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

BYS 6 | Unlocking Speaker Promotion for Summit Success

• Jenzaia • Episode 6

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Getting speakers to promote your summit can be challenging, but understanding why they hesitate and implementing strategic solutions will transform your promotional results and summit success.

In this episode, we'll discuss some of the main reasons why speakers don't promote and what you can do to help prevent or at least minimize their roadblocks.


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Speaker 1:

this is before your summit, episode number six. Hey, I'm your host, anzea. I am a facebook ad strategist and summit lover. Today we're going to be talking about how to get your speakers to actually promote the dang thing. This can be something that is challenging and definitely a struggle that I have witnessed both as a speaker and seeing the frustration that hosts are having with getting people to promote, and also as behind the scenes a Facebook ad strategist working on summits Again, the frustration the hosts are feeling when their speakers aren't promoting, and so I have pulled together a collection of reasons why they might not be promoting and my suggestions and or solutions to help with that, and then I also have pulled together some of the best ways that I've seen summit hosts encourage and inspire their participants, their speakers, to promote. So, first of all, I just want to say that sometimes it won't make sense for your speakers to promote.

Speaker 1:

I have been behind the scenes of two summits that I can think of off the top of my head, maybe more, but definitely two where it didn't make sense for the speakers to promote. The first one was in healthcare, and the summit host was hosting a pretty specific disease-related conference for one specific type of healthcare worker, and all of the people who were presenting were either experts in that type of healthcare worker or the disease. Most of them were kind of like both and were able to inform and educate the participants, who were health care workers in that specific field, but not necessarily in the specific disease. So she was trying to get more of these health care professionals in that specific position to have a better understanding of their role when it came to that disease, and so she had educators and other people in the healthcare profession who were experts in the disease or experts in specific topics that could be relevant for these people in that specific position. So these are not the real things, but let's just say she was specifically speaking to nurses who deal with patients with diabetes. So she had many, many professionals who deal with diabetes who were coming in, nurses who specifically dealt with different types of diabetes and had different expertise and different specialties.

Speaker 1:

She was not, her speakers were not other business owners. They were experts in this field, and so this was a little bit more like how a traditional kind of conference would go for something like a, a company. So if a company was having a conference for only their company and they were, the goal was to educate their employees on a topic, then this would be kind of how it goes, where they bring in experts and all the experts want to do is give you their knowledge. They're not trying to sell anything. So the speakers in this case didn't have audiences and they didn't like have skin in the game of trying to grow an audience or anything. Their real motivation here was to get this knowledge about diabetes into the hands of more nurses. So I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

As to why we weren't, or her speakers weren't, promoting the second one that I can think of off the top of my head, this summit host had a membership for teachers who were in the classroom. So all of the members in her membership were current classroom teachers, were current classroom teachers. Now, whether or not they had businesses, I have no idea, because the whole point of her membership was helping teachers to be better organized and use their time more effectively and to run their classroom in a more efficient manner. And her summit she actually had teachers currently in the classroom, currently in her membership, presenting on some of the tips and strategies that she teaches in her membership, with the goal of growing that membership and wanting people to see. Okay, well, like if she teaches this thing, xyz, and I see that another teacher is implementing that strategy in her own way, so she's teaching xyz, but this other teacher is doing like wxy, so it's really similar to xyz, but this is the little modification and I can see that perfectly working my classroom to encourage that teacher who's still in the classroom to join the membership, to get all the other ideas. And so, again, these are teacher classroom teachers trying to help and support other classroom teachers. They don't have businesses, they don't have any skin in the game. And so, again, similarly, it didn't make sense for those classroom teachers to be sharing it with an audience, because their audience quote unquote is probably students or parents who have no reason to join the membership.

