If you’re using virtual events — telesummits, virtual training series, webinars, teleseminars, guest blogging series — anything that relies on getting your guests or featured speakers to help you promote, this post will help you get them actively promoting you.
One of the themes you hear over and over again on my blog is: if you want someone to do something, make it super easy.
I’ve noticed several things as I’ve been participating as a speaker in more telesummits and virtual events lately.
Part of the deal when participating as a speaker is being willing to do some promo for the event. This can range from just sharing it on social media to the whole nine yards of solo mailings to your list, social media, and more.
And if you ask most telesummit hosts what the most challenging part of running their event is… if they’re honest with you… getting their speakers to promote is pretty high on that “ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! this is making me crazy!” list.
I get to hang out with pretty cool people, all of whom have done a fabulous job of making their events easy to promote over the past few weeks. And I got permission from one of them (thanks, Patti, you rock!) to share how they put together a great promotional package for their speakers so you can see how to do this well.
Smart Action #1: Start Early
Get your promotional materials to your speakers in enough time that they can do something with it.
Seriously, we need time! Especially for those who work with a virtual assistant or team, we’ve got to have enough time to get the info to our support team and for them to get it implemented for us. A couple of days is not long enough. A two weeks or even a month in advance is fabulous!
Here’s a clip of the email I got in advance…
Smart Action #2: Create a Variety of Resources
Give them LOTS of cool resources and choices.
This is my favorite part of Patti’s telesummit promotional package. She didn’t just send me a link to where to login and find promo tools. She sent an email and a zip file that contained everything I could possibly need to promote:
- Ready to go solo mailings (with multiple choices of emails and suggested subject lines)
- A blurb for my ezine (shorter snippets than for solo emails)
- Content for my blog (who doesn’t love ready to go blog content?)
- Images for Pinterest or image focused sites (this isn’t as common to see in promo tools and it’s great!)
- Twitter tweets (the more prewritten tweets you give me, the more I’ll tweet for you)
- Facebook/LinkedIn/G+ status updates (ahh… copy, paste, schedule, done!)
… and it all had my affiliate link already embedded and ready to go so all I had to do was copy & paste (unless I wanted to edit a bit to customize). It also included some specific directions that were helpful.
Patti also included Facebook cover graphics and some cool little images with a note that they’d be perfect for Pinterest or in my blog sidebar. I don’t think I’ve ever used those to promote someone else’s event before (definitely haven’t used my cover photo space for it on Facebook)… but it was easy and the graphics were fun, so I did. See how that works? Easy + fun = done.
Here’s a sample of the cool stuff she and her team put together:
Smart Action #3: Spotlight Your Speakers
If you’ve got your radar on, you may have noticed something in those images above. Or someone.
See ME?
It’s smart to give me promotional materials that feature me prominently. My name in lights? Yeah, I’ll share that!
In addition to the group graphics, Patti sent over an image that featured the info specifically for my interview in her telesummit. She also included the Twitter IDs of her speakers in some of the tweets so we can tag each other and connect easily.
Smart Action #4: Actively Follow Up
Follow up with your guests/speakers/experts, and offer more support or additional resources if needed.
One thing Patti (Resonate), Kristin (Rock Your Talk), and Sheila (Go BIG) all did well was stay in touch with me with reminders and emails that said things like “look! more easy ways to promote!” and “don’t forget–you need to get this done!”
Again, make it easy and stay in front of people with the resources they need and they’re more likely to take action and promote what you’re asking them to.
Smart Action #5: Be Open to Alternative Ideas
When I approached Patti with the suggestion of this blog post, she could have said, “No way! I don’t want anyone to see how I promote!” But she loved the idea and gave me the go ahead to share.
It’s worth allowing your speakers or affiliates to approach you with other ways to get the word out about your event. You may find they’ve got creative ideas that can help them promote your event in a bigger way, get you in front of more people, and position you as an authority. Win-win-win!
Learning from Examples
So, follow Patti’s example if you’re putting together an event that encourages or requires your featured speakers, bloggers, etc. to help promote it. Make it easy and fun for them.
And… while we’re learning from other people doing smart things, take a look at what I just did in this post. Did you catch it?
This is an example of what you hear from me like a broken record–if you want to stand out then do something different than others are, go a step further, and make everything you do as actionable and useful as you can.
I could have just written up a quickie blog post to tell you about this free training, with the promo language Patti sent. That would have taken less than 5 minutes. But instead I wrote a 1,000+ word blog post demonstrating what Patti did well for her Resonate promo… and created a helpful learning post for you plus a great way to let you know about this event and invite you to sign up!
Now wasn’t that better than a “hey sign up for this” post? If you liked it, do sign up. ;)
This is great info, Michelle. I was just talking with someone today about doing a virtual event. Great timing!
Teresa
Gotta love when things show up at just the perfect time. :)
Great advice as Im about to start promoting a teleclass so thank you!
You’re welcome, Bonnie. :)
Oh Michelle…. That is so my biggest peeve! Now you have inspired me to do another virtual event. I had done one in November of last year and I included a lot but not as much as Patti, but very few speakers promo’d. I even did powerpoint videos intoducing each speaking uploaded to YouTube and pinned them in Pinterest.. Thank you for sharing this.
Those videos sound cool, Eleanor. Getting speakers to promote can be a challenge. I’ll have to see if I can pull together some more ideas and tips to share for this from others doing a lot of virtual events.
Thanks Michelle! I’m so thrilled you are part of the event! I cant wait for you to share your secrets about cutting through the clutter and standing out by nailing your blogging strategy…
Thanks so much for including me, Patti. I’m looking forward to the series!
Michelle, thanks for sharing such an informative post. Not only because I will be doing a telesummit shortly, but there are some novel and creative ideas here. I will surely bookmark this post.
Awesome, glad this was helpful, Stephanie!
What an awesome package Patti provided to her telesummit presenters for promotion Michelle. Thanks to both of your for sharing.
I signed up for the event last week. Look forward to it.
~Debra
Thanks for this informative post, Michelle. I’m not sure I’ll be doing a telesummit or webinar soon, but who knows. And I can think of several ways I can use this…like for those who promote my products. If I make it easy for people to promote stuff, I’ll probably notice a difference.
What a wonderful blog and community you have here! Thank you so much for the information! The timing could not be more perfect for me! I am holding my first virtual healing event next month, and this gives me a great outline and a ton of resources to integrate into my next healing event! Sending blessings of peace and prosperity to you!!