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

BYS 9 | Must-Haves Before Running Summit Ads

• Jenzaia • Episode 9

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Ready to amplify your summit with paid advertising? 

In this episode, we discover the five non-negotiable elements you need before spending a single dollar on ads for your upcoming summit. Skipping these foundations can drain your budget with disappointing results.

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Speaker 1:

this is before your summit, episode number nine. I'm your host, jensea, facebook ad strategist and summit lover. Today, we're going to be talking about something super important if you're going to be running ads for your upcoming summit, and that is the five things you need in place before you turn those ads on. So this is super important because if you don't have these five things in place, then you're going to be wasting money, and I don't want you wasting money on your ads. It's a splurge, if, if you will, it's like an expense. That's the real word I wanted. I was watching this Instagram reel of like, save and splurge and save and splurge, so those words are like straight up in my mind. There are some gorgeous outfits in that reel. Anyway, okay, okay. So ads are an expense that, especially if it's your first time running a summit, you might have a ton of other expenses, like your platform, branding, I don't know design, all of those things, and you may not have the budget for ads, which is totally okay, because running your first summit without any ads allows you to make sure that you have these five things in place and that they are crystal clear and proven, and you don't have to wonder about it, because you'll have that organic proof.

Speaker 1:

First and I'm probably going to say this again and again and again throughout the episode because I definitely wrote it at multiple bullet points I will say that it is common for me to see business owners that I work with. So I primarily work with teacher business owners who have courses and memberships and are launching those courses or memberships with a summit. That would be like a really huge portion of who I work with. They often wait too long to start at. So they have these things in place, but somewhere in the back of their brain there's this drive, this message they've been told and they've heard over and over again of like if you use ads or if you pay to get with like, if you pay and use ads, then your quote-unquote list isn't as worthy or your people will be as engaged. It's not as good as if you grow organically. And that is not true. The engagement of your audience has to do with how you relate to them, the relationships you build, the expertise that you provide in your like position. So what ads are is a traffic source and you're paying to shorten the time period. So once you have these five things in place, then absolutely add the ads in to your marketing plan. Okay, can I get off my little high horse there, or like rant, and let's go over the five things and then we'll go back over them in more detail. So the five things that you need to have in place before you run ads so that you're not wasting money.

Speaker 1:

Number one clear audience that you're going to be targeting. You know exactly who your summit's for. Number two proven messaging for the summit. So you know the the pain points. I will get into that.

Speaker 1:

Number three your landing page that converts. So this would be the summit registration page. You know that it converts. Number four an email sequence. Once somebody opts in and registers for the summit, they immediately start receiving your summit emails. And then, number five is tracking is set up properly, so let's dive into them. And these are not necessarily in order. You might do these in a different order and then also some of them clearly go together, like number two, the proven messaging. And number three a landing page that converts. Those are going to be highly correlated. If your messaging is on point, your landing page is going to convert better, and if your landing page is converting, then likely your messaging is on point. So let's go into them one by one.

Speaker 1:

Number one is clear target audience. You know exactly who your summit is for and the more clear you are on this, the better it is, the more successful your ads are going to be. This does not have anything to do with the targeting you'll use within the ads platform to send out the ads. This really has to do with who the you'll use within the ads platform to send out the ads. This really has to do with who the right fit for your summit is. You need to know exactly who the perfect attendees are, and often we see that a smaller niche, like a more specific niche, is going to do better. So you could be targeting elementary teachers. That's good. So teachers would be like the big big one. And then elementary teachers is more specific, obviously. Elementary music teachers or elementary math teachers, elementary ELA teachers those are all like even better, one step more specific. And if you can get that specific, that is amazing and it's going going to really really help you have a clear target audience for your summit.

Speaker 1:

Number two is proven messaging. This is ensuring that your offer is resonating with the people who are seeing it and making sure that you're speaking directly to their pain points, speaking directly to their hopes and dreams. You really want your messaging to be focused on the emotional side more than the tactical or strategic side. People don't really care if it's a workshop or a webinar or a summit, or if they're going to get a workbook with seven pages or 43 pages. People don't really care about those pieces of the puzzle. In fact, sometimes that can actually be overwhelming and not as helpful, knowing like, oh gosh, I have to go through 43 pages of this workbook. You really want them to feel like you understand their problem, what they are struggling with, and you can provide them with some sort of solution to that problem. So your messaging needs to speak to their emotional side and really make sure that you are offering a solution that is going to help them feel successful and that they can see that pathway. They not even they can see it. They can feel the pathway, that they will come out the other side of your summit, where they want to be, with a plan, with a strategy, with the steps that they need to overcome.