Speaker 1:

So that's another example of a great summit, very successful, but not one where the speakers were doing any sort of promotion. So if you fall into a similar category where your speakers don't have businesses, they don't have audiences, they're not influencers or content creators, then you might actually not have your speakers promoting at all In that case. So with the healthcare professionals, what we did was found a at least one, two different companies that fit in with her very specific niche that did have audiences, because they're companies and were willing to sponsor the summit and as part of the sponsorship package, they agreed to promote to their audiences and so that was a way that we were able to get affiliates and to get additional people. Uh, promoting the summit without it being the speakers. Now the other one, the second one, with teachers in the classroom there were no sponsorships, so there was no affiliate marketing that was happening and that worked really well for her and her business. Again, just something else to think about Now, now that we've got this covered assuming that if you're still here and still listening, your summit does have speakers and you're looking to get them to promote let's talk about why they're not promoting.

Speaker 1:

So this first one, a hundred percent I am guilty of, and that is they don't have confidence in the size of their audience or they don't think that their audience it'll be worth it for them to promote to their audience because it's only 100 people. So the first summit that I was part of, my audience was still really small. My email list was probably in that 100 to 200 people range and I I totally emphasize with empathize with people who have this same feeling of like what's the point? My audience is so small I'm not going to be able to get that many people. Nobody's listening to me, nobody cares what I have to say, and so, as a summit host, part of your job is encouraging your speakers to share anyway with their audience, no matter how big their audience is, and one of the things that I like to always remind people is that smaller audiences actually tend to be more engaged. The first people who join your list are more engaged, and they're currently engaged as your list grows to a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. There's so many people that have been on this journey with you for such a long time that they started to tune you out or you're no longer relevant or some other reason, that they aren't keeping up with you as closely as those first hundred people were when there was only a hundred people who were on your list, and so typically smaller email lists, smaller social followings, will have higher engagement levels than those bigger lists. That's not always the case, but it can be true. So reminding your summit host that if they have a small audience, it's still extremely valuable, and those people are probably more engaged than the larger audiences more engaged than the larger audiences.

Speaker 1:

Now, the other thing that one of my coaches used to say all the time was you practice how you play or you play how you practice. It doesn't sound right when you, when you say you play how you practice, like you practice how you play, sounds better in my mouth. But point being is that if you practice like garbage now when your audience is small and there's no one watching quote unquote you are going to play with a bigger audience like garbage because you don't have the practice now and this isn't practice. This is a real summit that people are getting involved in, that people are getting involved in. But if people don't think it's valuable or worth it or have confidence in their audience size because there's only 100 people on their email list or whatever it might be, and they're like oh well, it's not worth it now, what numbers are going to change at? Is 1000 people enough? Is 10,000 people enough? Like, where is that changing? And if you don't practice now and make the mistakes now, then you're going to make those mistakes when your audience is bigger and it's going to be even more detrimental.

Speaker 1:

So those are my suggestions for your speakers who are saying, like my audience isn't big enough, it's not valuable for, like, I don't think it'll be worth it because I have such a small audience. So what's the point anyway? Just reminding them of their audience is probably more engaged percentage wise than a larger audience, and it might not be worth it today, but you're going to learn some really valuable things along this way. For that, when it is bigger and when it is worth it, then you'll learn those hard lessons sooner rather than later. The second reason and this is kind of a double, but they go really really well together the second one is they don't feel like it's for them or for their business, and or they don't see the value in promoting. So this is kind of hard because, yes, the majority of the leads for a summit and the money that is made from a summit do go to the host and so, in a way, the work that a speaker is putting in, they're doing it for the other person's business, because I don't recommend that summit hosts share the entire list with all of the speakers.

Speaker 1:

I've been a speaker in summits like that. I've also been a participant in summits like that and as a speaker, I've always felt really strange getting this spreadsheet of email lists after the fact, even when it's well stated on the website, it still feels weird because the person didn't opt into my list directly. They opted into something else. So I really don't like when summit hosts share the entire list of registrants with the speakers. I much prefer that there's an opportunity for the participants to opt in individually to the speakers freebies that they offer as a participant. Oh, my goodness, after summits, when these lists are shared and all of a sudden you have 50 emails popping up in your inbox and you're just like I don't. Who are you? Because so frequently this person gets your email list from the summit host and then just starts emailing you and you're kind of like uh, how did you get my email? If you ever are part of a summit where the host gives you the emails and you choose to use them totally legit If the summit host made that disclaimer and made sure everyone was aware, as they were opting in, that their email address would be shared with all speakers, fine, just make sure that you send a.

