How Our Clients Host Summits that 3x Industry Standard Conversion Rates
Throughout my time running the Summit Host Hangout Facebook group, I have gotten to see so many different summit strategies in action and the results they bring. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. And, of course, I always have the inside scoop for what kinds of results my clients and students are seeing. As much as I believe in my strategies, I am always surprised at what a drastic difference there is in results.
A little while back, I hosted a Facebook Live that shared how our clients consistently host summits that triple industry-standard conversion rates and that’s what I’m going to share with you today.
Intro To Summit Conversion Rates
Our clients are consistently hosting summits that triple (or more) industry standard conversion rates with their summits and today I want to share how and why. This is not an accident, and it’s not something people do on their own regularly or even in other programs out there from what I’ve seen.
Conversion rates are something I’ve always focused on, and they make a huge difference in results.
- The very first course I sold back in 2015 was all about increasing conversion rates on a blog.
- Then, I started doing WordPress development in 2016 and was always sharing ways for my clients to increase conversion rates on their sites to either grow their list or sell their thing.
Because of that, it was very natural for me to pay extra attention to conversion rates right out of the gate when I started running summits. I didn’t really think anything of it and then was totally floored when I started hearing and seeing what was normal for people.
Registration Page Conversion Rates
What are “industry standard conversion rates”? Let’s start with your registration page. This is referring to how many people go to your summit’s registration page and sign up for your free event.
The standard is 20-30%, but that doesn't meet my standards. To me, a 20-30% conversion rates tells me there’s a major problem with the event or registration page. I like to push our students to aim for at least 50%, and most of our students see between 60-70%.
All-Access Pass Conversion Rates
Now, let’s talk about all-access pass conversion rates. This conversion rate is calculating the number of people who buy the all-access pass out of all the people who sign up for the free summit,
The standard is 3-5%. Again, the fact that other summit experts and hosts are okay with that floors me. I don’t know if the people teaching these things are just too lazy to push their clients and students to excellence or if they really don’t’ know how to make summits consistently perform so much better.
I push our students to obtain a minimum of 8%. Most of them see around 10-15%. But we even have students getting as high as 25% conversion rates on their all-access pass.
- For example: With even a 1500-person event with a $100 all-access pass, the difference between a 3% conversion rate and a 12% conversion rate means an extra $13,500…how are people okay with missing that?
I wanted to give that context before we dove into how our clients are getting those higher conversion rates.
What We Teach Differently
There are three specific things I want to cover that we teach differently that convert to our much higher conversion rates.
1. It’s not all about the host
We focus a lot on connection and engagement. This is something that I infused into my strategies when building my processes for my very first summit without much thought. It's just part of my personality that I like doing things for other people and making sure everyone has a good experience, so I did this naturally. It wasn’t until I took part in a summit hosted by another “summit expert” who does not have these same values that I realized this wasn't the norm! I figured out this is a big part of why our summits work the way that they do.
For example, this summit I was a part of was a horrible experience for me.
- Every single email felt cold and pushy and was only about what needed to be done.
- There was so much pressure and drama with the way presentations were produced.
- The host put themselves front and center every chance they got.
- We couldn’t share a freebie unless we drove at least 100 attendees to the summit.
- The icing on the cake for me was a graphic for the event with all of the 100+ speakers tiny little faces on it and the host in the center, with a giant photo of themselves wearing a superhero cape! #cringe.
- I eventually got kicked out of this summit because I wasn’t able to promote on the exact schedule they had in mind.
This is an extreme example, but if you put yourself front and center as the host, it creates a cringy and unpleasant experience for your speakers, not to mention attendees. It's not going to get you those high conversion rates that we're aiming for.
As the host, you are very naturally the center of attention, and there is no need to be gross about it.
- You can set up your speakers to have an incredible experience and to succeed without taking away from your own benefits, which encourages them to push way harder for your event.
- You can facilitate meaningful transformations for your attendees, which will set you up even better to launch on the back end.
This is one of the big reasons our clients see success. We focus on connection, and engagement, and making it a win-win, which will always come back to benefit you.