Speaker 1:

This problem that you are going to be promoting from organically or with paid ads is absolutely essential and you want to rely on your data, not your feelings on this. If the landing page isn't converting, if people aren't buying the all access pass, like if the numbers are saying it's not working, then it's not working. Even if you feel like this is it. If the numbers are telling you it's not working, it's not working. And, conversely, I've had people say like this doesn't feel like it's working, but when we look at the numbers or the data, the landing page is converting at like 60 percent and 20 percent of people are buying the all access pass. I'm like no, this is working. So you really want to rely on the data and the numbers over your feelings. If this is your first summit, and even if it isn't, you may want to wait until like three or four days into your summit before you turn on the ads, and that can help you to better understand if your messaging is on point and if organically through your own promotion and your summit or your speaker's promotion, if the messaging is resonating with people. That way, when you turn the ads on, it's just going to amplify what you're already doing because, again, ads are a traffic source. Whatever is working and happening organically and through your speaker promotion is what's going to happen through your paid advertisement. So that is a really important thing, and so if you're not 100% sure or if this is your first event, then waiting to turn the ads on can give you that confidence that things are working and that your messaging is on.

Speaker 1:

Point number three is your landing page is converting. Now, I said already that this goes hand in hand with your messaging, because if your messaging is on point, people are more likely to convert. But your landing page is more than that. The one focus that you need to have on your landing page is signing up for the free summit. I don't recommend that there's even the option of the all access pass on that summit page, on the registration page. I really, really am a believer that it's get people that free ticket, get people a free ticket, get people the free ticket and then, on the thank you page, introduce the all access path. So I'm that's that's my personal belief is that you really should be focused on your landing page to get people to convert, one yes at a time, and every yes is closer to the next yes, uh and give them lots of opportunities.

Speaker 1:

So make sure that there's buttons all over the page so they can click on the button that says register now, or sign me up at the very top of the page, at the very bottom of the page and like five times throughout the middle of the page, as at the very bottom of the page, and like five times throughout the middle of the page as well. It's going to feel like overkill, but that way, as soon as they're like yes, I'm in, there's a button there and they can sign up right away. Some of the things that you might want to play around with and test could be the headline at the very, very top of the page, some of those pain points that you're hitting at right at the top of the page, the button, the call to action like sign up now, register for free, get your ticket, what that button says, the color of the button, how big the button is, where it's placed. You do want to make sure that the button is above the fold, so that means, before someone even has to scroll, that they see that button and they can register right away, because we are lazy people and if we have to do any work, including scrolling, it can be too much. So you want to make it as easy as possible for people. I also recommend you make it as the least amount of distraction possible, and and what I mean by that is getting rid of your menu at the top of the page, getting rid of the pop-ups, getting rid of your sidebar. All people should be able to do on this page, any landing page, anytime you're running ads. The only thing they should be able to do on that page is the thing you want them to do. So in this case it would be registered for the summit before.

Speaker 1:

Like organically, we like to typically see landing pages converting at at least 30%, and even that sometimes feels low. I've definitely seen landing pages convert as high as 80% organically, but you do need to remember that as soon as you turn the ads on, they will convert lower than organically. Your organic traffic the people who already know you, have a relationship with you, know like trust, all of that yada, yada. They're going to say yes to whatever thing you're offering at a higher rate than strangers will 99 times out of a hundred. So if your organic traffic isn't at least 30%, then you're definitely going to be seeing low, low, lower numbers with the ads 99 out of a hundred times. And if you don't, you are the exception, not the rule.

Speaker 1:

And then my last thing that is really important with the landing page is making sure that it's optimized for mobile. Mobile A lot of people are going to be on their phones. They're going to be scrolling through Instagram or Facebook on their phone. They'll see the ad. They'll click over to it. They're not going to be on a desktop. They might decide to click over to their desktop, like switch over to their desktop to look at your landing page, but you want it to be optimized for mobile so that they don't have to and that they're able to see everything. So check the mobile version before you go live and also make sure that it loads quickly. You don't want a huge, gigantic images or videos. I do recommend you have a video on your summit registration page. Just needs to load really quickly.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number four thing that you need in place before you start running ads is an email sequence. No matter what free opt-in webinar summit, as soon as somebody signs up, they need to get an email confirming it and they need to continue getting emails from you every one to two days for the next week or two. This is really really, really important because if you pay to get somebody onto your email list through a summit or any other means and then they don't hear from you again. They are going to immediately forget who you are and you have wasted that money. So follow-up is very, very important with ads, making sure that you are immediately popping up in their inbox and then you pop up again and again and again over the next two weeks to build the trust and build a relationship and just the recognition. They may not open these emails, but your name seeing your name, in their email, like their inbox, is a micro, micro touch point. Macro touch point is them opening the email, them listening to a podcast episode, something big. Micro touch points are tiny, tiny, tiny things like just seeing your name in the inbox.