Speaker 1:

Hey, my name is Jen Zaya and I'm emailing you from the Fabulous Baby Summit. I'm looking at a picture of my like a baby, baby, baby picture of my daughter right now, like I'm emailing you from the Fabulous Baby Picture Summit that was hosted last weekend by so-and-so. Put the host name in there. I presented on this topic and if you're allowed to provide a link to your presentation so that they can be reminded of it, then that's even better. Making sure that you send that email with a clear like if you don't want to be part of my email list, click here to opt out. I know you have to have the unsubscribe at the button. I like to make it extra, extra clear and so anyway, that's a side note.

Speaker 1:

If you're in a house where you get all the emails, so typically you don't, so sometimes speakers are going to feel like there's nothing in it for them. Everything is for the host. You're doing all of this hard work for the host. I'm not getting anything from it, there's no value in it for me, and I do see where that comes from. But also, solving this comes from encouragement and education by the host.

Speaker 1:

As the summit host, part of your responsibility will be to encourage all of your speakers to be continually promoting, based on those expectations that you set out initially, whether or not you have a contract that they need to sign, and I would say more and more frequently, summit hosts are having their speakers sign contracts as part of the agreement and often it will include very specific you need to send out x number of emails and x number of social posts. I recently saw one that said you need to send out three emails or guarantee that you will get at least a hundred signups from two emails. I had a lot of feelings about this person's summit thing. There was an email list size requirement. There was that email like send out three unless you can guarantee whatever required. There was tons of things. I was like, oh, I don't love these expectations, but not a client of mine.

Speaker 1:

I was looking for speakers or summits to apply to and I was like I'm just not going to apply to this opportunity. But yeah, so education, helping the speakers to see and understand the value that it creates for their business beyond new late leads and sales because, yes, they are going to get new leads and they're going to get new sales. And the more that each individual speaker promotes the event, the better it is for everyone and it's really important that, as the host, you remind speakers of this, but it is also a very wonderful chance for them to nurture their own audience and to show up as an expert for their audience, who have already said, yes, I want to be part of your world. And so, by sending out those emails and sending out those social posts, that is a really great way for them to get their audience to sign up. And it's an opportunity for the speaker to nurture their own audience. Because, if you think about it, when you sign up for a summit, because of Susie Q, whose presentation are you going to watch first? If you can suzy q's, right, like my audience is probably going to watch my presentation first. If they can't know, I understand with scheduling they might not be able to, but it is if, if I can watch the person whose name I signed up under, if I can watch their first, I'm going to every single time Because I already know them, I already trust them and I probably already know that I like their content, delivery, style and I want to learn more from them. And so, reminding your presenters that it's an opportunity to, yes, make new leads, yes, make some sales, hopefully, but also to nurture their own audience and really give them value for their own business, because it really does benefit everybody and but them promoting might, in some ways, benefit themselves the least. These people are already on their email list and, depending on the percentage of people who buy the L access pass like they might not get some tons of sales, but the nurture value is key and it gives them a chance to show up as an expert yet again. Okay, so those are the first two.

Speaker 1:

The next one has also happened to me, so I'm going to tell a little personal story here. But the next reason that your speakers aren't promoting is because something is happening in their lives, and there's definitely people that, like something is always happening and they leave things to the last minute and then it starts to rain and they can't go get their car washed if they need their car washed and things are terrible and yada, yada, yada. But then other times there's like genuine life-changing, altering moments, and so for me, the last summit that I was part of, the about, I want to say like seven to ten days before the summit was going live, so prime promo time one of my children's teacher died now, not their main teacher, but somebody that they interacted with on a regular basis and was quite an important part of their education passed away unexpectedly, was at school on Thursday and then passed away in their sleep Friday morning, I guess, and yeah, so that was pretty devastating and basically everything in our lives, with the exception of making sure our children were emotionally safe and cared for and had healthy ways to move through their grief. That was the only thing that was important to us, right, and because of where it was with the summit and I hadn't pre-scheduled emails or social posts, I knew I had the two emails I had to send out and so I was able to do that, but my goal had actually been to send out additional emails beyond what was expected of me, but because of that very life-altering moment, I wasn't able to.

