Hey, hey, welcome to the Summit Host Hangout Podcast where you'll learn how to host a high converting virtual summit that leads to your biggest signature offer launch yet. I'm your host Krista from Summit in a Box. And today I have a very special guest my marketing and client success lead Elli is here with me today. Hi, Elli.
Hi, I'm really excited to chat with you today.
Yeah, this is gonna be so fun. We get to nerd out together for like, for the first time, I guess back in the day, I think you were on here, but this is gonna be
Yeah, the first time like nerding out on Summit in a Box stuff.
So back in episode 186, I shared about why we were hosting and paid conference. So if you have not listened to that, go back and see just how naive I was about this process. We're back today to share what surprised us the most about running that event that I was talking about. And if you're not clear on the difference between a summit and a conference, hang tight, we have that coming in Episode 195. If I would have planned better, you know, that might have come first, but this is just how it's happening. If that episode is already out when you're listening to this, you might even want to jump over there first. And honestly, that entire episode is my biggest surprise. Like I went over why I thought the strategies would be different in Episode 186, but I really had no idea until I was in it. Elli talking to her about it helped me see things like even clearer like oh my gosh, there is nothing the same about a conference in the summit. These strategies are not interchangeable, at least in the way that we run them, like the fact that they are online events is like where the similarities end, in my mind now that we've done this, so we'll kind of dive into more on that later. But I think the more important part is that we survived. And we did it. And we know lots of things now.
Yeah, we did it. We made it to the other side and yeah, the differences between a free summit, like the way we run them, and this conference surprised me for so many reasons. But for sure, like I mean, I'm in kind of the marketing and copy role, and so that's what I was like more kind of in tune with, but like from from a marketing and copy perspective, it was so different than I was expecting going in.
Yeah, it was like, every single time we we pulled something up to work on it. We're like, oh my gosh, like we are doing all of this from scratch. So let's kind of dive into what those biggest things were. And like you said, like, the core piece, I think that really surprised us was the marketing overall, like the positioning the promotion and everything that went into that. So I'm just gonna kind of hand it over to you to kind of start talking your way through and we can kind of go back and forth on some things. But let's talk through what surprised us most about hosting this event.
Yeah, so when I like sort of, I came in and started working on my like, first pieces of bringing this conference together, we have already done like kind of the initial positioning work like you had already come up with the name, the general concept for the conference and things like that. And so those decisions were already made. And then my part was kind of to take that and build on it for the like for the registration page slash sales page for the conference. But then like just kind of the way I write copy, that is where I develop all the messaging. That registration page is like the starting point for then, like the promotional copy and everything else that will come from there. And when I, you know, had that task as I like I knew I was going to start writing this registration page, like you know, in the next couple of weeks, and it honestly kind of snuck up on me just because like, there was just a lot more that went into it than I was I was anticipating. I was anticipating it being a lot more like a summit registration page, which I've talked about here and this you know, we've talked about before that like you should approach your registration page for a free summit as if it were a paid offer as if it were a sales page because people are paying with their time it's a big event like you need to give people enough context and enough of a reason like why they should care about this on that registration page in order to get them sign up to sign up. So you know, in my mind, it's like they're kind of similar we're like trying to sell the idea of a free summit anyways. But when you put that price tag on something and you ask people upfront for like that initial transaction or interaction with you, rather than it just being give me your email address, but it's give me not literally give me your credit card info but like take the time to like put in you put in your information and pay for something. Even if it's a low ticket thing, just the barrier to entry is so much higher, and the standard is just so much higher when you're selling something that's paid because there's just a it's like a higher hurdle I guess to jump. And so you know comparing the the experience I guess of writing that page was really a lot more similar to writing like a full blown sales page like when we launched the Accelerator when we were launching like a big high ticket program which was the last like big copy that the you know, big project copy wise that I've written for Summit in a Box. We're just kind of coming off the back end of that. And this was so much more similar to that like a, you know, a high ticket sales page than than a free Summit, so that surprised me right off the bat.
Yeah, and like I have seen people like, want to take a free summit and just add a price tag to it. For various reasons,
Please don't do that.
