Hosting a virtual summit takes the organization of tons of little pieces. It really takes a well-put-together system of all your tech tools, processes, and organization skills to pull it off, so I understand why it’s seen as intimidating.
To be quite honest, when planning my very first virtual summit back in 2018, I felt the same way! Overwhelmed and confused about if I was going to actually be able to pull it off in the end.
Lucky for me, I found some helpful virtual summit tools and resources that I was able to lean on for support and easy event organization! This makes a world of difference!
Tech is a big piece of the virtual summit puzzle.
And you need to get it right- from the start.
Without a strong stack of tech tools and resources to help get organized, stay organized, and deliver the content to your attendees, speakers, and sponsors, it’s sad to say, but your virtual summit may not turn out as great as you hoped it would.
I’ve compiled a list of my recommenced tech tools for Summit Hosts. It includes a variety of different platforms and services you can use to create an amazing event for your attendees, speakers, and your sponsors!
My Virtual Summit Tools & Resources
Most of these are tools I’ve used myself and I’ll make a special note beside them, so you can clearly spot them! I’ve used my referral links for the companies I have a relationship with, and in exchange, I may receive a referral commission if you end up using their product/service. There is never an additional cost for you to use these links- in fact, most will offer you a discount for doing so as a new customer!
Don’t worry- I’ll continue to add to this list as I find more tools and resources that work well for virtual summits hosts, and I’ll add them here for you when I do.
For now, this list is going to include:
- Summit Organization
- Speaker Directories
- Website Tools
- Video Hosting
- Emails, Funnels & Carts
- Engagement Tools
- Other Tools
Summit Organization
- Summit Host Starter Kit – Get my exact step-by-step project plan, that outlines each to-do item with custom due dates for producing your event Plus my event organizer and Summit Host Planner to make sure you’re set and ready to go!
- Summit Host Basecamp – Tools, Template & Training gallery for virtual event hosts! Stop starting from scratch when this baby includes all the assets you need!
- Google Drive – The best tool for organizing your files for your summit! Create a folder for Speakers and Sponsors and even one to deliver swag bag items to your attendees!
- Google Forms – Free tool to build a speaker intake form to gather information from your speakers and sponsors.
- Content Snare – A great tool I use to easily collect information from my speakers and sponsors. It allows you to create a schedule of follow-up emails so you spend more time on planning rather than tracking down speakers for their information!
- Airtable – My favorite resource for creating spreadsheets to organize my summits. Track speakers, sponsors, your schedule, and your budget in Airtable.
Speaker Directories
- HeySummit Speaker Directory – A great resource to find speakers for your summits as well as list yourself to speak on others.
- Virtual Summit Search – A growing speaker directory of people who are willing to speak at summits on a variety of topics.
Website Tools
- Hey Summit – Summit hosting platform that does it all. Easy to use and has everything you need built in to plan, host, and monetize your virtual summit without tech skills.
- Kajabi– All-in-one platform for hosting not just virtual summits but your entire website and business application. You can lock your content behind a paywall for your tickets or host the whole summit!
- WordPress – Easy to customize a summit the way you want. WordPress is a great website builder but will require some tech skills and working knowledge of how to use its systems and user dashboard.
- Elementor – A drag-and-drop page builder that allows you to easily customize your WordPress pages without tech skills.
- Astra Theme – WordPress theme that is light and loads fast. They offer many pre-made templates to give you a head start when building your summit of website pages.
- WooCommerce – A free cart plugin for WordPress that will allow you to sell your summit tickets.
Video Hosting
- Vimeo – My personal favorite for hosting videos, Vimeo offers privacy settings you can’t beat for a virtual summit! Make sure you choose at least their Business plan, as they don’t allow the use of business services on the lower tier and will shut your account down…
- Youtube – Always love a free option, YouTube can be used for hosting your video content as well. Just set the privacy setting to hide/unlisted videos so you don’t make it easy for unregistered viewers to see your summit content.
Emails, Funnels & Carts
- ConvertKit – A great option for sending emails to your summit audience. ConvertKit makes it easy to tag and segment your list and build automation that will allow you to get the right message to the right people every time.
- Flowdesk – Easy-to-use email tool with beautiful layouts for fun email marketing campaigns. Pricing is less than $50 a month for unlimited everything!
- Deadline Funnel – A software system that allows you to create real urgency for your summit attendees. I’ve started using this in a few of my events and it’s a great tool to create fast action offers.
- ThriveCart – I love ThriveCart and recommend every business owner have the lifetime deal to offer full marketing funnels, product sales, and event courses.
Engagement Tools
- Live Webinar – Great webinar tool with tons of features like whiteboards, breakout rooms, presenter mode, polls, and other engagement sessions like panel sessions.
- Zoom– Who doesn’t love zoom, right? Well, you can use zoom to record your summit interviews, host live panels with Q&A, as well as breakout sessions!
Other Tools
- SiteGround – Reliable website hosting for WordPress sites. You can also buy a domain name directly through SiteGround.
- GoDaddy – Personally, I buy all my domains through GoDaddy. They have great customer service and they always have sales.
- Terms & Conditions Generator – Free easy tool to generate simple terms and conditions pages. You will need to read through them and maybe have them reviewed by an attorney, but they are a great starting point!
