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

BYS 16 | Summit Topics That Convert

• Jenzaia • Episode 16

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In this revealing episode, I dive deep into the methodology behind creating summit topics that naturally attract your ideal buyers.  The key is finding that specific audience that will self-select if the summit is for them without being so niche that only a handful of people qualify. 

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SPEAKER_01:

This is Before Your Summit, episode number 16. Hey, I'm your host, Danzea, and today we're talking about summit topics that attract buyers. I don't really have any ideas for you. And I'm gonna explain why as we go through this episode. We are gonna talk about a lot of things that I hope will be helpful, but I do want to preface it with like there are summit topics on all kinds of different things that are successful and attract buyers. And I don't want to limit you. So I do want to just say I specifically there's two different types of buyers. We can be talking about all access past buyers, or we can talk about the post-summit launch buyers. And they are two different people, and I don't I don't know. Your summit topic needs to speak to those post-summit launch buyers because that is probably going to be your your money maker in your business after your summit. You're gonna launch your membership or your course or your high-ticket product or whatever it might be, and those are really who you want in your business, and so your summit topic needs to attract people that are going to buy that thing. Not that you don't want people to buy your all access pass, and I have some ideas and thoughts about that that we'll get into it in a minute. But when you're thinking about your summit topic, you really do need to think about what the end goal is. Who are you trying to attract into your business that will either today or sometime down the road be the right person to buy that product? Because typically speaking, a summit isn't going to be the revenue that keeps your business afloat. It can be a great cash influx. Typically, they're only done once or twice a year, and so it isn't normally the constant influx of cash coming from your summit. Now, I do know people who run summits every other month or once a quarter, and that could be business sustaining type revenue, but if you're only hosting the summit once or twice a year, then less so. And that's why considering who's going to buy your more signature offer, that membership or course or what have you is more important. Successful summits. So let's talk about some of the things that I've seen that are successful summits and to help talk about like how you figure out that topic. So the first thing is having a specific audience so that people can self-select if the summit is for them or not. And you have to be a little bit careful here because there's a point where it becomes too specific. I was given through something, I can't remember exactly where I got it, but a chat GPT program that rated my summit audience. And I was looking at established course creators and membership owners who have summits or uh other launch mechanisms that they're wanting to run ads to. And so that's kind of my like go-to audience is established course creators, membership owners, and summit hosts. And I kept getting a B. It was rating it and it kept saying, Oh, this is a B level audience, B. And I am an A student. So I was like, okay, well, how can I make it? So I was following its instructions and it was saying, be more specific in these different ways. I ended up with something along the lines of former Canadian teachers in their 30s and 40s who speak a second language with established courses, memberships, or summits looking to run ads in the summer months. Like it was absurdly specific, and I still only got a B, which is a completely different story of like how that Chat GPT prompt was flawed, but way, way, way too specific, right? I need to kind of like pull back and figure out who your summit is for by looking at that end goal. And now, depending on what that end goal is, your summit may be more or less specific, but it is really important that someone can go and look at the summit and be like, yes, this is for me. It needs to be more specific than course creators, it needs to be more specific than online business owners, it needs to be more specific than creatives, but it can't be so specific that nobody or like only five people in the entire world are like, oh yeah, that's me, right? Also, it can't be so specific that people tune out halfway through. Like when I was saying Canadian, former Canadian teachers turn business owners in their 30s, and like who I'm sure you all tuned out because you weren't like there's just too many qualifiers. So knowing exactly who the summit is for and allowing people to self-select in or out of like, yes, this would be valuable for me, or no, it wouldn't be valuable for me. Second piece of the audience is knowing if you're targeting consumers or fellow business owners. B2C summits tend to do really, really well. That's business to consumer. So people like teachers, moms, fitness enthusiasts, people who are who don't have their own business per se. I mean, a teacher could have its own business, but you're targeting the person who's in the classroom, not the business owner. Because of the newness, they're still not saturated in many niches, and it can be a new experience and a really great way to provide lots of education and knowledge and information for these people who are interested in consuming that information. Consumers tend to have more time on their hands and less money, so they like the free ticket, they're willing to sit there and consume all of the content versus a B2B summit, so business to business where you're targeting business owners or fellow entrepreneurs. And this audience has seen more summits, they know what they are like, they tend to have more walls up, they have less time on their hands to sit through presentations, and so it can be a little bit harder to get them to buy into the summit if they don't see immediate value, which is why being specific and ensuring that that business owner can see themselves and be like, yes, that is me, and it's exactly what I need immediately, is so important. You also want to make sure that the pitch that you're gonna be doing at the end is not a surprise. You don't need to be talking about it the whole time, but casually mentioning it and you know, like at the end, I'm gonna have a special offer for you through my program, blah, blah, blah, in my membership, bringing it up throughout the summit, throughout the promo process, in really natural conversational ways, and just making sure people know it exists and that there's gonna be a special offer for it at the end of the summit ensures that people are excited and that they are getting ready for that pitch to happen. Very important. Uh, you also want to make sure that the summit sessions that you're offering have value beyond whatever's being pitched. So if someone isn't in the right season of their life or their business to buy what you're offering, they're still gonna walk away with value either from your session or one of your presenter's sessions. Hopefully, more than just one. But you really want them to have that positive takeaway so that when they're looking back at the summit, they're like, oh yeah, that person gave me such great information. I want to go back to them. And that helps to build the trust and build the relationship so that when they are ready to buy, then they're like, Yes, I'm going straight back to this person that I met at the summit and I'm really excited about it. So those are some of the pieces that you really want to make sure you have in place for that successful summit. Some of the things you want to stay away from. Number one, mixed content. So having multiple different conflicting content tracks, I want to say it can be done. One of the first online summits that I went to, I think it was actually