How do you launch a webinar / digital summit?

👋 Hi friends -

Welcome to The Newsletter Growth Memo. Twice a month, I share short reflections with my newsletter clients + other operators.

Zero formality, ads, or affiliate links - just a guy sharing learnings from working with media operators doing $25k-$2M+ / month with newsletters.

New reader highlights: Mike, Head of Marketing & Growth @ Workweek | Callie, SVP of advertising @ Workweek | Manu, Founder @ Stacked Marketer

Two weeks ago, beehiiv and I hosted the Own The Inbox Summit.

Just under 2,000 people registered.

We had amazing speakers: Nicolas Cole, Katelyn Bourgoin, and Chenell Basilio.

That rolled into a 5-week newsletter accelerator that begins in about an hour.

Nearly 1,000 people applied.

Every major media company is either speaking or sending their teams to it.

We kicked the initiative off officially on May 7th and went from idea → massive event in 6 weeks.

I honestly couldn't be happier with how things turned out.

It wasn’t perfect, but for a first attempt… pretty good!

And so I want to walk you through 3 things over the next 5 minutes:

1. Funnel metrics (ours + benchmarks from clients) for webinars and how to use digital events for conversion

2. My personal takeaways - things we nailed and opportunities we missed

3. Why I think making a $2,000 accelerator free is a good idea

A TLDR on the Summit

I wanted to build a summit that was extremely tactical for beginner & intermediate operators - taking them from idea to 7 figures with a newsletter business.

We handpicked guests for that:

• Niche selection (Nicolas Cole, $700k+/month with email-based businesses)

• Organic growth (Chenell Basilio, the queen of organic growth!)

• Paid growth (Me)

• Product sales (Katelyn Bourgoin / Daniel Bustamante, each of whom has sold 7-figures of digital products)

The Numbers

Our metrics and how I feel about them:

• ~2,000 registered (10-20% higher than I expected)

• 450 live attendees (25% show rate - 20-30% is typical)

• 100+ accelerator applications from the webinar (25% application rate; very strong)

• ~800 total accelerator applicants (organic social was a huge boost here)

• We invited ~200 operators, plus 120 director+ leaders from 50 of the largest media companies

7 Lessons from Hosting a Digital Event

1. Borrow other people's audiences (BOPA)

I cannot stress how important it is to have speakers share the event.

We had every speaker repost beehiiv's announcements about the summit.

They also emailed their audience:

And you, as the host, need to make it extremely easy for them (provide example copy / show what other speakers are sending).

2. Lock in guests first + use mutual intros

Many of our guests I didn’t know directly.

But I have friends who do!

And so I asked for introductions.

(The Mutual Intro Playbook is something I 100% borrowed from Jesse Pujji, who used it to bootstrap Ampush to $30M).

That playbook is most of how I grow my business / meet cool people.

But, even with mutual intros, getting guests is hard.

I had a 5th session in mind we ended up scrapping because so many people were out of pocket…

• Justin Welsh - vacation

• Noah Edelman (sold The Neuron) - vacation

• Noah Kagan - outside of the US for the summer

It’s a bummer, but budget that 50% of the people you reach out to will have conflicts.

3. Advertise outcomes, not features

We advertised an outcome - idea to 7-figure newsletter business.

Not the features: "sessions on niche selection, growth tactics, etc."

People want the destination, not the journey.

This (IMO) is what helped us exceed my attendee expectations.

4. Build social proof first

I invited media companies (many of you reading this) I wanted in the accelerator several weeks before we announced it at the Summit.

Who wouldn’t join something that The Hustle, 1440, Superhuman, Conde Nast, and other teams were attending?

That’s also free - how much better could it get?

That made the product harder - I had to create something that is applicable to beginners and advanced folks. But I think we got there and it will be worth it.

5. Create exclusivity and cap seats

We only let 200 people into the accelerator to protect the experience.

I’m a huge fan of time and/or supply scarcity in any call to action.

It’s also why I made the last 2 accelerator sessions invite-only - I want things to feel special.

Quality over quantity. Always.

6. Tease/drip bonuses live to boost retention

Throughout the summit, I teased that there would be an announcement at the end.

And hinted at bonuses (ad templates, sponsor databases) that would be part of it.

The results were great - we had 80%+ retention for the full 3.5 hour event.

Every webinar should do this if there’s an explicit CTA at the end.

7. Run paid ads 7-8 days before

We didn’t do this, and it was a mistake.

I have several clients running webinar funnels where we drive registrants for high-ticket products.

Paid ads 7-8 days before a webinar can drive thousands of attendees @ $3-6 / each with a 20-25% show rate.

We’ll see cost per registrant as low as $2 1-2 days before an event… urgency is power!

The Newsletter Accelerator

At the very end, we announced The Newsletter Accelerator.

I think (hope!) people agree this thing is pretty cool - it got pretty popular on LinkedIn.

(Click the image or here to view the announcement)

Financially, this was an absurd decision.

Right, I mean, I’ve basically spent $10k and 100+ hours creating 5 weeks of content.

And charged everyone $0 for it.

But for now, I’m focused on making the best product possible.

I’ve put every non-confidential number and strategy I’ve seen over the past 2 years into 5 weeks… sponsor pricing/outreach tactics, ARPU benchmarks, negative CAC funnels, etc.

We’ll cover all the basics.

But there are things like cohorted LTV / ROAS calcs that almost no one is doing.

They’re important - having that type of feedback loop for paid growth has made Red Ventures, 1440, and a handful of other brands a lot of money.

We’re also doing onboarding calls with all 120 media company participants.

So we hear exactly what they (you) need, and build around that for accelerator sessions 9 and 10.

This will be the best product/experience for newsletter operators.

There’s no other option!

What’s next

In 60 minutes, we kick off session 1 of the accelerator.

I’m sick/hoarse, which sucks, but I’ve got a 16oz cup of herbal tea and I’m ready to rumble.

Want me to shoot you a note when we do a 2nd accelerator?

Click here.

(You’ll be tagged when you click the link + taken to the accelerator session page so you get a sense of what’s inside)

That’s the letter.

- Nathan May

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