Profitable Virtual Events: (Show Me The Money) Your Two Most Effective Event Types
Note: This is the part of our “creating profitable virtual events” 7 part deep-dive series. If you missed the intro please click here to get started >>
Show Me The Money! In this section we’re going to break down the ONLY two types of events you should focus on & what sort of results we’ve seen for each. You’ll also see the type of event you should avoid at all costs and WHY it’s a total nightmare to be avoided.
In the last section we broke down how to determine your most profitable audience for your virtual event. (As most people have MANY potential targets. If you missed that please check it out here before you go any further)
Your Two Most Effective Virtual Event Types:
In all situations the purpose of any event, virtual or in person, is to do the following:
- Build your audience & establish lead flow
- Establish/enhance your authority as an expert
- Build a relationship & engage your audience
- Ultimately help you turn a profit
What’s great about your VE is that no matter which version you run with it’ll accomplish all of that.
Now… before I start tossing numbers around, I want to give you a breakdown of what industry averages are as well as what has been reported for industry norms.
Registration Page Conversion:
This is a big one and a HUGE reason I started off by demanding you target 1, hyper focused niche. When people run these things wide the language is typically too broad & the registration rate is garbage.
A registration is simply when someone sees the page, likes what they read & then enters their name/email in the form. AKA it’s an email lead.
With targeted virtual events you can typically expect to see anything from 25% – 45%.
The way to get closer to the high end is by:
- Featuring speakers who have a fantastic existing relationship with their subscribers
- Making sure your offer is 100% targeted & relevant to the market you have selected
- Clearly stating the transformational value of your event on the page
Clicks Your Influencers/Speakers Send:
- Your speakers are mid level influencers who have email lists & social followings they engage regularly
- They promote 2x each via email & social between the prelaunch & live days.
When you manage your speakers the right way, these sort of outcomes are achievable.
In the next section I’ll break down how to identify, locate & reach out to the right sort of people so you get the most bang out of your event.
Virtual Event Style 01: Ultimate Lead Gen
This style of event is 100% focused on getting you email subscribers who then follow you on social media, engage with you & become raving fans.
First off, let me just address the question you’re probably asking: Where do I make money from this? (Note: you’ll see an example projection breakdown just below)
While the event itself isn’t a revenue generator (no VIP upsell), because of that fact you can often get A LOT more registrations.
Here Are Two Ways You Can Generate Income:
Once your event is over (10 -15 days not including prelaunch) you’re able to pull everyone into a webinar, teleseminar or group sale sequence & get conversions on your existing product/services.
You can also allow your speakers to sell during their presentations & take a % of each sale.
Or you can do both! (I’ll show you an example in just a second)
Why You Would Use A Lead Focused Virtual Event:
- If you don’t yet have a product/service to sell: There are several ways to generate profits from this sort of event, but if you’re just breaking into a market and have nothing yet to sell, you can let your speakers sell & earn a % of their sales.
- When you’re short on time: Because there are fewer moving parts (aka no members area, shopping cart integration, payment source integration, double pages, download management and a bunch of other stuff) these can be set up much faster. Often times you can go from a 60 – 120 day window down to a 30 – 60 day window.
- You want to lower your set up costs: Weather you work with our team to set these up or if you do it yourself, you’ll end up saving a great deal on all the software & integration it takes to create a VIP upgrade package.
- You want to let the speakers/influencers pitch during their presentations: Just like with a lot of live events, it can make a ton of sense to allow the speakers to generate income on their own merits
- When you want to show “ultimate cool”: What I mean by this is if you set up a totally free event for all, you can create an “ultimate cool” factor & end up getting WAY more people to register just because it’s free. When that happens you can build a pretty solid bond with them & sell A LOT of your own stuff right after.
There are a great deal more reasons, but I think you get the picture.
Potential Results: Events like this, with 20 or more featured influencers can generate A LOT of leads. We will cover how to pick who you feature in an upcoming section, but for now I’ll just drop some basic numbers so you can get a feel for everything.
NOTE: None of what I’m about to show you is a “promise of income or outcome”. I’m just showing you how the numbers could potentially play out if you set up & manage VE’s correctly. AKA everything you read here is for illustrative purposes only and NOT a promise that you’ll have anything even close to these results. Every event is different.
Let’s say you are featuring 20 speakers at your event (that’s very normal).
- Each speaker has agreed to promote
- Each speaker has their own platform (assuming small)
- Each speaker pushes to send 1,000 warm clicks to the events registration page (very low number of clicks for anyone who has an engaged platform)
Post Event Product Sale Example:
1K clicks x 20 speakers = 20,000 clicks
- Because you picked a targeted audience you get a 45% registration rate
- Out of 20K clicks x 45% = 9,000 email registrations
- Post event you sell a $599 product and 1% of them buy
- 9K registrations x 1% = 90
- 90 buyers at $599 = $53,910 in revenue
Earning Affiliate % From Each Speaker Example:
1K clicks x 20 speakers = 20,000 clicks
- Because you picked a targeted audience you get a 45% registration rate
- Out of 20K clicks x 45% = 9,000 email registrations
- Each speaker sells a $197 product during their presentation
- Each speaker gets an average of .25% to purchase (one quarter of one percent)
- 9K registrations x .25% = 23 sales per speaker
- 23 average sales per speaker x 20 speakers = 460 total sales
- 460 total sales @ $197 = $90,620 in total sales
- Your affiliate cut is 50% of each sale = $45,310 in gross commissions to YOU
Obviously if you have 20 speakers they will all have price points all over the place. I’m trying to keep the numbers simple & super conservative.
