How to Organize a Virtual Summit

In recent years, virtual summits - online events in which a host interviews a number of expert guests - have dramatically grown in popularity. Especially post-Covid, they represent a terrific way to generate awareness (and cultivate leads) among your target audience. Navid Moazzez is a lifestyle entrepreneur who has become an expert in hosting virtual summits. When he ran his first summit, his mailing list had less than 1,000 subscribers; he's now grown it to more than 40,000 readers. During an interview for my book Entrepreneurial You, Navid explained his best strategies for how you can host your own online event.

Speaking of email newsletters, to sign up for mine - which has high quality, completely different content than this LinkedIn Newsletter! - and also receive my 88 Question Entrepreneurial You self-assessment, click here.

In our conversation, Navid referred to a virtual summit as a “podcast on steroids.” He’s not far off - when you host an event with multiple speakers, you learn from everyone’s expertise on a much larger scale. Promoting the summit helps you build your email list (typically, viewers must opt in to your list to access the recordings) and with your speakers' permission, you can often turn the finished product into a product to sell afterward.

Here are four steps Navid shared to create a great virtual summit.

Build relationships with your speakers - even before you need them. Navid was able to land many speakers for his first summit because he'd written blog posts previously featuring them, so they were already familiar with him and his work. “I had already started following people in the space, building relationships, before I actually needed them," he says. "I was adding value to them, so it was not so hard to really get a few 'yeses' out of friends. I had the relationships in place.“ I agree with Navid's philosophy about the importance of relationship building and talk about it in detail in this article for Harvard Business Review.

Give your speakers more incentive to join the summit. It makes sense that a newcomer may want to join a summit to promote their work, but how can you make it valuable to an experienced professional who already has a following? “You can let the speakers provide free giveaways," Navid says. "You can [share their giveaway link] below the video on the free part of the summits. They can actually grow their email list, by hundreds of people possibly, from doing a 45 or 60 minute interview.”

Go big, but not too big. When you see the words “virtual summit,” we tend to think of large-scale events. Navid says you want to have enough speakers to keep it interesting, but be careful not to go overboard: “I recommend 20 to 30 speakers for a first summit," he says. He notes that you also have to decide if you'll be running the sessions live or pre-recorded; the former may generate more excitement, but also runs the risk of technical difficulties in the moment.

Treat your summit like a product launch. The best way to promote your summit is with the help of your speakers and affiliates, Navid says - but for them to advertise it effectively, you need to give them a suggested promotion plan and schedule. He says, “We had a promotional calendar, a great affiliate page, and we had [sample social media] copy for the speakers and affiliates, as well as images and graphics they could use.”

By following these strategies, you can tap into the power of virtual summits to grow your audience and share your ideas.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share the article with others, and add your comments and ideas below! 

And if you’re receiving this newsletter for the first time and would enjoy learning more tips and updates, you can click here and hit the blue “Subscribe” button underneath the banner image to receive future editions.

Take care,

Dorie