5 Game-Changing Steps to Set Clear Goals that Equal Online Event Success

Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:

Hey The. Welcome back to this episode of The Acquire Podcast, and I’m your host, Jenny Wright. I’m a list build and lead generation specialist and sometime fractional CMO. It’s a fun gig. And today we’re actually diving into something that is absolutely essential for anybody who’s planning an online event. And The is all about setting clear goals. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of details and tasks that are involved in planning an online event, you are not alone. But here’s the good news.

 

Jennie Wright [00:00:35]:

By setting clear and actionable goals, you can streamline your planning process and really ensure that your event is a huge success. So grab your notebook. I prefer to write in a Google doc, but you grab whatever works for you. And let’s get started talking about these 5 steps to setting really clear goals for your online event. And just as we’re about to dive in, I do wanna mention that this is pulling from well over a decade of me planning online events. If you know me, you know, I’ve planned about 380 online events at the time that I’m recording this. And as I’m recording this, I’m working on my latest, which is a free bundle giveaway. I’m really excited about it.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:17]:

It’s gonna come out in July, and I’m I’m actually over the moon because this is a project that I’ve been wanting to do for years, but was always a bit concerned about doing it all by myself. So I’ve actually tried many times to collaborate with other people to do a bundle giveaway thinking that it would take some of the pressure off of me because I’m always planning other people’s events. But that never worked out, and I found that it was because my goals weren’t aligning with their goals. So I thought this episode would be quite timely because I really have been doing a lot of goal setting and a lot of planning. And I thought it was time to share this with you so that you could sort of benefit from this sort of bank of knowledge I’ve been building over the past decade or so with all of these events. I don’t know anybody who’s done as many as me. And if there is, I’d love to meet you. And we have lots of things to talk about because it is, it is it is quite the thing to have completed nearly 400 online events in just over a decade.

 

Jennie Wright [00:02:22]:

So let’s talk about it. Let’s let’s get into these 5 steps. The first one being identifying your events purpose. I get so excited for people when they say they wanna run an online event, like a summit or a bundle giveaway or a challenge or something. I get really excited for them. That excitement though has to be sort of rooted in the definition of the purpose your event. Your, your event has to have a purpose. So think about this for a second, and to kind of put that excitement for it aside for a second and, and, and think, is it to generate leads? Is it to boost your brand awareness? Is it to create networking opportunities, which are fun and great? Whatever your reason is absolutely crucial that you create this really clear purpose around your event, because when you know your why and The, like the purpose of the event, everything else gets really easy to build around it.

 

Jennie Wright [00:03:21]:

You can set those goals that then align with those overall objectives. And now it gets a lot simpler. I always say to my clients, when we’re planning an event, we start with the end goal in mind, whatever that is. So as an example, if you were planning to launch a mid tier monthly membership off the back end of your bundle giveaway, everything needs to align, meaning everything needs to point towards that membership. And also we then can sell or include a 30 day trial of that membership within the bundle itself. Giving your membership a great kickoff start Wright from the word go. And you’re going to increase your success by doing that. Another example would be if you’re selling a high end mastermind, $35,000 mastermind.

 

Jennie Wright [00:04:16]:

Okay. Maybe that’s your thing. And you’re running a summit. So you have 40 speakers The the end goal is to sell this $35,000 mastermind. Well, you are going to be doing a completely different style of goal setting than somebody who’s settling a mid tier membership. And your summit is going to reflect that it’s going to have those opportunities for people to get you, get to know you on a deeper level so that you can show them your abilities and your skills as a coach The would that, you know, that would earn or that would garner such a high price tag. So you have to start, with your online events, building those goals in, you’re actually starting to reduce or eliminate people’s objections to your program, product, or service right within it. If that’s what you wanna do.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:09]:

If it’s simply for networking, that’s a completely different event. So set those goals early. Everything else gets simpler from there. Okay. Step number 2 is understanding who your audience is and figuring out, that that one piece is incredibly key in my opinion because it then makes sure that the goals that you created are now resonating with them. And what you might have to do is if you set your goals, and then you understand your audience, you may have to go back and just sort of tweak those goals because you wanna make sure again, full alignment. And if you really aren’t sure who your audience is, or if you’ve recently done a pivot or a change, do some research. My favorite type of research is completely free and takes me almost no time at all.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:56]:

And that research is getting into social media, Facebook groups, Instagram, LinkedIn. And I start looking at what people are saying, in comments and also on Facebook lives of people who are talking about the same issues that I am, or even on my Facebook lives. And I get to see what people are saying because the things that they will mention are the biggest problems that they’re they’re having. So that’s a really great way. Another way that I do it is I actually do surveys and I do them really surreptitiously. I do them without people really even knowing I’m doing a survey. I actually just did this in a Facebook group with, like I think there’s like 60,000 people in the Facebook group. And I just asked, like, what what is it that you’re selling right now and how’s it going? So I think the the responses, there was something like a 150 responses or something.

