In the past few years, I've consulted on a lot of marketing campaigns, from NYT, WSJ, and USA Today bestselling book launches, to a record-setting Kickstarter campaign, to 5 and 6-figure virtual summit campaigns.
In that time, I've seen it all:
What works, what doesn't, and what's a distraction.
And that's why I wanted to talk about virtual summits.
A virtual summit is basically a conference hosted online.
Like a conference, the typical way to profit from a summit is by selling tickets and / or by selling sponsorship.
Pretty simple.
And surprisingly effective.
Here's a screenshot from the first two weeks of pre-orders on a recent client's campaign:
$10k+ in two weeks from ticket sales alone.
(and the final results were much better).
But here's the deal:
While 5-figures in a week is good, it's not the real value of a summit.
In many ways, the front-end ticket sales of a summit are chump-change compared to what you can earn on the backend…
…but more importantly:
The greatest value of a virtual summit, in my handsome, humble opinion, occurs behind the scenes.
It’s the stuff you don’t see, and that most people don’t share, because it’s not flashy…but boy can it be lucrative.
I break it down in my latest video:
Virtual Summits - Good or Bad?
(p.s. subscribe to my youtube channel here)
What we cover in this video:
- The good, the bad, and the ugly of hosting a virtual summit
- Should you host a virtual summit? 5 reasons for hosting a summit (and 3 reasons you might want to reconsider)
- Is the juice worth the squeeze when it comes to hosting a virtual summit? (e.g. who should and who should not host a summit, and why)
Things I mention in the video:
- The Complete Guide to Virtual Summits (my ridiculously in-depth breakdown on how to host your first virtual summit - totally free)
- Wellness, Wealth and Wisdom: Amazing Advice from Women of Color Summit (external)
- Leading With Style Summit (external)
- Behind the scenes of a 5-figure summit
- $100k Launch School
Notes / Resources
Want to host a virtual summit? Get the Virtual Summit Blueprint (a complete guide, wireframe, and additional reference materials for creating your very own summit) for FREE.
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thank you for sharing on the good and bad of running a summit. I'm hosting a virtual summit here in Asia and i fully agree that in spite of all the hard work, the email list is not satisfactory, the sales are just bad. After reading your step by step on how to run the virtual summit, I need to beef up some of the steps. However i do have a question, how do i capture email list and attendees from usa if i am based in Asia?
How can ensure that speakers promote for us ?