Seeing you go, yeah, seeing you go through this process is like, oh my gosh, that just destroys everything about both strategies. When you do something like that. They're just, it's just not the same. And something that like, I didn't realize until you were actually just talking about this that I feel like I got lucky with in this position, when I was doing my initial positioning work was that I was kind of positioning it for people at a much more elevated level. Like for a free Summit, you're kind of talking to people at all different points of the journey of this transformation, you're talking about people who don't quite know they need it yet, but you're piquing their interest and they're willing to sign up because it's just entering they're info like their email address. And you're talking all the way up to people who like, no, they want to make progress on the thing, and just kind of need help to get started. And this conference was talking more to those more elevated people, and we're kind of more selling them the idea that our way is the best way, and that it's worth their monetary investment, even if it's a small, like a relatively small amount of money. And it's like, I feel like I got really lucky with that with the way I initially came up with, like, the general concept and name and stuff like that. And then it all just kind of came I don't want to say crashing down on you when you were writing the copy. But that's kind of what happened is like, good luck, Elli. I will I will be over here. You do all the hard work.
You know, it's really interesting, because I think like overall like for like the event experience and everything like that, like the way that it was positioned, and the way we were speaking to that, you know, kind of more elevated more like person who is like sure that they want to host a summit or like kind of like is in a different mindset, I guess then like what we might host a free summit on, overall I think that worked incredibly well for the for the experience itself. But with the the initial copy and like, you know, you've heard us talk about or you've heard Krista talk about, like, the importance of like being really specific in your positioning of your summit to give like a clear, tangible outcome of like, what exactly is it that people are going to walk away with, the way that we positioned, this event was a much more almost aspirational, I guess, outcome that was just kind of showing like, this is what a summit can do for your business. And it worked, you know, overall worked really well. But that's a harder, it's a harder transformation to communicate. And so that I think communicated or sorry, that I think contributed a lot to that, like, kind of heavier lift for writing this sales page, and then also all the other promotional copy for this was that, you know, it's not like, you know, we're gonna, in the timeframe of the summit in five days, we're gonna help you like, use reels on Instagram in your business, like something like very tangible and specific, like, this is what you're gonna do. It's, it was much more like aspirational and elevated. I think at the end of it, you know, it worked, but it was it was a heavy lift. And so that's, you know, one thing that I would say definitely keep in mind is like, when you put a price tag on it, it just raises the stakes. And so if you are struggling to see conversions, or make sales from a free event, like putting a price tag on it is not like it's it's that's not going to fix anything that just it just raises the standard and makes it even even harder and a lot of ways.
Yeah. Oh my goodness. So true. And I like will break that down fully in like episode 195 But a little teaser there. How it works, Okay, messaging was a big surprise. Much more went into it than either of us expected. Let's talk about promotion a little bit.
Yeah, so with the promotion one thing that really stood out to me you know, with with from like a copy and messaging perspective, one thing that really stood out to me was just that that heavy lift that I talked about in writing the registration page that just sort of like carried on throughout the process. It you know, it felt like just for my own like creative process kind of like pulling together these different ideas it felt like it kind of almost like dried up my creative well if that makes sense to like write the, write the sales page itself. And then it's like you know, that gives you a good starting point for like ideas and angle like I can look at that and think of like okay, here's like a different angle that I can like talk about what we're talking about on the sales page like in a promotional email, in a promotional email or in a social media post or things like that. But I like I felt like the after I finished writing the sales page, it was like, like I need I need to like refill my creative like cup before I can keep going with this. And you know we had time to do that, and it worked, and it was fine. But like, just again, I think because it was kind of more of that aspirational language and aspirational, like transformation of the this event itself, it was harder to kind of find those different angles to talk about things and like, talk about it in a way that wasn't just kind of repeating the same thing over and over. And in the end, you know, I think I think it worked. But yeah, that was a lot heavier lift than I was expecting too.
