The value you offer your virtual summit attendees is largely determined by the quality of virtual summit speakers you get to present.
So, when planning your event, your main goal should be to create a lineup of amazing speakers who can present valuable expertise on the topic you’ve chosen.
Go Through Your Existing Contacts
Start by going through all your contacts. See if there are people you’ve worked with before who might be willing to speak.
Look at people who you’ve communicated with or met somewhere. This is a great opportunity for nurturing a contact you made at a networking event. You can contact them to discuss your virtual summit and see if they’d be a fit.
Download Now: 5 Steps to Growing Your Audience with Virtual Summits
Build Relationships with Influencers
Reach out to influencers in your niche and see if they’ll appear at your virtual summit. Influencers are highly active individuals who have a large and responsive following online.
People follow what they do and listen to what they say, so they’ll give you great exposure to their audiences.
Try to find someone like this who has expertise in your niche and whose name will attract registrations.
Identify Gaps in Your Expertise
Identify the places in your expertise where you’re lacking in knowledge. Try to find an expert who is knowledgeable in this area and see if they’ll speak at your event.
When you’re brainstorming topics for speaker interviews, you’ll naturally find areas you don’t know about and you need to fill the gaps.
Search the Web
You can find people to speak at your virtual summit also by simply searching the web. Use keywords related to your topic to search on social media, Google, and YouTube.
Make a shortlist of potential people you might contact and narrow it down to those who are most relevant to your topic.
Best Practices for Getting Great Speakers
- When contacting potential speakers, emphasize the benefits of appearing at your event. Explain what’s in it for them.
- Reach out to people three months in advance or more so there’s time to get everyone fully prepared.
- Some speakers will be looking for some type of incentive, such as a cut of the entrance fee or a chance to pitch products.
- Explain to potential speakers the “big picture” view, explaining your core values, goals, and the “why?” behind your business and virtual summit.
- Give people topic suggestions but let them propose something if they have another idea for you to approve.
- Stay organized with a spreadsheet where you keep track of each speaker’s data, contact history, topic, and whether or not they’ve confirmed.
- Aim high! Don’t be afraid to contact people who seem too well-known and established. They may say “yes” and at the very least, they’ll come to know who you are. They may say “no” this time, but “yes” sometime in the future.
Your virtual summit will gradually start to take shape as speakers confirm and then you can start promoting it to your audience.
If you want to learn more about creating a virtual summit that will help to achieve your business goals, then take a look at our Course where you’ll learn step-by-step to host your first successful summit.
