's authority when you invite them to be part of your virtual summit. So yeah, you're borrowing their audience, but they're borrowing other people's audiences too. They're getting in front of audiences that they may never have gotten the chance to be in front of and who knows, maybe they'll make friends with that speaker and they'll get to get in front of that audience again. So it was really a win-win for you and the speakers, because you both get in front of new audiences. They get to be seen as an authority in their field, in their topics because they're in front of these audiences, being presented as a guest expert, as an expert speaker.  So you're doing them a service as well, and you're both getting benefits out of it.

And you can also save your marketing budget for your course launch because while you're borrowing these audiences, that's not necessarily the primary thing that you want to do with the summit. I mean, honestly, it's nice. It really does help, but you really want to be building a community, and that includes your speakers, your attendees. And if you're building that community the right way, you really may not need ads very much at all. I know that ads are often something that are touted as the way to do your course launch, and there's all these funnels around them and that's great. And they can be amazing, but if you can do it without having to spend all your money on ads - and honestly you can make money at this instead of spending it - that's a really good bonus. 

Because with virtual summits, you can sell access to the replays and the speakers get benefits out of it because you can set them up as affiliates. So they'll get a portion of the proceeds that they sell. So they only get it when they sell it through their link typically - you can do it however you want, but they get a benefit through that. And you get a benefit because the money that you get from that, you could still go put that back into ads. You could go and bring even more people into the summit as those sales start rolling in, increase your ad budget, however you want to do it. And by building that audience that can also build your course sales. 

So, if you've ever wanted to borrow somebody else's audience for your course launch, I would highly recommend signing up for your free ticket for the Sell With a Summit: Course Creator Edition. My friend Krista over at Summit in a Box and I have put together this amazing event. We have over 25 speakers who are going to be teaching you at this event. We'll be covering everything from the basics of how to start your own summit and how to integrate your course into it, because that's really important. You want to make sure that your course is the clear next stepping stone after the summit so that it's the natural place for people to go and buy it after the summit is over.

And if you want to sign up for that, go to sellwithasummit.com. I would love to see you inside of that community and get to hang out with you in there and just honestly, just get to watch your course launch and your summit.

If you have any questions, you can always let us know - Krista and I are always happy to talk summits. So I hope I will see you over in the Course Creator Edition of Sell With a Summit! 

If you have ever launched a course before - or honestly, even if you haven't - you've probably know just how much marketing has to go into this. Marketing a course, launch is a lot of work and it can feel overwhelming and frustrating and just downright tiring. And it doesn't have to be that way necessarily.

There's a lot of things that go into a course launch, but there are some things that can make it a lot easier. Video, for one thing, is a really great way to market a course - or really anything! - because video is engaging and it's just plain getting reach right now on social media. And social media is one of the big ways that we market our courses online without paying money, anyway. 

So, if you want to get your course launch marketed really well, video is the way to go. But it can be time consuming and maybe you're not comfortable on video and you just don't feel like you have a good setup, or whatever it happens to be that's holding you back. Maybe video doesn't feel like it's the way to go.

And if that's the case, word of mouth can be a really good way to do it, but word of mouth is also hard to get going, especially if you haven't launched your course yet. So maybe this is your first time launching this course, or you have had course launches of this before, but it hasn't gone the way you wanted. Maybe you don't have all the word of mouth going that you want. 

So what do you do in that case? If your course hasn't launched, then people don't know to talk about it. And if it has launched and you haven't gotten word of mouth going before... how you do it now? That's probably some of the questions that you've asked yourself; I know I've asked myself that in the past. 

But ways that you can actually get people talking about your course before it launches - you can even get people promoting your course before it launches, which is just kind of my blowing, let's be honest. It's so hard to get people to do this in the first place, much less before the course even launches, but I promise it is possible. We'll talk about that in just a second. 

Another great way to get your course launch marketing going is to create community - that can get that word of mouth going - but creating community around something that hasn't launched yet? I mean, how do you do that? How do you get people excited and talking about it and engaging with each other and with you before your course launches? I mean, that may not seem like it makes sense.

