Before Your Summit: Paid Ads & Marketing Strategy to Maximize Your Virtual Summit

BYS 7 | Behind the Scenes: Summit Success Secrets

• Jenzaia • Episode 7

Share episode

Behind every successful online summit lies a strategic approach that most hosts discover only through painful trial and error. After supporting over two dozen successful summits across multiple niches, I've identified some patterns that separate thriving events from those that struggle to gain traction.

In this episode, we'll chat about some of the mistakes I see (and what to do instead) as well as some of the most successful strategies.  Plus, two things that always surprise me about successful summits!

__________________

Find me on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/heyitsjenzaia/
Email Me → support@jenzaiadimartile.com

Speaker 1:

this is before your summit, episode number seven. Hey, my name is jenzea, I am a facebook ad strategist and I love me a good summit. I have helped countless teacher, business owners and other entrepreneurs host summits over the past four years. I've done six of them in the last year and I would say probably two dozen or more. I'd have to go back and like actually count but I have supported many, many summits with their Facebook ad marketing.

Speaker 1:

And so today I'm going to be talking to you about some of the most common mistakes that I've seen that will completely derail a summit and other events too. But specifically summits and then what I've seen go really well across multiple different clients and kind of like a collection of really positive success. And then I also have a couple of things that just completely surprised me about summit marketing. So let's jump in with mistakes first. So the first mistake, which is huge and affects all type of marketing, is mixed or unclear messaging. So if you're not sure about what you're talking about, your audience won't be sure either. If you have multiple different goals and ideas and topics that you're trying to get across to people all at the same time, no one's going to understand what you're talking about. If you have multiple different ideal personas that you're trying to talk to all at the same time, no one's going to know if it's them or not. So it's really important that you have a clear understanding of what you're talking about, you have one specific goal and that you're talking to one specific person. Now, obviously, it's not just going to be that one single person who attends your summit or one single topic, like if I hosted a summit about marketing. I can't have every single person talking about Facebook ads for summits, right, like that wouldn't make sense. But having like one overarching, very clear, very concise topic for the whole summit that multiple different subtopics can come from is really important. So people can say, oh, I know exactly what I'm going to walk away with and I identify with the person that this is targeting.

Speaker 1:

Mistake number two is no nurturing prior to your summit. Cold audiences do not just suddenly warm up. So it's important that you begin the process of warming your audience up months yes, I said months prior to your summit. This process involves putting out consistent content for anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks. So this can be long form content a blog post, podcast episodes, video. It can and should also include emails, so you're emailing your list every single week. It can also include short form content, so social media posts. You need to be showing up consistently in those weeks leading up to the summit, because people sign up for things with people that they know like and trust and people who have a presence and people who are showcasing their expertise. So if you're not showing up regularly, if you're not showcasing your expertise, then your audience isn't going to be able to sign up.

Speaker 1:

Then the third mistake I see is complicated registration processes. Anything that requires a credit card unnecessarily people are just not going to. We don't want to be giving out our credit card information unless we absolutely have to, and so if it is a free summit, there should be no credit card inputted. I know that, depending on how you have things set up, it can be easiest that it's a checkout page, even though the price is free. But when you are adding in a layer of give me your credit card for this free thing, you're going to have a lot of people just say nope.

Speaker 1:

Next. I also don't love when there's a two-page process for me to sign up for something. No, thank you, pass. Next. This isn in a government form that I'm filling out a summit registration form. In my opinion, for a free summit with an all-access page or an all-access pass upgrade, the free ticket should involve my name and my email address, maybe instagram handle, maybe phone number, if you have that, but the only required information that you should be asking for is their name and an email address, and then on the thank you page is the all access page sales page, and it might also have a checkout, which would involve collecting a credit card, of course, but they only need to input their credit card information if they're choosing to purchase the all access pass. So complicating the registration process by requiring people to fill out a questionnaire or a survey, anything like that, is just a big note for me. Anything that requires a credit card for a free thing big note for me. These are going to limit the numbers of registrations that you get because people just don't want to deal with it.

Speaker 1:

And then the final mistake that I see is the all access pass is either priced too high or too low, and often that comes like has to do with how it has been stacked, like how the bonuses are stacked. So sometimes you'll see an all access pass that all they're giving is extended viewing, which probably worked four or five years ago when summits were still a little bit newer and they weren't as common. But as summits have really blown up and more and more people are hosting summits, I really don't think all access or extended access to the videos is what it used to be. It used to be a really, really great selling feature, and I definitely personally signed up and purchased a couple of all access passes so that I would have that extended viewing, but now I it no longer is enough for me, because I'm like am I even going to watch these things again? Am I going to re-watch these, these videos? And, knowing myself personally, like no.

