I just hopped on a call last week from a potential client and while she was describing her grand virtual event, it became very obvious to me not just how time intensive and labour intensive it is but how costly it can be to put everything together (imagine having to hire a website designer, graphic designer, event platform specialist and a social media manager on a small budget!)
Having organised a virtual summit in 6 weeks, collaborating with All-Star speakers across the globe and making it profitable as a one lady team, I want to emphasize how EASY it can be if you are willing to tweak your event format. There is no need for a fancy website designer, graphics designer, event platform specialist, social media manager and thousands of dollars in budget just to make your virtual summit happen.
Here’s 4 tips that I have to make planning your next virtual event easy breezy!
1. Make it Pre-Recorded
So one of the OG in the virtual summit space is Navid Moazzez and being subscribed to his content, I registered for one of his Live workshops. And then the inevitable live-event related glitches happen - the event started 10 minutes late due to some problem with the platform, it took some time to shift from one screen to another screen that has the powerpoint, the platform didn’t work for a few minutes and while I was sitting there, I’m thinking to myself that not only live events glitches is unpleasant for the audience (me, at that time) but also how my technologically incapable self might not even know how to fix half of these glitches. So, save your time and go pre-recorded instead so you can actually fix whatever mistakes that happen BEFORE the actual event. This format is also great if you want to have different categories, and don’t want to hire people to manage a live event (especially if you are speaking on it)
2. Get an All Inclusive Event Platform
There are many components to a virtual event and having a platform that have everything together works like a charm. Instead of having a separate website, payment systems, video hosting platform and an email blast service, try getting everything rolled into one with an extra 24/7 chat feature for all of the urgent tech support. I personally recommend Kajabi (you can get the free 28 days trial here) because everything you need to host a virtual event is included, or platforms such as Clickfunnels and HeySummit. Another tip is find an event platform that has a fantastic tutorial on everything from how to set up an event pipeline to how to connect your Paypal account to the platform so if you are doing this virtual event without any IT or tech background, you are in good hands!
3. Have an Affiliate Marketing feature
80% of my All Access Pass sales comes from my affiliate partner and this is great news as its one of the easiest marketing strategies to implement for your virtual summit. Affiliate partners can be your speakers or other individuals or companies that have a big list of subscribers who happen to have your target audience. It’s similar to getting an influencer who gives a brand shout out as the buyers register out of trust. By having this feature, it saves your marketing time and ad spend as there are other people promoting your event for you.
4. Hire your Manpower on the cheap on Fiverr
I love Fiverr and have been freelancing there for 4 years before turning it to an actual business to serve more clients. I started out with $5 to $10 gigs to write out an entire event and sponsorship proposal which gradually grew to $80 to $150 gigs once I get more clients with bigger projects (plus helping them get bigger results!). So whatever manpower you need from virtual assistant, graphic designer, transcriber etc, you can get it at a very good rate on Fiverr. The biggest service I outsourced for my virtual summit is transcribing for my All Access Pass holders and with a quick search, it’s pretty obvious that the usual rate is $5 for 20 minutes. It took quite a bit of digging but I found a few sellers that were doing $5 for 60 minutes which is a HUGE bargain and I’m a super satisfied customer (I hire 3 different ones to test out). So whichever tasks that are too time consuming for you or are far more complex than you like, outsource it on Fiverr so you can have more time in your event!
So if you are feeling that your virtual summit may take too much time, money and effort, try scaling it down a little bit or adjust your format to make it easy. One of the huge perks of organising one is definitely the marketing and visibility benefits without a huge upfront cost.
Till next time!
Cheerios,
Rashidah