 

Jennie Wright [00:06:49]:

And the first couple were like, well, I’m trying to sell this thing, but nobody’s buying it. Another one was I don’t have enough people to sell to. Another one was, people are buying it, but they’re not fulfilling it. Like they’re not going through the course. So what are those problems? I don’t have enough leads. The leads that I have aren’t interested in the product that I’m selling, or my product is not a viable product for those leads. And also when leads are buying, they’re not finishing the program, product or service. Those are 3 completely separate problems.

 

Jennie Wright [00:07:18]:

And that is gold to somebody like me, because then I can create an event around that. I can create a lead magnet around that. I can create a program around that. And then I can create all The content that then supports what that is and reduces the barrier to entry for somebody to actually wanna buy it. It’s a process, but it is insanely important. And once you know your audience inside it out, it allows you to create these goals. Like step 1, it allows you to refine them. So you’re truly meeting the needs and expectations of your audience.

 

Jennie Wright [00:07:50]:

I’ll give you one last example. It has to do with this podcast. This is episode 39. This is very meta. This is very transparent. Okay. When I first started this podcast, I was having like a little bit of a crisis of conscience. And it’s not because I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the podcast.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:07]:

It’s just I wasn’t sure I could do the podcast properly. I’d had a podcast previously. I was hosting it with someone else. We were co hosting it together, which was fabulous. I loved it. The work was shared, all that good stuff. However, when it ended, I did not feel relevant, to my audience. I felt like I didn’t know them.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:27]:

I felt like they didn’t know me. And I really had a lack of confidence. So when I started Acquire, I still had that lack of confidence. And when I look at my numbers, when I look at the downloads for acquire, in that first, you know, that first part of the season, which was starting in August of 2023, it’s really noticeable. It’s noticeable by my topics. It’s noticeable by the audience. You know, it’s noticeable by the downloads. It’s noticeable by my choice of wonderful experts has nothing to do with them.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:56]:

It was all about me. And I’m gonna tell you that as I figured out my audience and started setting really clear goals for Acquire, the audience started to grow. And so we saw this massive jump and I actually refer to it in a pod in a in a post on Facebook recently where we saw this massive jump in the downloads for Acquire. Makes me super happy. If I’m helping, I’m so happy. But I was like, wow. Okay. So what is this attributable to? And I kinda broke a lot of that down in, I think it was podcast episode, 38 with Jerodry and Katie.

 

Jennie Wright [00:09:34]:

But on top of that, there was a lot of audience work that I had to do. Right. So having said all The, really knowing who your audience is going to be key, it’s going to create a ton of success. If you have an amazing product and it’s in front of the wrong audience, it’s not gonna sell. So this is really great when it comes to online events. All Wright. Moving on because I could spend all day just talking about number 2, but I have like 3 more to go. Okay.

 

Jennie Wright [00:09:55]:

So let’s get into SMART goals. Now you’ve probably heard of SMART goals. It’s really used in corporate. And when I left corporate, it was such a turnoff. I was like, I’m never doing smart goals again because I frickin’ hated them. The reality is The work and it sucks because I really didn’t wanna use them again. I wanted to leave that part of my past behind. But, you know, if you know your event’s purpose and you completely understand your audience, So number 1 and number 2 in our goal setting, then it’s time to get to those goals and setting really clear goals is going to be the thing that’s going to make it happen.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:31]:

I’m not going to explain smart goals to you. I’m just going to tell you that the acronym is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. And even though those sound really like, you know, at least to me, they feel really constraining. They’re not. And you can really work within them to create amazing goals. So here’s what it looks like in action. Instead of saying, I want a lot of people to attend my event, I wanna make a ton of money. I want everybody to know who I am and I wanna be an expert.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:03]:

Try saying instead, I want 1500 people to register for my event within the 4 week window that I’m promoting. So it’s more clear. We put a number on it and it’s actionable. It’s something that I can work towards saying I want a million people to register for my event is not a smart goal That is well outside the range of being a smart goal because it’s not achievable for you at this particular moment, most likely to be able to get a million people on your on your event. It is not achievable for me right now to say that I want a 100000 people to register for my upcoming bundle. It is achievable based on my track record, my history, and my ability and knowing my audience and setting clear goals that I can reasonably assume that I can get between 3 to 6000 people. That’s just plain fact. And it’s not outside of creating a really smart goal.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:00]:

So look at that and start creating a smart goal. This doesn’t have to take long. This process for me takes me 5 minutes. I want 3,000 minuteimum registrants for my online bundle giveaway. So what is yours? Create that target, and then you can aim for it. Because when it’s really really clearly laid out Wiehler can then make it achievable. Okay? Step number 4 is creating a goal timeline. This is one of my favorite things.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:30]:

I thrive in The space of creating timelines and goals. And I will tell you right now that, to help me create these timelines and goals, I mean, I’ve tried every software out there and this I’m not getting paid for this plug, but I use I use Airtable. My assistant Christian got me over into Airtable, I’d say about a year and a half or Wright years ago out of Asana and it was a game changer. I mean, everybody uses something different. I cannot use Trello for my life. The cards just don’t make sense to me. I will tell you that I just recently started using Notion, started using that in February of 2024, and I really love it. I love Notion.