Speaker 1:

So if that's the only thing, if that's the only bonus that's stacked in the all-access pass, like it's a hard no for me. And so there needs to be a strategy when you're when you're creating the all access pass, and then you really have to think about your niche, what a good price is for it, and making sure that there is a strategy to that price and that it's not too high, because then you're going to have people that are like, oh well, it's just too expensive. And if it's too low, people are going to go. Well, it's so low, like that clearly isn't like as good as I think it is and they're going to be second guessing it. So that pricing is really hard to nail down and I think that it can be really important to ask some people in your niche, talk to your mentor or coach who you're working with, and really get a good idea of what a good pricing for you would be. And, yeah, so, being very careful with that, the pricing, because I've definitely seen all access passes not do well because of how they were created. You can always add something more in later on, throughout the the registration period. If you feel like people aren't signing up, you can say, okay, you're also going to get xyz bonus and you can add something additional in to try and make it even more enticing to people.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, those are the four most common mistakes Mixed or unclear messaging. Number two is no nurture prior to the summit or not sufficient amount of nurturing. Number three is a complicated registration process. And then number four is no strategy when creating your all access pass and the pricing. So, with those mistakes in mind, what do I see goes really really well across multiple clients. The first one is repeated summits Every single one of my clients and I have three of them that I've hosted summit after summit after summit with them. I just finished wrapped up summit number three with one client. I'm in the process of doing summit number four with another client In the winter. I have a third client who we did summit number three back in, I want to say, january or February, and so, with all of these examples, we see improved results every single year, and I think the big reason is number one you've developed trust with your audience, you develop relationships with your audience and you've really shown them that your summit is valuable and worth their time, and so you're going to have people who sign up again year and a year, year after year. The second reason is that you're able to improve your messaging, improve your sales page, improve your registration page. Like everything just gets better. You can take what you feel like really worked and you can tweak the pieces that were maybe not so great, so that you're getting a higher conversion level and that you're speaking more directly to your audience. Yeah, and so you also might have clear objectives and better idea of like what, like realistic goals would be. The second thing that I've seen go really, really well with clients is when they have a clear idea of exactly who their audience is and they have clear messaging. It really results in lower ad costs and higher registration levels. And that goes back to the mistake that I talked about like mistake number one being mixed or unclear messaging. When you have a clear idea of who your audience is and a clear idea of how to message them, you're going to get lower ad costs. You're going to get more registrations Really really well.

Speaker 1:

Number three all access passes with time sensitive deadlines and clear value. So we talked about the clear value already making sure that what people will get from purchasing the all access pass is really worth it and it's way more valuable than the price tag that you're putting on it. So that's the first piece, and then the second one is is a deadline, and how I see this most commonly used is they sign up for the summit and then on that sales page there is a timer it says like all access pass is $19 for the next 19 minutes or 20 minutes and it's $47. And then you go into like the next level of pricing, so it's $47 for 20 minutes and then it becomes $67, right level of pricing. So it's 47 for 20 minutes and then it becomes 67, right.

Speaker 1:

So having a time sensitive deadline that puts a little bit of urgency and pressure, because if they don't purchase it now then it is going to be more expensive and I like it when it's that short deadline like make a decision right now, and those do tend to do the best. I've also seen them where you like you have 24 hours or you have three days, or you have until March 10th to purchase the all access pass. Those work less well because there isn't as much urgency. When you give someone 24 hours or three days, you're like oh, I'll come back to it and do they? Yeah, maybe some of them, but most people are going to forget about it, move on with their life. But when you tell someone, oh, you only have 20 minutes to make this decision, they're likely going to go get their credit card right now and make that decision right there in the moment, and just that extra urgency. So if you are going to use deadlines, I do highly recommend that it is some sort of countdown on the page. Less than like an hour, 20 minutes is really great because that's enough time to go to your credit card and put it without it expiring, but not so much time that you could forget about it.

Speaker 1:

And then the last thing that I've seen go really well and this kind of does go with something else we were talking about in the mistakes but is a simple and clean funnel structure, and what I mean by this is every single page has a purpose that leads to the next step, and there isn't anything more than you need Clear, simple, effective. You don't want anything extra. All of the extra pages, any extra clicks, any extra anything is going to take people and derail them. You're going to lose people if they have to, like click here to go to the page to register and then from that page, like, click here to fill in your information. Like every single time someone has to click on something to go to the next page. You will lose some people in that process. That's just how it works.

