How To Create An Online Summit

How to Launch a Virtual Summit

By Bailey Richert | Award-Winning Business Coach for Infopreneurs

I'd heard about virtual summits before, and I'd attended a few online. Others said they were good at giving your business the serious boost it needed, but I was a little skeptical at first. Would this really work? Or would it be like everything else I was trying, producing very slow results - and only mediocre results at best?

Well, I'm here to tell you that I'm a virtual summit evangelist now!

In just 90 days I put together my first virtual summit, the Infopreneur Summit, featuring a total of 27 guest speakers presenting on a variety of topics related to launching an infopreneur business.

With that single summit, I added 1,170 new subscribers to my email list!

Considering I had less than 100 subscribers before the summit, this was incredible growth!

I was genuinely SHOCKED and surprised at just how much hosting a virtual summit grew my email list and literally changed my business for the better! I never anticipated such fast, awesome results.

I decided to run my summit a second time just 9 months later, and again, could not believe how this one event impacted my business. With this summit, I tripled the results from my first summit and brought in 2,900 new subscribers!

I kept launching my summit annually, and it is through them that I was able to build my 5-figure email list without paid ads.

But that's not all...

Through these virtual summits, I established my authority, quickly becoming a top infopreneur business coach online, and I grew my network by hundreds of influencers, creating countless opportunities.

Virtual summits are often called 'lead generation' events because, indeed, email list growth is one of the main benefits, but there are many ways your business will benefit a virtual summit.

I call these 4 key benefits the "4 E's":

► Explode Your Email List

► Earn Revenue

► Establish Your Authority

► Expand Your Network

Free Virtual Summit Resources

I have personally seen and experienced the incredible results virtual summits are capable of producing, and I encourage every infopreneur business owner - new and established - to host their own as well.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, I have tried has transformed my business like hosting a virtual summit has - and in such record time.

So, have I convinced you? Are you ready to give your infopreneur business a serious boost? Then keep reading to learn the process I developed for launching your own virtual summit in just 90 days!

Phase 1: Planning

Step 1: Plan your virtual summit logistics.

First and foremost, a virtual summit is an event. Yes, it's an online, virtual event, but that doesn't mean that you can just wing it. You have to really have all your details nailed down, and what are some of the most important details of an event? The logistics! Some items here you will need to consider include how long your virtual summit will be, what the dates of your event are, and how you will price your All-Access Pass.

A summit should never be over one week long, and frankly, 7 days is quite an undertaking for a new virtual summit creator. I would aim for around 4-5 days of content.

Step 2: Map out the content you would like to cover.

As the virtual summit host, it is your job to take creative direction of the summit. That means you are responsible for everything from the summit name, to the summit branding, to the overall topic or theme, and what specific topics the guest speakers will be interviewed on. In general, we call this the summit content.

It is advised that you name your summit with 2 words: "Something Summit". Make it clear your event is a summit, not a course or something else!

When deciding on your summit name, branding and topics, make sure you keep your ideal customer in mind at all times. It is your goal as the summit host to get as many of your ideal customers to register as attendees as possible!

Step 3: Decide on your technological systems.

Running a virtual summit requires a certain number of software and hardware systems.

For hardware, you'll need a good microphone, webcam, and computer with access to fast, reliable internet.

For software, you'll need an email autoresponder, landing pages, sales funnel / checkout system, payment processor, and membership site. I ran my entire virtual summit with the Clickfunnels "Platinum" package, which I show students how to use in my Virtual Summit School course.

For a complete list of tools you will need to launch a virtual summit, refer to this post.

Step 4: Invite and onboard your guest speakers.

Now it's time to start reaching out to your guest speakers. These are influencers who can talk about the topics which you have decided you would like to have in your summit.

To really reap the benefits of a virtual summit, you have to have a decent number of speakers. Simply having 4 or 5 won't do. You ought to aim for 25-30. That is a good number for your first summit. Any more than that may be difficult to handle unless you are very, very well-organized and have the time to record all those interviews.

When approaching potential guest speakers, make sure you appear as more of a colleague than a raving fan of their work (even if you are), and help them understand why their participation in this event will benefit them.

Phase 2: Creating

Step 5: Record and prepare your interview content.

While you are still reaching out to other influencers to join your event, you can begin recording interviews with those influencers who have already committed. I recommend using Zoom.