Speaker 1:

And, yes, I guess that kind of does come down to like I needed to get my car washed and now it's raining, I can't get my car washed and I'm in a bind. But there's definitely times where, like worlds and I didn't mention it to the summit host because it didn't even cross my mind to tell her right Like we were so focused on I don't want to say crisis management, but just in our little bubble that it didn't, it just didn't even make sense for me to come out and say anything, and so we always need to just be mindful that we don't know what's going on in someone else's life and, to be kind, there, there's not a lot you can do if that's the case, like if someone close to one of your speakers passes away or if some other crisis arises and they're not able to promote as they wanted to. There, there's not really anything you can do. I just wanted to like bring it up and make it kind of like no, now I would say that this is probably a very low percentage. Maybe there are going to be people who catastrophize things and like well, I couldn't present because it started raining or whatever. Right, like I couldn't get my presentation in on time because it was raining. Right, like were you recording outside, which I have done before, but like, were you recording outside. So, anyway, that's that's one.

Speaker 1:

This one isn't even on my list, but it did come to my brain and so I don't have notes about this one. But I'm just going to like go and it's the opposite of the first one and it's. My audience is so big, I'm too big of a deal, I'm too important. I've never personally had to deal with this, but I have had summit hosts tell me horror stories about this of like well, my email list is 25 000, so I I'm just like too good.

Speaker 1:

My recommendation would be the education piece of like how you're helping and supporting everyone and we're all working together to make this the best possible event is helpful, but then also maybe like blacklist that person. If you don't want to be a team player, then I don't want you on my team. As blunt as that is, that's all I've got for you, and the last one I wrote down was they just don't want to. People just don't want to do things. I and my notes here are no real solution for this one. If someone doesn't want to do something, they're not going to want to do something right, and so that can be really hard.

Speaker 1:

But hopefully, with the education piece that you're going to be doing, in general, it will motivate and encourage people to want to present or not present, but promote for the summit. How you can make it as easy as possible is to simplify that promotion for them by providing them with what I call a speaker promo kit. That includes graphics, so either images or video in a multitude of sizes so they can pick whether they're going to put it on Facebook or Instagram story real grid posts like where they're going to put it and that there's all the different aspect ratios, especially if there's writing on the on it, that they're able to use it how they need to. You're also going to want to have short version, short form copy, so social media, post type copy, and then long form copy for things like emails that they're going to send out. You want to make it as easy as possible.

Speaker 1:

I also really appreciate it when a summit host says that they encourage me to modify the copy so it fits my brand and my brand voice. I appreciate the permission given there that I don't have to keep the copy word for word. I change it even when I don't have that permission, just like if there's a word that I would never use or phrasing somehow, or typically, if there's a list of speakers and my name isn't on that list, I'll get rid of someone and add my own name, or just add my own name to the list as well, because I like my audience to see my name on that list. But yeah, I do appreciate when there's permission given to change the copy. Another thing that I'm seeing I don't know, I saw it recently with a summit that's coming. That I'm seeing, I don't know. I saw it recently with a summit that's coming, and then a couple years ago it was a much bigger phenomenon. But the collaborative reels so something like we're passing sunglasses and each time the sunglasses are put on, it's a different person in the summit to introduce the people in the summit and so that you can all use this video or passing a ball, passing a pen, people holding up a different word, and it spells. That was really, really popular during the pandemic of people holding up different words, and it spells something when you put them all together. Uh, yeah, so collaborative reels, or images that everyone's part of and again can be part of that summit promo kit.