And using the same totally hypothetical situations above, if you were to combine both of these income producing methods you could potentially generate:
Example combined revenue to you: $45,310 + $53,910 = $99,220
Yes. It is possible to generate sales using a “free” event if its set up & managed correctly.
Even Better: VE’s like this can often times build you a platform that, when nurtured, can produce profits for years and years to come.
Note: Using this model you can sell whatever you wish post event. High ticket coaching/consulting, info products, physical goods, services… anything. All of this is just to show you how this event model works, what the lead flow looks like & where the sales start to happen.
Virtual Event Style 02: VIP Upgrade
Just like with the lead gen focus listed above, this style of event has all of that built in. The main focus is to get healthy lead flow at the front end but then after they join they are offered a VIP upgrade option.
It’s a very common process that goes like this:
Targeted traffic –> Registers for free version –> is offered VIP Upgrade
The reason we don’t like to overly complicate this process is because simple = sales.
Period.
How Does The VIP Upgrade Work?
- Your VIP upgrade is often made from “donated” info programs/services the speakers contribute to the fully upgraded event.
- Each speaker is then given an affiliate link & earns at least a 50% commission on every VIP ticket sold (50% – 75% is a good idea)
- Each person who registers is offered the VIP upgrade at multiple points during the event
- As the event unfolds the cost of the VIP upgrade increases.
- After the event, the VIP upgrade option is offered one last time & then goes away
Why You Would Use A VIP Upgrade Focused Virtual Event:
- Healthy affiliate payouts are a VERY motivating way to get your speakers to promote
- Seeing sales come in as early as the prelaunch can be VERY motivating for you as the event host.
- You’ll end up building a list of buyers right from the start
- And a bunch more…
I’ll just go ahead and tell you: this type of event is the most common version our clients request!
We, however, DO NOT suggest you allow your speakers to sell during the event. As the goal is to sell VIP tickets, it’s a really smart idea to have all of them focus on just delivering great content.
Potential Results: Once again I’ll give you a breakdown of potential results. With the events we’ve hosted we can see 9% – 15% VIP take rates. Also, when the speakers see those “you’ve made a sale” commission emails hit their inbox, it often motivates them to push even harder.
AGAIN: None of what I’m showing you is a “promise of income or outcome”. I’m just using math based on reported conversion spreads to illustrate how the numbers can play out when you set up & manage VE’s correctly. AKA everything you read here is for illustrative purposes only and NOT a promise that you’ll have anything even close to these results.
Let’s say you are featuring 20 speakers at your event
- Each speaker has agreed to promote
- Each speaker is an affiliate earning 50% from each sale they send (tracked with software)
- Each speaker has their own platform (assuming small)
- Each speaker pushes to send 1,500 warm clicks to the events registration page (more clicks as they are motivated by the commissions they are see)
VIP Ticket Sale Upgrade Example:
1,500 clicks x 20 speakers = 30,000 clicks
- Because you picked a targeted audience you get a 45% registration rate
- 30K clicks x 45% = 13,500 email registrations
- 9% of registrations purchase your VIP package at $97
- 9% of 13,500 registrations = 1,215 total sales
- 1,215 total sales @ $97 =$117,855 in gross revenue
- 50% of $117,855 =$58,927.50 in gross revenue to YOU
Note: 50% would be what you earn after affiliate payouts
As I broke down above, none of this is an earning or performance promise. It’s all just an example to show you what your event could look like at certain outcomes.
And of course, you can still host a post event presentation & sell what you have to sell. In fact… you should & here’s an example of what that looks like…
Post Event Product Sale Example:
1,500 clicks x 20 speakers = 30,000 clicks
- Because you picked a targeted audience you get a 45% registration rate
- Out of 20K clicks x 45% = 13,500 email registrations
- Post event you sell a $599 product and 1% of them buy
- 13,500 registrations x 1% = 135
- 135 buyers at $599 = $80,865 in revenue
And if you were to combine both of these income methods:
Example combined revenue to you: $58,927.50 + $80,865 = $139,792.50
What Style Of Event To Avoid At All Costs:
By far, the worst sort of virtual event you could ever produce is one where you require those who register to pay up front!
Here’s why: When an event is being held in the physical world those registering understand A LOT went into that. There are tons of costs, travel logistics, hotel bookings, food… freaking everything!
There’s also a default level of “authority” that comes with meeting in the physical world which, along with known expenses, can translate into front end ticket sales.
When your event is virtual, and especially if you’re not a big name (yet). People need a minute to check out your stuff. Give them that time!
The bottom line is this: Let those who want to attend attend. When you demonstrate value you will then be able to generate vastly more income both in the short & long term.
Action Items:
- Determine which version of the event would work best for the market you’ve selected
- Determine what offer you want to focus on for selling at the end
Click Here To See For The Next Part: Your Speaker & Influencer Getting Blueprint >>