Virtual Summit Success

There is an intimacy level between podcast listeners and the podcast host that makes so many things possible.
Rather than thinking of podcasts as content marketing, think of them as referral marketing on a grand scale. If you ask most business owners, they will say that most of their business comes from referrals. Because you're creating a level of trust with your listener, because you're creating friendships with your listeners - even if
they're one way - you're essentially referring yourself to your listeners and they'll come back to you as if a friend referred them to you, so they are referral marketing on a grand scale.

Because podcasts build such a loyal and engaged audience, summits are the perfect way to take that to the next level. Not only can they help you grow your audience with new listeners, but they can also deepen the relationships with your current listeners, give you more content, AND even make you money at the same time!

If you want to learn more about Danny, go to https://emeraldcitypro.com/

Want to learn more about selling with a summit as a podcaster? Go to http://sellwithasummit.com/podcaster/ to join in and learn from even more podcasting and summit experts!

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,...

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...

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.