There is a lot that goes into recording a good interview with an influencer. You need to get their biography ahead of time to read on the interview as you introduce them. You should provide them some sample questions you intend to ask before the interview is conducted.

A good virtual summit interview lasts around 30 minutes and gets straight to questions the attendees really want answered.

Step 6: Build your virtual summit sales funnel.

Your second task during Phase 2 is to build your virtual summit funnel. This will require that you purchase your summit domain, if you haven't already. The ideal virtual summit sales funnel includes 4 major pages:

1. Optin Page: This page lists the key information about the summit: speakers being featured, agenda for the event, information about the host. This is where visitors are encouraged to register for the event for free.

2. Sales Page: This page is where the registrants are encouraged to purchase the All-Access Pass.

3. Order Form: This page is where attendees can order the All-Access Pass.

4. Confirmation Page: This page is where the attendees' purchases of the All-Access Pass are confirmed.

Free Virtual Summit Resources

Step 7: Set up your All-Access Pass membership site.

Those who purchase your All-Access Pass before the summit begins will simply be told upon purchase that they will receive their membership site login details the day after the summit. This allows you to continue recording interviews all the way up until the summit begins (although, of course, it should be your goal to get them done a month in advance, that doesn't always happen).

You can host your membership site for your All-Access Pass anywhere that is password protected. I use the membership site feature of Clickfunnels, but you may wish to choose a less expensive option like Wishlist Member (integrates with SamCart), Teachable or Thinkific.

Step 8: Create your affiliate program.

Though your virtual summit funnel will be up and available for nearly 2 months before your summit begins, you won't really start promoting it to your audience until 3-4 weeks before.

Before you encourage your guest speakers to share the summit with their email lists, set up your affiliate program inside your chosen sales funnel system, and encourage your guest speakers to sign up as affiliates.

Then, make it as easy as possible for them to promote. Provide them email swipe copy and custom promotional graphics.

Phase 3: Launching

Step 9: Prepare for your launch.

While most people don't use the phrase "virtual summit" launch, that's exactly what it is. Just like a book launch or course launch, a virtual summit is a live launch that requires preparation on the part of the host.

Many virtual summit hosts begin to tire at this step, wanting to leave the guest speakers up to their own devices to promote the summit. Nothing could be more detrimental to your results!

As the host, you need to be the one leading the charge to promote your summit (which starts in Step 10), and to do so effectively, you'll need to spend time preparing and planning out the promotional period, otherwise known as the launch.

Some questions you might ask yourself as you prepare are:

► what will your social media posting / live video schedule look like?

► how often will you communicate with speakers, and how will you track their success as affiliates?

► did you test your entire system before promotions begin? Did you have others test it?

Step 10: Promote your virtual summit.

The entire month before your virtual summit begins you should dedicate to its promotion. The promotion of your summit is directly responsible for how many new email subscribers and how much revenue you will generate.

In addition to emailing your list about your summit, you can also run Facebook or other social media ads. You can share it in groups you are a part of online. You can check in with your guest speakers to make sure they really did email their lists.

You can also host a giveaway of your All-Access pass to a random attendee who has already registered. I did this using the free Gleam.io application, and I show you how to do this in the Virtual Summit School. Hosting this giveaway also grew the number of social shares of my summit.

Step 11: Execute your virtual summit.

The week of your virtual summit is very exciting. All this work you've done is finally coming to fruition! But it's also very exhausting. You have to always be on time by putting your guest speaker interviews live at the time you said they would be according to the summit's public agenda. People will be upset if you are late or forget!

You also need to email your attendees daily with the links they will need to watch the interviews. You'll be fielding emails all week saying "I never got the links" or "The videos aren't playing for me!" Be prepared to handle these issues quickly!

Step 12: Complete necessary follow-up tasks.

Once your virtual summit is over, it's not really over. There are a lot of tasks that you need to follow up on.

First, make sure you send a thank you note to all guest speakers for their participation and hard work in promoting your event. Personally, I gave every guest speaker a free All-Access Pass as part of their thank you for participating, even if they didn't make any sales.

Then, you need to follow up with your All-Access Pass buyers and make sure they get their login information to watch the summit interviews. This is crucial!

Next, start looking for ways to leverage your new relationships with influencers for guest posts, podcast interviews, and more!

I look forward to seeing what you create with the help of this free guide. If you'd like to learn more about launching your own virtual summit to grow your email list, authority, revenue and more, please visit VirtualSummitSchool.com.

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