Building a relationship with your target audience often starts in an online summit as this method encourages engagement with them.
If you run a coaching business, hosting a summit is a very effective strategy to connect and reach an audience.
Some people even take this opportunity to work with other people who have the same target market as you.
The good thing about being part of a summit, whether it’s online or not, is that you can leverage other people’s traffic to promote your brand and build authority.
What is an online summit?
An online summit, AKA a virtual summit, is a strategy that will help you build your email list, income, and status in the business industry.
It’s probably the most powerful marketing strategy to expose your brand to a crowd that is already interested in your niche.
If you have a business that’s currently in the process of reaching an audience, like maybe a startup fitness coaching program, this method is a must-try.
What are the benefits of hosting an online summit?
Online summits are usually done through video conference calls and its function is quite similar to a live summit event except that it is virtual and doesn’t involve too much work.
Hosting an online summit increases your brand’s exposure
A typical summit would always start by promoting a participating brand through hundreds of attendees.
If you have ever been to a summit before, most hosts introduce themselves as the CEO of a certain company.
It’s educational
People attend a summit to learn something new that they can apply to themselves or in their businesses.
This also gives them an overview of how your business works so they can avail your products or services someday.
You can easily network with other people
An online summit also gives you the chance to meet other people and become acquainted with them.
So if there’s a chance that you get invited as a guest speaker, take this opportunity to talk about your business with them to build a relationship.
If you maintain a positive relationship with them, you can expect that they will continue to do business with you in the long run.
It builds your email list
An online summit is usually offered for free in exchange for your prospect’s email address.
This instantly builds your email list that you can use for email marketing in the future.
If you think about it, this is basically the hardest thing to do for your business.
But if you host an online summit, this serves as a shortcut to generate leads.
Plus, since other speakers have also established businesses in your niche, this makes it easier for you to drive traffic from their email lists to help grow yours.
Why should you host a summit?
To help you understand more why it’s very important to host a summit for your business, let me tell you about my experience a few years ago.
I could still remember the time when I signed up for a free summit about Forex Trading by a certain company.
By the way, what I’m about to talk about is a face-to-face summit, not an online summit.
During those times, I wasn’t familiar with sales funnels and lead generation, in fact, I literally had no idea that these terms even existed.
After being hooked by their attractive headlines, I didn’t hesitate to give them my email address so I can attend the free conference to learn how to trade.
During the event, the CEO of the company told us his story about how he came up with the software that he uses to trade currencies and how much money he could make in a day.
The lecturers were also very informative and other people who tried their services also shared their experiences with the company.
They kept emphasizing on the fact that it changed the way they do things as a trader.
Just like everyone else inside the room, I also wanted to be like them since that was my main goal all along.
The entire event was mostly about their software (offer) and a few lectures about their strategies to make the audience even more interested.
Before the event ended, the lecturers finally told us how much it costs along with the potential benefits (value) that we can get from their software.
As the days went by, I realized that I was receiving a series of emails from the CEO telling me about his story, software, offers, installment plans, etc. to encourage me to buy his software.
They even sent me follow-up text messages and called my phone number if I was interested to buy it since they have another exclusive offer for me.
Do you finally see how important summits are?
In the marketing industry, this method of lead generation is called a summit funnel that’s designed for entrepreneurs to provide value and build authority.
When organized and executed correctly, it can actually help your business grow without even spending too much on ads.
How do you start an online summit?
Since you already have an idea of how an online summit works, let’s talk about how you can host one for your business.
- Send Invitations
Summit funnels typically start by inviting a group of people in your niche that you can ask questions.
Usually, there are around 30 speakers in a summit that are very much willing to share their expertise with an audience.
2. Interview Them
The host has to conduct a prerecorded interview with the speakers that you can use to introduce them during the event.
3. Start Promoting
Start promoting your online summit to attract leads and make them sign up for the event.
Encourage your guest speakers to promote the summit event to their email list so you can also get a portion of their subscribers.
How to create a summit funnel
First Page: Registration
Your virtual summit needs to have a registration page with the primary purpose of getting your attendee’s email address.
(If you don’t know where you can create a registration page, check out our GrooveMember review here. BTW, it makes things easier)
Write a good headline (hook) that makes them curious but also teases them on what it is about.
Add videos (story) to your registration page that are relevant to your topic.
It can be a video of you inviting them to attend or maybe a story about how you came up with your summit.
This is also where you can give them a heads up about your theme so they know what to expect and other important details like the time and date.
Bonus tip: Introduce who your guest speakers will be so they can recognize them easily during the event.
Second Page: Special Offers
The next page will be your special offer page that has three main parts specifically;
- Confirmation Page – to let them know that their registration was successful
- Exclusive all-access pass offer – usually comes with bonuses
- Order Form – to make a purchase
Third Page: Broadcast Page
This page is where your live online summit takes place whether they got the exclusive pass or not.
It’s usually a link that you send to their email so they can easily access the event, and sometimes you may even do more of these if you’re hosting a 7-day or 30-day online summit.
What makes a summit successful?
A summit becomes successful if it was effective enough to inspire, encourage, and provide value.
Invite guest speakers who are passionate enough to tell other people about their expertise.
Summits are indeed be boring for some but if the speaker can get their attention through their valuable pieces of information, this also makes it successful.
Imagine listening to someone that’s too boring and doesn’t have this special way of communicating with other people.
A total waste of time, right?
If you ever met the man behind ClickFunnels, Russel Brunson, or watched one of his videos, he has this unique way of communicating that makes people want to listen to what he has to say.
And that’s exactly what can help your summit become a success, get guest speakers that are confident enough to talk.
The Message
Another important factor is the message of your summit.
Be clear about your objectives and intentions all the time so your audience will be very much more interested to proceed to the next stage of your summit funnel.
Lastly, the topics and discussions should always be relevant to your audience as this also helps keep their attention.
Everything you talk about has to be connected to the main theme or topic.
Relevance
This factor is often overlooked especially when a speaker starts sharing something that isn’t really related to your summit.
First thing they talk about how they came up with their ads, the next thing they start talking about a movie that’s irrelevant.
Of course, you can’t always prevent that from happening but you should also make sure to orient your speakers beforehand since they can accidentally get into their “zone”.
Now that you already have an idea of how you can host your own online summit, take time to learn more business strategies by clicking here.