Speaker 1:

Also, if you create any ads for, like videos for your ads, where speakers, clips from the presentations are included, those are really great. So I've seen them. Things like, hey, I'm Jen Zaya and I'm a Facebook ad strategist, and then it clips to the next person. It says hey, I'm Susiea and I'm a Facebook ad strategist, and then it clips to the next person that says hey, I'm Susie Q and I'm a social media manager, and it flips to the next person like, hi, I'm Tommy and I'm a blah, blah, blah. Right, so it shows everyone. So sometimes it has the words and other times it's just a three, five second video clip pulled from the presentation. Sometimes it's five seconds here and five seconds here and five seconds here of one person's presentation, so that they're getting kind of like all different various clips of that one presentation to see, kind of like spotlighting a specific speaker. And that can be a really great way to provide additional visual material for your speakers to use as part of their promotion, and people always love it when their face is in it. So trying to get, or actually ensuring that, everyone's face or as many people's face as possible because, yes, people will share something that their face isn't in, but they're even more likely to do it if they are part of that video clip or they're part of that image.

Speaker 1:

Okay, next thing is when and how to ask for the promotion. So the first time you're going to ask is right away, before the person even signs up. I'm seeing it more and more in applications saying the expectation is to do two social posts and two emails or whatever the the requirement is. Is that something you can do yes or no as part of the application? And you have to say yes, it is, or no, it's not right away and obviously if you say no, you may not get selected and then again, as part the like formal, you've been selected to be part of the summit. The expectations are X, y, z. Please contact me as soon as possible if you cannot meet these requirements.

Speaker 1:

And I have actually once reached out to a summit host and requested a flip of can I do an extra email and less social media posts? I wasn't posting anything on social media at the time and I was like I just want to do can I do extra emails and send those out instead of the social media? And that was fine. I also would totally do like a summit or a podcast episode. I have never actually done this one, but saying like again. I don't really post on social media very often. Would you be open to being a guest on my podcast? We can chat about the upcoming summit? Do a little promo of the summit on my podcast. I get 100 listens or downloads in the first 24 hours, blah, blah, blah. Like giving them that information and so being willing as a speaker to reach out with opportunity, like alternatives. But yeah, so as a host, telling them during the application when they've been selected and then when the summit speaker promo kit becomes available, making sure it's sent out and then, I would say, the week before promotion starts, sending out an email again with the link to the promo kit and then, during promotion, at least once, if not twice, a week, sending out a templated, formulaic email to everyone, even going as far as including a line that says this is a pre-scheduled email.

Speaker 1:

And the reason I'm saying this is because I have felt shame and embarrassment and I know other speakers at summits, like for summits, have also felt the same way. When summit hosts I don't want to say singling out, because it's an email just sent to me, nobody else knows it, but just the wording of it of like you only have one registration and it never says you're not doing a good enough job. But that's always the way I feel. And when you're left feeling that way as a speaker like I, don't feel good. My feelings towards the summit are no longer positive. I want to feel positive about promoting the summit and you drawing attention to you're not doing a good job. Promoting is not making me feel more positive and I get that. It's my own fault in those situations, going back to like not having confidence in the size of my audience, not feeling like it's going to be worth it because I'm only going to have one sign up. You're just like jamming that back into my head of like you only have a hundred people on your email list, you only have one sign up. You're not doing a good enough job. It just doesn't make you feel good. So, as a host, I really recommend that you try and avoid any emails that are calling people out not doing a good job. Avoid that shame, avoid that embarrassment and really just focus on encouragement and uplifting and inspiring and making sure people know I'm sharing the link with you to make it easy to promote. I want you to make sure that you're doing that promotion effectively and in a timely manner and we're here to help and support you in any way you need. That's my recommendation Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it. Take it or leave it.

Speaker 1:

Now some creative ways that I've seen summit hosts try to boost speaker promotion participation is including a base payout for everyone who meets those promo expectations, and so there needs to be a way for you to submit your speakers, to submit proof of having sent the emails and send putting out the Instagram or social media posts, something like a Google form or an air table form, they're able to submit the proof that they sent and they did the promotion and then they get paid a flat rate, whether or not they got signups, whether or not they got all access passes. Love that, because then there is a reason for me to promote, I'm getting paid to promote. And now I've actually never got the flat payout because I just don't submit my proof. It's so ridiculous. I am willing to send out the emails, I'm willing to do the social media posts, and then I'm just like eh, whatever, I'm not going to fill out the Google form, so I leave a hundred dollars on the table, but whatever. So putting that out there.