And course launch marketing can also feel contrived. Aside from everything we've talked about - the video and the word of mouth and the community and all that - let's be real: we've all seen course launches where just feels fake. You can tell it's marketing, you know they just want your money, and it just feels good and gross and like something you never want to do.

So how do you get around all of these problems that come with course launch marketing? I have really, honestly, one simple solution for you that could change your entire approach to course launches. It's virtual summits! And that may sound a little bit weird, but course launches really need all of these things - they need the community, they need excitement. They need to build trust and you need to get people that are willing to buy from you. 

So, summits create opportunities to make content as well. So you're going to have videos from you and your speakers, and you can also have content in your Facebook group that you'll create around your summit. So you could be doing live videos. You could be doing audio if you're not comfortable on camera. You could be having your speakers go in and do live video. And you can repurpose all of this live video to help market your summit and your course launch, because your course launch can piggyback off of your summit.

So you run a summit and then after your summit is over, you have all of these new people in your audience who are primed and ready to buy from you. They trust you they're excited, they're ready for something new to build on everything they've learned in the summit and your course is going to be the perfect way for them to do that. So it just makes sense for them to buy the course from you when they're all done with the summit. 

Summits are also a really, really great way to get other people talking about your course launch topic - maybe not necessarily your course, but the topic of your course - before it actually launches. So they may not realize it, but they are doing guerilla marketing for you. And it's not sleazy, you're not taking advantage of them because you are giving them value. You're giving them value through your summit - which is totally free most of the time - and so it's just common sense and natural for them to be talking about the summit topic, which happens to also be around your course topic. So it's a really organic and easy way to get people talking about your course before it launches. And before you've actually really talked about it. 

Summits also create that community. So the community can help get that word of mouth going. It gets people excited and they're talking about your summit and they're talking about all the things that are learning in your summit. So they're already in an educational mindset there they've been learning from you and your speakers for however many days that your summit is going. Maybe you do an action day as the last day of your summit so they're implementing everything they've learned and they're starting to see results and they're getting excited and they're telling other people about all these results that they're getting, and everybody's just getting psyched up together. And they're building their trust with you because they've been talking with you throughout the summit, they've been seeing your face everywhere and you feel like a friend by then. And people like to help support friends, but they also like to get value. So it just makes sense for them to buy the course, if they're ready for that after the summit is over. 

So summits also offer organic talking points for marketing. This is my favorite thing about using summits as part of your marketing plan, is it's totally organic! You're already offering something for free, so you naturally don't feel sleazy talking about it. You're not asking them for money; you're just asking them to give you your email address so that they can get the summit schedule, so they can show up for it. 

And that way, you can talk about it and you don't have to feel like you're saying, "Hey, give me money. I know you don't really know me yet but my course is awesome and I know you'll get a lot of value out of it. So you want to give me money, please. Money, please!" And that's weird. Nobody likes to do that. Those are the kind of marketing tactics that we all try to avoid. 

So summits give you that way that you can say, "Hey. You want to learn more about this. Come to this summit," and then after the summit's over, you can go, "Hey, wanna learn more about this, 'cause we've been talking about this for three days - five days, however long your summit is - you should jump into the course because I would love to talk to you more about this. I've already seen how much it's affected your business  -or your life or whatever your summit is doing - and I would love to see you take that next step to make even more out of this." 

And it's a natural next step for them. If you position your course right through a summit, it's the logical place for people to go after that because they want more results. They've started seeing results. They feel like they've been learning from you and from the speakers and they trust you, so why wouldn't they go and check out your course once it's done? 

I know summits can feel a little bit overwhelming in and of themselves though. But honestly, they're one of the past marketing tactics, because like I said, it's totally organic. It's free. It builds your audience for free. You don't have to spend a boatload on marketing because that sucks. But you can go and do this in about three months, so probably about the timeframe you'd be allotting to put together your course launch marketing plan anyway, and you can just piggyback off your summit and you can make money at the same time - which who doesn't want that? - Because you're going to be offering your all access pass or whatever else you happen to offer as an upsell from the summit. So the summit is free, but maybe they spend 97 bucks or 197 bucks and get access to the replays after they've expired, the transcripts, maybe your speakers throw in bonuses. You're making money at the same time as you're building the perfect audience for your course launch. 