Speaker 1:

So the clearer, more simple, easier it is to do something, the more effective it will be. So there should be a very clear way that people can register for your summit as soon as they land on your page, whether that is a form right right right at the top of the page or a button that says sign up now and it takes them directly to the form. They shouldn't have to scroll anywhere, they shouldn't have to do anything. Their ability to register for the summit should be right there at the very top of the page. It should also be at the very bottom of the page so for the people that are scrolling through and reading all the information and when they get to the bottom of the page, there needs to be either a form right there at the bottom of the page or a button that they click that takes them to the form so that they can sign up really easy and quickly without having to scroll through the page to try and find where the heck the form is.

Speaker 1:

The more simple, the cleaner the funnel is, the better it will perform. So I always like to map out the summit with like boxes and a flow chart showing each and every single step and making sure that there are a few steps as possible in the marketing and that there's nothing fancy about it, like we want simple, simple, simple that tends to do the best. So those are the four successes that I would say, things that go really well. Number one is repeating summits year after year. Number two is clear messaging and clear audiences, like knowing exactly who you're targeting. Number three is time-sensitive deadlines for your all-access pass, and really great value too. And then the last one is using clean, simple funnel structures to keep everyone moving along nicely.

Speaker 1:

The last thing we're going to talk about is what surprises me most about summit marketing. The first one is, honestly, how early it actually starts. Like I said in the mistake of like no nurturing prior, getting your audience ready for a summit starts anywhere from six to eight to twelve weeks before the summit does, and you're not going to be putting out content related directly to the summit. You're not going to be talking about the summit yet, but you do need to be putting out that content, warming them up, getting them ready, making sure that your audience is engaged and growing, making an effort prior to the summit to grow your audience with lead generation, going a podcast tour, getting more visible through collaborations like that. Work starts three or more months before the summit. It really really, really should be ongoing. But if you're going to be hosting a summit, it needs to be consistent. It needs to be happening clear, like that, three to six months before the summit, so that your audience is warmed up by this time the summit comes, so that those people know who you are, they feel like they have a relationship with you and they're just ready to jump in.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that really surprises me I mean it shouldn't surprise me when I think about it, but it does every single time is how essential having team support can be. As a summit host, you have a lot of responsibilities during the summit itself and it's so helpful to have people there that you can be send a Slack message to like hey, this link is missing, can you grab it? And they can do that for you while you continue to do your presentation or while you continue to engage with participants. You can also have people supporting you by monitoring the chat and being able to answer questions and to reply to emails as quickly as possible, so that your summit participants feel like they're taken care of and that they feel supported. Same with your, your speakers.

Speaker 1:

You want to make sure that they know how to get to the, the panels and how to go live and how to access things where you need. They need to send any recordings that they have, making sure that you have the support so you can show up to the best of your ability to your audience and to your speakers, and also that everyone is getting their questions answered and that everything is flowing properly and that there's someone who's keeping everything on track and on time. And if there's a tech glitch, that you don't have to be the primary person responsible for it. While you're in the middle of a session or a live panel or some sort of social hour, you can have someone else who is really fielding that for you. And so if you are able to prioritize getting support during the summit, having a VA or someone else who's able to support you, I highly recommend recommend it Also when we're talking about support, having someone like a Facebook ad strategist running your ads can take that level off as well. Or a launch manager who can make sure all of the pieces are running really smoothly and effectively and just to take some of that pressure off of you so you can really focus on building those relationships with both the participants and the speakers. I really think that that should be your number one priority and that you have other people who are supporting you if you are able to do that.

Speaker 1:

So those are the mistakes, the things I've seen go really well, and then some things that really surprised me in summits. If you found anything really interesting or shocking or surprising, or you're like you're so wrong, gen Zaya, you don't know what you're talking about I'd love for you to send me a DM on Instagram. I'm at heyitsgenzaya, so definitely come check me out there and send me that DM. Let me know if you agree with what I said, disagree, or you found anything surprising or shocking. Episode number eight of our launch series is coming next and, of course, it's a Facebook ads one, so I'm really excited about it. We're going to be talking about metrics for summit host and what you should be tracking and some of the things that maybe you could just ignore. So I will see you back here for the next one. Just let it roll and then, yeah, have a wonderful day, thank you.