 

Jennie Wright [00:13:07]:

And, I find between Notion and Airtable and Slack, those are my timeline setting, you know, project management tools The that has really worked for me. And it has taken a long time for me to find the right things. You have to try them all out. So if you have your SMART goals, we’re gonna break things down now into really manageable tasks and creating a goal timeline is all about taking those really big goals and turning them into smaller, more actionable steps. Things you can actually do without thinking, oh my gosh. You know? So an example, build your event funnel. Deadline, July 20th. That’s too big Because there are so many tasks within building a funnel, you need to then break them down into more actionable steps, writing the copy, setting up the connection between ClickFunnels and ActiveCampaign, creating the landing pages in ClickFunnels, creating tags in ActiveCampaign, creating your automation in ActiveCampaign, and so on.

 

Jennie Wright [00:14:11]:

So start by setting these milestones and deadlines for each task. For example, if one of your goals is to have, you know, that 3,000 registrants that I talked about a minute ago, your task might include crafting a really solid marketing plan to achieve that goal and then scheduling your social media posts so that you’re hitting your audience at the right time. And then sending out email campaigns through like ActiveCampaign so that your current audience could then be invited to that new upcoming event. And then once you assign deadlines to each task and you start keeping track, Wright, actually it was being done for me. My assistant was really helping me, but I now also do it as well, which is Wright. Is automations. So I’m really getting into using automations to streamline all of my goal, timelines and also my goal setting. So what I’ll do is in Airtable, I’ll set the goal and my task.

 

Jennie Wright [00:15:10]:

I’ll put the deadline. I’ll set an automation so that when that task is, 48 hours out, I get a reminder. When that task is, you know, the next day I’ll get a reminder through an automation. When that task is complete an automation, then lets, you know, whoever on my team know that it needs to be known or needs to know it, that it’s been completed and The it’s now ready for whatever future step. And I’ve implemented this with my clients. 1 of my clients is running a webinar next Wiehler, and we’re in the midst of creating all this ancillary material to support the webinar. So, 50% off consultation cost coupon, survey questions and, asking for a review and, you know, PowerPoint and so on and so forth. Every time one baby step is completed within that entire sort of timeline of goals and tasks, an automation lets the next person know that it’s ready for them to take the baton and move that up.

 

Jennie Wright [00:16:13]:

And so when it comes to me working with a client, my team will often set, a little checkbox that says ready for Jenny. So when they check ready for Jenny, I get a notification either through Slack and or email that says, Hey, task ABC name of task is now ready for your review. And then it has the link to that task. I click the link. It takes me right to the task. I review it right away. And then when I’m done, I click ready for client. And then that triggers another automation to let my client know, Hey, client, this task is ready for you to review.

 

Jennie Wright [00:16:49]:

And they go in and they review it. And then when it’s done, they click approved or needs edits or whatever. And that sets off another automation. So in terms of creating these goal timelines, using your smart goals, setting everything up, use as much AI as you possibly can to automate the process and really make it smooth. So this this now becomes less crazy and less overwhelming because now you’re putting into a system. And if that feels overwhelming in terms of the AI, I will have a whole episode coming about that, which I think is gonna be cool. So you can keep your eye out for The. But I will tell you that automations and AI in the automations has made a massive difference in being able to create these timelines.

 

Jennie Wright [00:17:31]:

All right. Let’s talk about our final step in our 5 step process. Okay. And that is measuring your success. We need to celebrate our wins. We always have to look at this and you can get as deep as you know, looking at your KPIs, your key performance indicators to track your progress. You can do what I do, and I’ll get into that step in a second where you simply can say, I did The. I completed this.

 

Jennie Wright [00:17:58]:

This was 5 weeks of my life. This was 2 months of my life thinking about this. This was, you know, a big thing for me. This was a huge goal. This was something that I never knew I could accomplish and now I did and celebrate every single win within it. Even breaking those down into their sub little wins. You know, I recorded 36 live videos. I didn’t know I could do that.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:20]:

I wrote all this copy. Look at me go. I created social media graphics or, and, and this is really good as you, as you get bigger. Is I was an effective leader to lead my team and being able to accomplish all of these tasks. And I handled it with patience and grace and and everything else. Right. So that, that is one of my own personal wins when I run an event is making sure that I am an, a really good Wiehler, not only for my client who I have to lead because they either don’t know how to do it or they need me to take the reins, but also my team. My team needs me to be in my calmest, most productive space ever, especially with events because events can get a little bit hairy.

