This is part 2 of a two-part mini-series on how to position your virtual summit for high conversion rates and for profit. In the last episode, Our Messaging and Positioning Coach in the Accelerator Elli joined me to talk about how to choose your summit positioning and today, we're taking that further with my guest Nadine Nethery. Nadine is an audience-driven copywriter, and she has some incredible insights to help those of you who don't know your audience well enough to go through the exercises that Elli and I shared last week. This episode will also help those of you who do know your audience well to get to know them on an even deeper level, whether that's for your summit, your other offers, or just your business messaging as a whole.
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Episode at a glance:
[1:37] Positioning is something we cover with our clients our Accelerator program in detail, but there are times when we're asking a question about a host’s audience, and they just don’t know the answer. They can guess, but they don't know. This is one where Nadine's approach to audience research can be incredibly useful.
You need to go beyond the demographics and look at the conversation that is already happening in their minds about what their life looks like, what keeps them up at night, and go back to square one to dig deeper.
[4:46] Look at pain points, objections to your services or offer, the solution and transformation, and the ultimate desire your audience has. That gives you a unique angle when it comes to the people that you’re talking to. You can incorporate their language into your messaging.
Audience research sounds terribly boring, but it’s so critical to any business at any stage. It’s not a tick in the box you can do once and forget. It’s important to do it on a regular basis.
[6:21] There are tangible outcomes you can expect when you do audience research the right way. You’re getting deep into the thought process of your audience and the benefit of that is to pick up the actual language and terminology your audience is using to describe themselves and their situation. That comes in handy for copywriting because your messaging doesn’t fall flat.
[9:41] When you go into the summit planning process really knowing your audience on a deeper level, you're able to pick a summit topic that really connects with not only your offer but also the current state of mind that your audience is in. It helps you pick speakers that align with your audience that deliver outcomes and aha moments for those problems that you’ve picked up on in your research.
[10:57] When you’ve got clarity on the outcome your audience wants to get from your summit, it helps you plant that seed in your summit messaging and positioning. People need to be aligned to your offer before they buy into it, and when you know your audience well, you're able to position your offer as a perfect solution.
Knowing your audience helps you come up with the perfect summit topic and understand how to craft your event around that topic so it nurtures and primes your audience to be ready to buy from you.
[11:20] Beyond that, knowing your audience well is useful for so many other areas of your business! It helps you identify potential courses, programs, or services that you could offer down the road that you might not have even considered. It can also help you come up with content for social media to prime them for your offer or your summit during the prelaunch.
[12:10] Nadine shared her 10 proven strategic survey questions (along with 9 social medial prompts) that ask your audience open-ended questions to get deep into their pain points. Definitely check these out to help you get started with audience research!
[13:17] She also shared her thoughts on AI and ChatGPT as it relates to audience research and copywriting. These tools are becoming increasingly popular and it’s really opening up a lot of opportunities to speed things up and free up time for extra content creation in your business, but it's not perfect.
One of ChatGPT’s limitations is that it doesn’t have empathy and emotions, and that is where audience research comes in! You can prompt it as much as you want, but it still comes down to human connection.
[14:29] AI a tool to support us and make things easier, but good copy and good positioning still come down making sure it connects on a deeper level and is different from all the generic things that ChatGPT spits out for everyone. You have an opportunity to make it truly unique to your brand and bring it back to your audience, which is so important for selling and standing out.
[17:03] On of the ways Nadine does audience research is through my automated onboarding survey for new clients. As soon as someone signed up to work with her, she sends a survey that incorporates a number of very strategic questions that tap into the mindset and problems they’re facing, and the transformation they’re hoping for.
[17:56] Another way she naturally weaves audience research into her work is by doing a check-in is when she delivers copy to her clients. They're excited that they just got their copy back, and this helps here hear their fresh "aha"s in the moment as they're seeing their copy for the first time. She also does an automated check-in about 3 months down the road when they’ve had a chance to get the copy in front of their audience and see how it’s performing.
[20:04] When it comes to choosing the positioning for your first summit, Nadine recommends starting with a one-off survey asking your audience about previous summits they've attended. What made them sign up, what did they get from it, and what made it stand out to them? Getting this info from your audience will help you come up with your own summit concept.
What you put out there is going to be relevant because your audience has done the heavy lifting for you. They're basically telling you how they want to be marketed to and how you can serve and support them.
[22:33] After hosting your first event, she also recommends sending a post-summit survey, which can help you tweak your messaging for your next summit. Once you have all the information from your surveys, you can organize it into “buckets” and look at themes that may pop up again and again that you can incorporate into your next summit.
Having open-ended survey responses gives you testimonials on tap that you can add to your social media, websites, or emails.
About Nadine
Nadine Nethery is an audience-driven copywriter and brand messaging strategist for female founders who want to intentionally attract, delight and retain their dream customers.
Her strategic take on audience research, copywriting, and messaging turns every brand touchpoint into genuine connections that drive sales, celebrate loyalty, and surround you with keen brand advocates who happily do the word-spreading for you.
Over the past 7+ years, Nadine has given global e-commerce success stories, game-changing startups, and industry-disrupting service providers the words to shine and the strategies to build a sustainable business long-term.
Website | 10 FREE Strategic Customer Survey Questions | Audience Research Toolkit
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