Today we’re wrapping up our series on the topic of How to Host a Virtual Summit and discussing all the tools you need to host a virtual summit.
Tools to Use for Hosting a Virtual Summit
I oftentimes do these tools to use or these tools episodes with each of the topics that I have here on the podcast. And it’s always one of my favorites because I love sharing tools with you that I use in my business that help to make my life and business easier for me. And that is the same with these tools.
They were just wonderful to use, and I found a new one this time that I really like, and I wanted to share that with you. So let’s start with the first piece or element that you need .. that you need a tool to make this work is a landing page. I shared before that I had started out wanting to just have a one-page site for the summit but ended up adding a couple more pages.
There were several tools that I used to make this happen.
First of all, my websites are all hosted on WordPress. WordPress is open source and it is free to use, but if you want to own the real estate, if you would, you want to have your own hosting. So you need a website host. And I have, for many, many years, used the website host known as MomWebs.
It is a company under the umbrella of ReliableWebs. And I will share the link, and it will probably be an affiliate link, in the show notes with you. I have been a customer of MomWebs since 2007. So as you can tell, I really like MomWebs because it’s been a very long time and I have been happy with the service that they provide.
So I used WordPress hosted on my own domain, and so you also need… besides the landing page, you need a domain name. I chose to purchase my domain name through MomWebs because they do domain registration. And so I just went ahead and purchased it there. And mine was servingwithspirit.com. So it needs to be something easy to say, but not only to spell, so that people can get there easily.
And then you need to have not only a landing page, a domain name, and a host. All of those things work together.
You need to have a way to provide a place to sign up. Whether you’re doing a free event and they’re just signing up for an email list, or you’re doing a paid event like I did with the VIP pass, and they’re actually needing to go through a checkout process. So for this, I used a new to me system called Systeme.io.
I absolutely love Systeme.io. It is really an all-in-one tool. It has the email marketing piece, and it has a funnel, if you know what a funnel is. It has a sales page process to it, where it’s like the sales page, the thank you page, and the checkout process.
You can hook it to Stripe, PayPal, and other merchants—you know, checkout options, and I used Stripe and PayPal as options to pay. You can have coupon codes. You can— it’s just an amazing tool, and once someone signs up, either through the free version or the paid version, it puts them on an email list. And then you can email the specific people that signed up for your event so you can let them know when to arrive, where the link is—all the pieces.
And Systeme.io was a lifesaver when it came to figuring this all out. Because a summit is a huge undertaking, and to have —to have 15 different tools to do one thing—you know, it was—I was scared. I was like, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. There’s too many moving parts, but Systeme.io really helped me to keep all of those moving parts in one place.
It also allowed me to set up an affiliate program where, as I was sharing last episode, I was able to give those who promoted it 15 percent of the profit if someone signed up using their link. An affiliate program for your summit is an optional piece, but it is a piece that will help you to reach more people and reach further if you have affiliates helping you to promote.
So you need a landing page and a landing page means that you need a domain, a host, a place, you know, a website to put it on, and a system to check out with.
You also need an online event space. For me, I chose to use the online event space, Zoom. There are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of different options you could use, but Zoom was something I was familiar with. It was also easy to use, and it was inexpensive. Depending on how many people are at your summit, you would have to get different levels of Zoom so that you can have enough seats, so to speak, in your event. But Zoom allows you to have a waiting room where you don’t let all of your attendees in until you’re ready. It allows you to record your summit.
It allows people to share their screen. It allows you to even raise your hand. It has a ton of features, some of which I didn’t even use them all. And I was very pleased with how it worked for me and gave me the recordings and everything that I needed to host an awesome event. So Zoom is what I used and recommend for online meeting space.
And then, as far as promotion, promotion was a big piece. I used three main tools for helping me with promotion.
One was Canva. Canva was what I used to create the graphics. And then I also used Canva to create the reels and some of the promotional videos that I used for the event.
Once I had that, I used—and this is something we talked about on a recent series last month, which was ChatGPT. It is AI, but what I did was I had created a series of like copy, and I wanted to not only jazz up my copy, but I also wanted to multiply the copy that I had into similar blurbs or pieces of content that I could give to my speakers or affiliates to promote it on social media. I wanted to say the same thing multiple times, but make it seem different. And ChatGPT was able to take what I had written, make it sound better, and then multiply my efforts without me having to sit there and do it over and over again myself. So that’s exactly what I used ChatGPT for.
Then, after I had the copy and the graphics, I used Facebook Meta Business Suite, what was once Facebook Creator Studio, to schedule my content to go out to Facebook and Instagram to promote the event. Well, I didn’t do it. My intern did; thanks, Angela, but this helped me to promote my event.
So the tools of the summit, the main tools that I used or needed were a landing page, hosting an email marketing piece, and checkout, which was Systeme.io. I needed an online platform to host the event, which was Zoom, and I also used Canva, ChatGPT, and Facebook Meta Business Suite for the promotional pieces.
So I hope that you see just how big an undertaking a summit is. But also, not only that, but how much it can truly transform the reach that you have through having different speakers, sponsors, and affiliates help you to connect to a new group of people that you might not have ever met otherwise.
I truly feel that that is what happened with my hosting the Serving with Spirit Summit. I have not only grown my email list, but I’ve grown my Facebook group and reached people that I would not have reached otherwise. And that’s why I would encourage you to consider hosting a virtual summit. And if you need help with it, that is something my team and I will provide as virtual assistants.
So don’t be afraid to reach out to us at alyssaavantandcompany.com. Thanks for listening.
Questions? Join the Group!
If you have specific questions about hosting a virtual summit, I’d love to get those because that would help me to make sure that I’m covering everything that you’re interested in knowing during this series on the podcast. You can submit your questions inside The Christian Business Advantage Facebook group. I look forward to seeing you there!