2. The RIGHT Audience and Topic
If someone comes to me and claims that their summit didn’t work, the very first thing I look at is the audience the summit was hosted for, what it was about, and the way it was positioned. I would say, 90% of the time, positioning is the problem.
It would be so much easier for me as a summit coach to tell every client that their first summit idea is “the one”. But a lot of the time it’s not! Summit positioning should align with your overall business positioning, but it usually needs to be narrowed down more. That can make this first step hard and uncomfortable. People want to be told that the easiest answer is the right answer.
But when it comes to a summit, not just anything is going to work, and that’s one of the biggest problems we focus on helping our clients avoid in the Launch With a Summit Accelerator™.
The hardest part is to choose the perfect audience for your summit, even though it’s oftentimes narrower than the audience for your business, and then find the topic that captures their attention.
Because this is so important for summit hosts to get right, we brought on a new team member, Elli, who I’ve worked with for the last several years and is now the messaging and positioning coach for our clients. She created a brand-new positioning and messaging module and trainings for our Launch With a Summit Accelerator™ because it’s that important!
Even if everything else is done perfectly right, choosing the right audience and topic can be the difference between…
- 20% versus 60% registration page conversion rates
- 3% versus 15% all-access pass conversion rates
- struggling to get registrations and sales versus watching them roll in
- having no problem landing speakers versus struggling to get people to agree
- a post-summit launch that flops versus a huge success
It’s not worth hosting a summit without this piece, and it’s a huge part of why our clients see the success that they do.
3. A Streamlined, Organized Process
Finally, the last key piece that leads to higher conversion rates is following a streamlined process that keeps things from falling through the cracks. The templates and tools we give our students not only help to cut their prep time into a small fraction of what it would be otherwise, but they ensure that they're providing an incredible experience for everyone involved.
We have people come to us after trying to host a summit on their own and are blown away by how much better it all feels when they’re not trying to make it up from scratch and when they have a process to follow that they know works well.
- It takes the guesswork out of it.
- Leaves fewer things for them to forget until the last minute.
- Gives them proven strategies that work.
All of this helps to avoid disorganized or confusing experiences for both speakers and attendees, which has a big impact on conversion rates.
These three key pieces not only increase summit conversion rates, but they build a ton of momentum that continues into the way we teach our students to launch their course or membership afterward. All of these things combined resulted in my biggest course launch yet, and it leads our students to do the same…one even quadrupled the results she’d had from her biggest launch ever before that!
Launch With A Summit Accelerator™
Putting a high-converting summit and course launch together the right way is powerful.
I know that this can raise a lot of questions, which is why we’re accepting applications for the Launch With a Summit Accelerator™ . A perk of applying and being accepted, even if you end up thinking it’s not the right time to join, is gaining access to an advanced private training: The Three-Part Framework to Replace Your Slow Growth Marketing with A Virtual Summit That Will Triple or More Your Revenue And Lead To Your Biggest Course Launch Yet.
In the training, I walk you through…
- why the slow growth strategies you rely on right now leave you stuck or wanting more, and I talk about how a summit is so much more powerful than those things.
- our full three-part framework to replace those slow-growth strategies with a summit that will likely triple your revenue and lead you to your biggest launch yet.
- some real examples of how to see results from summits as small as 1500 attendees and $5000 in monthly revenue from a membership launch to a summit as large as 4000 attendees and $60k+ in revenue.
Apply to the Accelerator here.
To be clear, this application isn’t for us to judge whether you’re good enough. That’s gross. We ask you to fill out an application because we truly want to make sure we'll be able to help you hit your goals. It’s two questions that will help us see if the Accelerator and this training can help you. If you’re not quite at that place, it’ll be overwhelming, and we might direct you somewhere else.
But if you…
- have had a successful launch of a course, membership, or other scalable offer at least once to a small list
- have at least one person on your team, like a VA, to help you with your summit
…those are both pretty good signs that you’re where you need to be for us to be able to help you with the training and in the Accelerator. You can apply here!
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