Speaker 1:

So you want to make sure that you are sending out those emails regularly. You want to make sure that, yeah, that they're getting immediate confirmation and then summit emails for the next week or two until the summit happens. And then I heard on another podcast summit summit host hangout. Uh, she was saying that she recommends that as soon as somebody opts into your summit, they stop receiving your new, your weekly newsletters, and I never really thought about it. But I totally, totally agree that if somebody has said yes to the summit, they don't need your regular emails anymore, especially in that two weeks leading up to the summit, when you're promoting the summit, you are going to be doing a lot of emailing out about register for the summit, buy the all-access pass. Register the summit by the all access pass. Register the summit by the all access pass. These people who have already done it don't need more promotion about it. So as soon as they sign up whether they are a cold lead from an ad or a warm one put them into your summit email sequence and no more emails until after the summit.

Speaker 1:

Okay, last thing that you need in place before you start running ads for your summit is your tracking, which means your pixel. Your meta pixel, needs to be installed on every single page that you have, especially your thank you page. You want to make sure that you have your lead pixel installed there. If you have a separate website and checkout so like, for example, I use squarespace for my website and thrive cart for my checkout I need to make sure that my pixel is installed on squarespace and also on thrive cart so that I'm able to track both people. Who viewed the summit registration page. People have viewed the all access pass sales page. People have viewed the checkout. People purchase, people viewed the thank you page. Like all of those different steps, I need to make sure my pixel is there. Plus, also, my website hosts my podcast episode show notes my pod. My website hosts my podcast episode show notes. My website hosts my services page. It hosts all those things. So I want to make sure everything is pixeled so that when I'm running ads, I can target all of those different audiences.

Speaker 1:

Another thing that I recommend for tracking purposes to every single client is having an ads only funnel. Single client is having an ads only funnel, and so what I mean by that often is duplicating your landing page that the ad is driving traffic to and then only ads traffic goes to that URL. The alternative option for a summit and I talked about this in a previous episode is creating an affiliate link for the summit, and so they actually go through the exact same funnel as everyone else, but the affiliate link tracks all access sales passes, all access past sales to the, the ads, so that you can track return on ad spend. You're going to lose a little bit of detail in the number of leads that the ads brought in and the the cost per lead that you're paying, so you need to keep that in mind. But the bigger, in my opinion, metric that you should be tracking is return on ad spend, and so sometimes it's okay to let go of those details. But I do love when we have a completely separate funnel and so I know exactly what the ad's doing and I don't need to wonder like, oh, is this an email campaign that's going on at the same time, or is this a different person or whatever promo? I just know, okay, the ads brought in exactly this many views, exactly this many leads, exactly this many sales, and it's very clear and obvious. And I don't actually have a lot of clients who do this, but I have had clients in the past that use UTM codes and Google Analytics.

Speaker 1:

If that's something that you're doing and you have set up, continue doing that. Make sure that you have your UTM codes for the summit. If not, you don't necessarily need to start. So those are the five things you need to have in place before you are running ads. Number one is clear audience targeting. You know exactly who your summit's for. Number two is proven messaging, so you know exactly how to speak to your target audience. Number three your landing page converts, so you know that everything is in the right spots. People know what they're supposed to do and they're actually doing it on the landing page. Number four is an email sequence so you're not ghosting these new leads. You do not want to pay to get someone onto your email list and then be like they don't need to know who I am Email them. Email them, please. And then the last one is tracking setup so that you can effectively track the success of the ads and also so that you can create audiences through the pixel and set up retargeting ads in the future. I hope that this was really really helpful.

Speaker 1:

If you are planning on running ads for an upcoming summit, you can download my eight week plan. It actually walks through exactly how I recommend you market organically paid ads and through your affiliates or your sponsors or your speakers every week, starting at eight weeks plus at the bottom there is modifications you can make if you have more time or less time. I personally always want my clients to start prepping for a summit at least 12 weeks out. Now you're not promoting the summit, but with a pre-summit lead generation. So yeah, the link for that is in the show notes. It's jenseaddemardellcom forward slash eight week plan. Eight is the number not spelled out. So eight week plan and you can grab that freebie. And I will be back next week with another episode. We are going to be talking about three funnels for your marketing, your summit marketing plan, from pre-marketing like pre-summit way long before all the way to your summit and getting people in the doors. So come back next week for episode number 10 of Before your Summit. Bye.