So if you want to learn more about how to build your own summit and build this buzz around your course launch before it's even ready to launch, go ahead and sign up for the free Sell With a Summit: Course Creator Edition. We made this just for you. I teamed up with Krista from Summit in a Box and we put together an amazing summit and yes, it's a summit about summits, but hey, that's what we do.

So you can go ahead and sign up for free. You'll get access to over 25 speakers who are experts in courses and summits. You'll learn everything from the basics to advanced marketing tactics, like using chatbots and funnels and my absolute favorite one, which is custom boxes, which you can use for your summit and your course. My friend Mark Stern is... he's blown my mind so many times with custom boxes, so that's one that you'll really, really want to check out. So go ahead and head over to sellwithasummit.com. Go ahead and sign up for the Course Creator Edition and I would absolutely love to see you in there. I want to see your course launch succeed and virtual summits are a killer way to do that. See you soon. 

Okay, so you're ready to launch your course, but how do you get people to actually buy it? I mean, there's so much that goes into a course launch and creating the, as you will know by now. So what is the best way to get people to actually buy?

Well, you need to build excitement, community, and trust. If you can build those pillars, you're in a good place for a killer course launch. But how do you do that? Well, a virtual summit could be exactly what you need! Virtual summits naturally build community around them, which feeds the attendees' excitement, as well as their trust in you. And it can even make you money in the process, before you even launch your course!

If you want to learn more about how to run your own virtual summit for free, you should definitely go and sign up for Sell With a Summit: Course Creator Edition. Krista from Summit in a Box and I are hosting this and it is going to be an amazing event.

You will learn from over 25 speakers about everything from how to do summits, how do you build a community of raving fans, how do you position your course so that it is the logical next step for people who attend the summit, you're going to learn how to market it, how to make even more money out of it by doing ordered bumps and tripwires, and everything you could possibly want.

So definitely sign up for your free ticket to Sell With a Summit: Course Creator Edition and I would love to see you there!

Okay, so before we jump into the real meat and potatoes of Virtual Summit Success, I just want to share a little bit about where it came from. So hello, I'm Jenn, I'm the founder of Virtual Summit Search, and that is a place where you can go to list your summits, to be in the virtual summit speaker directory, and to find virtual summits that you want to attend.

We are building resources on there to help virtual summit hosts and speakers and attendees so that virtual summits can become more successful and that we can just have even more, yeah, amazing content out there in the form of virtual summits. 

Virtual Summit Search actually came about because my friend, Mariah and I were talking and we kept noting that we would find virtual summits after they'd already started and there were only all access passes available, and we couldn't seem to find virtual summits to speak at because by the time we found out about them, their speaker lineup had already been ironed out and nailed down.

So we wanted a way to help other people find virtual summits before they happen, even if they're not necessarily on any of the speakers lists, and we wanted a way to be able to, so you find virtual summits to speak at and to help virtual summit hosts find speakers, 'cause that's something else that we kept hearing is, "how do I find good speakers who will actually show up and do what they say they will?"

So this was kind of our solution to solve those problems. Mariah had to move on, so I am now the sole founder for this, but I really love it. Virtual summits are something that I love to talk about. There're so many strategies that already exist and that are developing every day. So I'm excited to help you, as a host or a speaker, get more out of the virtual summit experience and just really dive into it and make everything better for you and for your attendees and speakers, if you're a host. 

So what we're going to be talking about on Virtual Summit Success is kind of an insider view of the power of summits from both a speaker and a host perspective. So we're going to launch off with some topics around courses because a lot of folks have courses and it's that they want to sell on the back end of a summit, but you're not quite sure how, so I'm going to share a little bit about how you can combine the power of courses and virtual summits to make each one more successful.

And then after that, we will see where we go. And I'm just really excited because there's so many things that we can talk about with this. So I'm excited that you're along for the journey and let's dive in.