 

Jennie Wright [00:19:02]:

So that is one of my wins and I celebrate that. Now one of the things that I also do with KPIs, if you really wanna get into the nitty gritty, is KPIs can be fun. And so I will actually create a little mini report of an event, how it went, especially for a client, and I will track the KPIs. So whatever the KPIs were, our little smart goals at the beginning, 3,000 registrants, 1500 registrants, whatever it is. Wright. And you have all The things like registration numbers, attendance goals, engagement metrics, if you can get The, and Jennie any post event feedback. All of that is something that I go over and I make sure that the client knows because here’s the thing. When you were in the event, it feels I mean, you you notice all the little stuff like, oh my god.

 

Jennie Wright [00:19:48]:

That link didn’t work. Or that expert showed up late and we oh, I forgot. I I forgot to hit record. Things like that. And that’s what you think about. But in being able to review your registration numbers and your attendance rates and your engagement rates and your post event feedback and any metrics, financial or nonfinancial, then you start to see all the wins and all of the effort and work and outcome that comes from creating these beautiful, amazing events. So don’t miss this final step. I think it’s such a key and it’s really going to show you all the hard work that you have completed and all of the up leveling you’ve done.

 

Jennie Wright [00:20:30]:

With almost 400 events under my belt, every event teaches me something. And one of my biggest learnings over the past decade is I am now the I’m always the the the force for calm, being grounded. I’m always going to be the most reasonable voice out there with my team, with my clients, with anything that’s going on. That is one of my biggest learnings over the past decade, as well as the financial and registration metrics that I’m able to achieve for a client. I cannot go around and tell people that I’ve created, you know, x amount of successful events if I have it. So I keep meticulous data on those events so that I can show my clients, potential clients. And also, like I said, when you’re in it and you notice only those little things, it can feel at the Jennie, like a big, let down. You’re exhausted.

 

Jennie Wright [00:21:30]:

You’re not sure if it went well. And being able to say for me to tell you, like, Jason, my gosh, do you know how amazing this event was? In comparison to your peers, you had a much bigger open rate for your emails. You had a much bigger conversion rate on that landing page. That landing page converted at 67%. Your peers are converting at 25. How amazing is that? Wright. Show those wins because that can then make you feel like all of that hard work was worth it. So this is why I love goal setting.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:02]:

This is my 5 steps for creating these really clear and successful goals for your next online event. Or if you’ve never run one before your first online event. By identifying your event’s purpose and understanding your audience, setting SMART goals, Please don’t worry. They’re not that corporate and then creating a really reasonable goal timeline followed by measuring your success. You’re well on your way to hosting what I could think is going to be a really successful online event. Remember that clear goals not only help you in the planning process, but also help you ensure that your event delivers value to your attendees and also achieves your business objectives. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you found this episode to be helpful.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:45]:

And I’ve got a couple extra episodes that you might actually find useful when it comes to these particular like this topic. So I recommend that you go and listen to episode 7, And that is sort of my lessons from being a formal virtual assistant. Episode 9 is really good for this too. It’s the power of targeted audience. So if you want to get into knowing your audience, go listen to episode 9. And then episode 11 talks about unlocking event success and having the science of lead generation optimization. So that’s going to help you as well. Take a look at episode 13 and that’s creating participation from your leads within your open rates and your click throughs, which is super helpful when you promo.

 

Jennie Wright [00:23:28]:

Take a look also at episode 15, which is my very best registration and sales strategies behind free and paid events. I think that falls really, really nicely into your metrics. And then also take a look at episode 21. And that’s where I talk about traffic channel mapping. And this is where I look at the leaks in your in your, you know, your list building and your lead generation and where I can boost conversions and how you can do that too. So take a look at those. Hopefully those are helpful. We’ll put links to all of those in our show notes for you to grab as well as you can always head over to Jennie and get some extra good resources there for you.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:09]:

As well as you can check out my Summit’s Made Simple products. And if you need the kind of help that only I can do, which is helping you to produce a really successful online event, go ahead and book a call with me to talk about what that would look like. Thanks so much for listening to the Acquire podcast. As always, it is brought to you by the Audphonic Podcast Network. And thank you for spending time with me today. And if you like the show, please make sure to subscribe, like, let me know what you think and a review would be super helpful. All right. Have a great rest of your day.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:38]:

Take care.