Yeah, all of it was just intense. I remember, like, we do weekly check ins every week. And I remember for a few weeks there, it was like, you're like I need, I need a break. This is a lot more than I expected. And I didn't I feel like I got off easy, because I didn't have to do all of that. But it was intense. And I think that just kind of continued to carry over. And the other other pieces that went into promotion as well, like, we saw just how much a paid conference is not meant for list building. That is not the goal, and I had like no idea how much that was the case. And Elli luckily took some notes here at one point 21 out of 238 people signed up, we're new to our list. And I think by the end, we had about 50ish between 50 and 70 people who are new to us.
Yeah, I think that sounds about right. Yeah, but this was not a list builder. Like the the tickets that we sold were almost entirely from us. And you might talk about this one on the podcast next week. But you know, just again, with the nature of what the event was about, and how we were structuring the conference, it was a lot harder for the speakers to bring people in for a lot of different reasons. I think you'll probably touch on that next week. But that just put the pressure on us to bring people in. And so, you know, we have an engaged like, warm list that we're like, you know, we've got the pieces in place to be able to do that. But yeah, we weren't able to rely on outside promotion as much. It was all like coming from us.
Yeah, I think what surprised us most was the the messaging aspect that tied into the promotion and positioning, which kind of just ties in to our main takeaway here for if you are someone trying to decide between a summit versus a conference, and Elli let you kind of round that out. But man, it was eye opening.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, I think I think the biggest difference probably specifically from a like promotion perspective, in terms of like, what, like, what it's going to be like to market and, and, and like sell this event, whether it's a free event or a paid event, you're still kind of selling it, right? I think like the biggest difference is I would say like, we were able to make the conference work and make it a success for us because we're like, we were in a position to kind of get a lot of things right. Like we you know, we were able to get the right like positioning, messaging, copy, things like that. But then also like, getting the right speakers who were who were going to be like a good fit for this conference. And just like having the audience already built up of people that we could promote to, like those things all worked in our favor to make this conference a success. If you're hosting a free summit, there are a lot of those things that you don't, you just don't need to have. You know, they might be nice to have like, of course, if you have those things, it's probably going to make your event like even bigger, even better, even more successful. But without those things like you can start from scratch, like you can start from scratch. And if everything is done, well if everything's executed well, like it can work wonders for somebody with a small audience or zero audience and like little to no name recognition. But that's just not the case for a conference. It doesn't matter how well you execute, you know, it doesn't matter, like, if you do you have the perfect positioning, you have the perfect like messaging and copy on your on your sales page. If you don't have those, like pieces established already going in, like you're gonna struggle, like it's just not going to have the same impact, especially for somebody who is like struggling to sell to the audience that they already have, for example, or like doesn't have an audience built up already. Like it's just like the stakes just feel so much higher.
Yeah, so if you are someone who you're like I, I've been trying to decide between these two things, because I want to grow my visibility and grow my audience to give me a bigger foundation for whatever those things are, whether you have something to launch, or they just want to make money through an all-access pass, something like that. If you're looking to build your foundation to make those things more successful, a free Summit is what you're looking for right now. And I will break all that down much more in the next episode. But yeah, just another piece that surprised us a lot and one of the biggest takeaways we want you to walk away with.
If you're ready to host a high converting virtual summit to replace your slow growth marketing strategies and use it to lead into your biggest course launch yet, I've got an exclusive training just for you. This training is for those who are interested in working with me in our Launch with a Summit Accelerator to host a summit that blows industry standards out of the water. Use this feel good engagement based strategies to create an amazing experience for everyone involved seamlessly leads into your biggest course launch yet, and sets you up for additional post summit profits on the back end. Inside the Accelerator. We help our clients consistently host life and business changing virtual summits and in the free private training. I'll show you exactly how it works along with all kinds of examples. So apply for an invite to the Launch with a Summit Accelerator and a training at summithosthangout.com/apply.
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode for shownotes. And resources mentioned head to summithosthangout.com/194. Overall, we just want you to move forward knowing that these two strategies are not the same. Okay, and I didn't realize how true that was until we did it ourselves. And I will break that down more for you in episode 195. So stay tuned for that. For now go out and take action to plan, strategize and launch your high converting virtual Summit.