Speaker 1:

Basically, if you do what you said you were going to do, I'll give you cash monies and then prizes. So there's a couple of different ways you can do prizes. Number one is hitting milestones. So let's just say, at five all access sales passes sold, you get like a $10 Amazon gift card. At 20 all access pass sold, you get a $50 Amazon gift card. Right, like there's different milestones and as you hit those milestones you get an additional bonus payout of some sort. Or you could have like a sliding scale if you will. So the first all access pass that you sell you get 20% for, and then number two and number three, number four, number five, you get 30, and then six, and beyond is 40 right, and so the more you sell, the higher percentage gets. Now, I've never actually seen this in practice in a summit.

Speaker 1:

The idea came to me because I was talking to a friend who's a real estate agent and she was telling me about how her salary or her commission is paid out and she's considering going to a different brokerage and that's this is how they. They do it depending on the I think it's the units sold. Her commission is on a sliding scale. It starts at X percentage and it can go up like it can more than double, I think, if I remember correctly. It doesn't really matter, but yeah, so same idea. You sell one all access pass, you get 20, two, three, four or five, you get 30, and then six or more, you get 40 or whatever the numbers you want them to be doesn Doesn't really matter, but that there is incentive to sell more because the payout increases, and then additionally for prizes.

Speaker 1:

There you can run like contests, and I recommend that you run two different types of contests. So the first one would be like on Thursday, who can get the most registrations? So, from 9amm to 9 pm, whoever gets that top number of registrations or the top number of all access pass sales or the top number of whatever your goal is the most number of clicks on their link, then they win a prize. And then the second one is anybody who does X gets entered into a draw. So anybody who gets at least one all access sales pass sold gets entered into a draw to win. And the reason why I like both of these different types is because the most is encouraging people to really work hard and to really reach out to their audiences, and that especially is good for those bigger sellers or not bigger sellers, but bigger speakers with bigger audiences and then that everybody and gets entered into a draw keeps those people with smaller audiences engaged and involved because they're like well, I only have a hundred people on my list, but if I can get one sale, I'm entered into this draw, and so that can be like a really great way to encourage everybody to be able to participate, not only having the most clicks on tuesday or whatever the most can be really really hard for those people with smaller audiences. So unless everybody in your summit, all of the speakers have similar sized audiences, I would say within like a thousand ish range, then I wouldn't be doing only most some 50, 50, great, but not only so.

Speaker 1:

You could also do story. This is another idea for prizes, something like a bingo card or a tic-tac-toe of like do all of these things and then again either you get a prize because you did them all, or you get entered into a draw because you did them all, or you got a line, whatever it is that makes sense for, for what's on the card. But that could be a really fun way too, of like send an email and then you get to put an x on your bingo card. Do a social promo and you put an X on your on your bingo card. Talk one-on-one with somebody in your DMs and then they can put an X on their bingo card. Right, like. So coming up with different ways to promote the summit for your speakers and making it fun and making more engaging and more interactive is a really great way to encourage people to participate.

Speaker 1:

Okay, this was huge.

Speaker 1:

This was a long episode.

Speaker 1:

I hope that it was really helpful for you to kind of like understand the psychology and some of the solutions and ways that you can prevent these problems from happening. As a speaker, I also wanna front load some of this. That's why, like education is key, really like making sure your speakers understand and feel valued and feel encouraged and really, really truly understand how important it is that everybody participates, because if they understand it, that's half the battle, right, and if they feel valued, half the battle. So, front loading some of that so you're not as deep in the weeds dealing with speaker promo issues the actual weeks of your launch. You've already like front loaded that work and tried to deal with it beforehand, and that I've also given you some fun ideas to get people more engaged and more active and participating more in the promotion period. So thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

I hope you're going to stick around and listen to episode number eight, the last, oh sorry, number seven. Number seven, which is behind the scenes. I'm going to be talking about some of the things that I've learned when I've been supporting the most successful and least successful summit, some insight, what I've learned in the past four years, and yeah, and then episode number eight. After that is Facebook ad metrics that you need to be tracking. As a summit host, you know I'm a Facebook ad strategist, so metrics is something I could talk about for ages. So stick around for those next two episodes and I will see you there, thank you.