technically a conference, and it was gigantic, and it had some very distinct tracks, but there was also a team of like 50 to 100 people, like employees, working this conference and making it run seamlessly. So it worked a lot better than what many of us solopreneurs or small team can pull together for a summit. So you really want to be focused on that content because you want people to really be able to engage with, like I said, a good handful of content that they can walk away with and implement something new into their life or business that really has an impact. You don't want them checking out because they're like, uh, I don't know what applies to me and which parts I need and what I don't need. So you really want to make sure that you're as streamlined as possible with the content without everybody doing the same topic, obviously. The second thing that you need to be careful about is unclear messaging around your free ticket and the all access pass. I personally really recommend that my clients, when they're hosting summits, offer the free pass exclusively. Like that's all they're talking about. They barely even mention the all access pass until after someone has registered. Then once somebody's registered, they see the all access pass sales page and they start to get a ton of content, emails or what have you, ads start popping up about the all access pass. And that you need to be registered first because it helps with the decision fatigue, right? If someone has to decide, do I want the free ticket yes or no? That's just like a yes or no question. But is it do I want the free ticket or do I want the all access pass? Now we're adding something in there, and it's no longer just yes or no, it's yes or no, or this or that, or this, yes or no to this, yes or no to that, and it's too many layers. So you want to just keep things as simple as possible and make sure that the decision fatigue, which is so so real, doesn't come into play if at all possible. Because you to get someone to buy whatever you're launching after your summit, you need to get them to the summit first. Okay, now let's think about the topics, right? There are so many summits out there on literally every single topic, and my recommendation is that you go through this process that I'm gonna talk you through right now, and that is working backwards. So the first thing you need to write down, get a piece of paper. We're doing some like actual workshopping right now. The first thing that you need to write down is your offer. So for me, that would be my Facebook ad sprints. It's the six weeks, we work together, we get an ad up and running. That's the thing that I want to sell. I have, let's say, six spots over the next six months, one spot a month, right? So we know what we're offering and we need to know who we're offering it for. For me, it's established course creators, membership owners, and summit hosts. Then we take a step backwards. So that's as far back as we can get. Our next step would be who would we want at the summit that is gonna want those things? So, of course, I want established course creators, membership owners, and summit hosts. That are that's the people that do the best with the ad sprint, is people who have that established offer and that we can run ads for their freebie or their launch mechanism to sell that thing. And so that is that's where I'm at now. For my summit, what are some topics that those types of people would want to know about? This can go in a couple different directions, right? Like I could talk about launching a course summit um or yeah, course membership or summit, I could talk about profits within it, I could talk about creating these things, I could talk about like improving. So there's different facets, and so you're gonna want to write down all of the different topics that your audience might want to learn about so you can decide like which one is the best one for you, for your audience. Also considering actually, that's the next thing, so we won't go there yet. So now you know what your offer is at the end, who it's for, and that helps you figure out who the summit's for, and then you've brainstormed three to five different ideas that that audience would want to learn more about. And so for me, I feel like launching your offer and to make it more sustainable and more profitable is the best route to go for me because that's and I want to focus on launching it again, so relaunching your offer in a more profitable and sustainable way with the with that slight emphasis on relaunching because we want people who are established, they've already launched it, they've already had some success, and now they want to make it even better, build on it. And I acknowledge 100% that people are gonna sign up for a summit, even if they're not at that point. You're gonna have people who have yet to create their course who are not established course creators signing up for a summit designed for established course creators because that's what they're aspiring to be. And I totally understand that and I welcome it because get them into my world now, and then as they grow and as they develop, once they are ready to run ads, they've been following me for that much longer. We've built that relationship, we've built that trust, right? Like I personally see that as a really good thing. So from there, I want a couple of different sub-topics that my speakers could fall into. And so we could talk about marketing, which is really great because as a Facebook ad strategist, marketing is my strength. I can do a presentation there. The other thing that I think would be really great, another track would be like organizations, systems, tools, resources, which would be really great for anyone who is an OBM, anyone who has a specific tech that they like to use. So that's another tract. And then the last one could be about actual like course design and creation. So how can we and like member retention strategies for memberships? So, how can we get people who are experts there? And so now we have how do you make the course itself better, how do you make your operations and system better, and how do you market it better to ensure that your launch is better the next. So then when we put all this together, we can come up with the name of or the topic of the summit, which would then lead to the name of it, as well as like the catchphrase of the summit or the subheading, if you will, of the top of the title to help ensure clarity and tight messaging as well. So those are my recommendations on how you come up with a summit topic that actually attracts buyers, is by working backwards from who those buyers are. I can't really tell you like these specific words will work and these ones won't because it really depends on who you're trying to attract, what your niche is, and what your summit's going to look like. But go back, re-listen to those like three or four steps of working through from the like backwards. And then if you want like a bonus step, then you can also take that topic and think about a freebie that would interest the people that you want at your summit, so that you can start growing your email list with a freebie right now, and then when you are hosting your summit, you've already filled your list with people who are interested in the same thing that you're trying to buy or the same thing that you're trying to get them excited about at the summit, and they've been on your email list for a month, two months, three months, however long it's been, and you've already started to warm them up and you already built that relationship. So that would be like the little bonus step there is taking it like one little bit further with the freebie, but you don't have to do that. You can just figure out your topic, make sure that it's going to lead to ideal buyers down the road. And yeah, I hope that this was helpful.

SPEAKER_00:

If you are looking for tips and strategies to make your next summit the best one yet, come hang out with me on Instagram. I'm at Hey at Shenzea. I would love to connect with you there. So send me a DM and let's do this thing.