Everything You Need to Know About Hosting a Virtual Summit


In March this year, Microsoft Build’s developer conference received a lot of attention. The well-known software provider decided to cancel their annual event due to the coronavirus and host a ‘virtual summit’ instead.

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The coronavirus is changing the way we work. It limits us significantly but also offers valuable lessons and opportunities to improve strategies, businesses, and workflows. Many of our interactions are now happening online instead of offline. Online marketing, websites and sales funnels are gaining importance, and digital events are becoming the norm.

Not only Microsoft but also many smaller startups have been organizing online events and summits recently. With success. A virtual summit offers companies a great way to keep doing what they do best: Connect, inform, and offer their product or service to a growing audience.

In this blog, we will dive into the possibilities of hosting a virtual summit. We will look at the steps to take in preparation for a successful event and give you a clever shortcut that saves a lot of time and money.

Why host a virtual summit?

Now is the perfect time to host a virtual summit. Why? Because many activities are happening online at the moment. People spend their days at home and miss attending events. They want to connect with others and have the time and energy to learn new things.

As a business, you can use your summit to:

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Four steps towards a successful virtual summit

Let’s take a look at the practical side of this. What goes into organizing a successful online event? Which steps need to be taken to ensure success?

 

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1. Plan your content

The most important part of every event is, of course, the content.

A summit depends on an interesting topic, inspirational speakers and a setup that people can easily follow.

Make sure to carefully consider:

  1. The main topic of the event
  2. The target audience you are wanting to reach
  3. The talks and discussions your audience will find interesting
  4. The speakers you would like to invite

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2. Consider your logistics

Once your general design is in place, it’s time to look at the logistics.

Questions to ask at this stage are:

  1. What is the best date and time for the event?
  2. How long should the event last?
  3. How do people sign up and attend?
  4. Are you selling tickets or running another form of registration?
  5. Is there a limit to the number of people who can attend?
  6. Do you want to record your seminar, to make the talks available after the event has ended?

Many summit organizers offer both a free and a paid version of their event. A free version can include only a few presentations, or just a short ‘sneak peek.’ The paid version gives access to an exclusive membership page on the website, where paid participants can access extra presentations or discussions.

This allows you, as the organizer, to attract new people with a free offer, collect email addresses through their signup, and offer them a paid ‘full-access’ ticket by email.

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3. Set up a website and a payment system

To host a successful event, you need a website for the promotion of the event, for ticket sales or registration, and for accepting payments or registrations.

Think carefully about both the software and hardware you need for your event. You will, for instance, need a good microphone, a webcam, a reliable computer and fast internet.

The software you need consists of an email invite system, a payment processor and checkout system, landing pages, and a well thought-out marketing plan to tie all of these efforts together into a successful funnel.

Although this depends on your event and preferences, we recommend you to set up a website with at least the following pages:

  1. A general homepage that lists the speakers and topics of the event. This is where you can encourage people to leave their details for more information or for access to the free section of the summit (if this is something you are planning to offer, of course).
  2. A sign-up page for the full summit. This page needs to include a checkout function if payment for the summit is required.
  3. A confirmation page that lists everything your participants need to know after signup. Think of timing, tickets, reminders or login details. Of course, the same information needs to be provided by email too.
     

4. Promote your event

This brings us to a crucial part of hosting a summit: promoting it.

For a successful event, you need an audience. How do you reach this audience? By applying clever marketing strategies and a strong marketing funnel.

Most people promote their event by using one or more of the following strategies:

  1. Email marketing strategies
  2. Social media marketing
  3. Affiliate marketing (collaborations with speakers, for instance)
  4. Online advertising

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A ready-made funnel as a shortcut

Does all of this sound like a lot of work? Although it is more than worth it, hosting a successful summit is definitely time-consuming.

Luckily, there are ways to save a lot of time figuring out the logistics.

A ready-made funnel, for instance.

We offer a complete funnel that has been specifically designed to host online summits.

What does this mean?

In short, it is a pre-built funnel within the very successful All-in-One Marketing Platform Kartra.

The funnel includes:

  1. A pre-designed website

The website is beautifully designed already and includes elements like:

  1. A space to promote your speakers
  2. Space for a promotional video of your event
  3. A sign-up page
  4. A checkout page
  5. A confirmation page
  6. A custom membership area

A pre-designed website is ideal for those without too much knowledge of web design. The only thing you need to do is replace the existing text, images, and video with yours.

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2. Email sequences and automation

The pre-made funnel also includes email sequences and automation techniques. Through automated actions, the funnel will attract more and more potential clients and lead them towards a paid signup.

The Katra software works on collecting details from website visitors by offering, for instance, a free preview of the summit.

Once an email list is built, automated emails are sent out to the mailing list to connect with the audience, share special offers, or simply invite people to the paid section of the event.

The emails the system sends out are highly personalized:

Automating email sequences has been proven to be an incredibly successful and easy marketing strategy. The right people get the right emails at the right times, and all you have to do is wait for signups and sales.

3. A custom membership area

To be able to differentiate between those with free access and those with a full ‘VIP’ pass, the pre-made website includes a custom ‘membership area’. This is where people with a full access pass can login and enjoy the extra content that is made available to them.

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Need help?

Are you interested in hosting a virtual summit? We would love to help you out, with or without a pre-designed funnel and website.

Feel free to contact us for a FREE strategy call so we can get to know your business and discuss what we can do for you.

Are you looking for a place to expand your knowledge on social media, digital marketing, and online sales funnels? Then you might be interested in our Social Media Gids Community. Here you can connect with other experts, get answers to all your questions, and join one of our useful online courses.

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  • Blogger: Francisca Zimmermann
  • E-mail: [email protected]
  • Social media manager & content creator at Social Media Gids
  • Francisca Zimmermann is a social media expert with a background in research and a love for learning new things. She travels the world looking for beautiful places and interesting cultures, while she dives into the world of her clients to be able to write about them and their interests as a real 'insider'.
  • Other blog articles of Francisca Zimmermann