# Build A Quarterly Authority Campaign That Keeps Your Coaching Pipeline Warm

> A quarterly authority campaign is a 13-week cycle of one problem, one event and planned follow-up that keeps warm prospects coming in all year.

URL: https://virtualsummits.com/growth-strategy/quarterly-authority-campaign
Author: Steve Eriksen (https://eventraptor.com/about-steve)
Publisher: EventRaptor (https://eventraptor.com)
Published: 2026-07-03
Updated: 2026-11-01
Section: Growth Strategy

If you're a coach, a therapist or the expert behind a service business, you probably know this pattern. A referral lands, a launch goes well, three good clients sign in the same fortnight. Then the inbox goes quiet for six weeks and you're refreshing it every morning.

A quarterly authority campaign fixes that pattern by giving your visibility a rhythm. **Pick one problem your ideal client is struggling with right now, teach it through one visible event, and set up the follow-up before the event goes live, so registrants get tagged, nurtured and invited to a call. Then run the same 13-week cycle every quarter.**

You don't need a giant audience or a new tool to learn. You need one clear topic, a date, a few partners and a follow-up sequence that's already written by the time people register. The rest of this article walks through each piece, with the calendar, the asset choices and the numbers worth tracking.

## Key Takeaways

- Choose one specific client problem per quarter and name the campaign after it, so every page, invitation and email points the same way.
- Match the event to your capacity this quarter: a short workshop when client work is heavy, a summit when you have room to host and are [ready for a bigger authority move](/growth-strategy/coaching-authority-move).
- Write the follow-up emails and the booking step before promotion starts, because most conversations happen in the weeks after the event.
- Judge each campaign on booked calls, new tagged contacts and partner relationships as well as registration totals.
- Reuse the same calendar, templates and CRM tags every quarter so your second campaign takes noticeably less effort than your first.

## Why Thirteen Weeks Is the Right Length

A month is too short. You can't recruit partners, promote properly, host and follow up in four weeks without burning out. A year-long plan has the opposite problem: it drifts, and by month five nobody remembers what the theme was.

Thirteen weeks gives you roughly a month to plan, five or six weeks to promote, the event itself, and three weeks of focused follow-up. That last month matters most, and it's the one people skip.

I learned the timeline lesson the hard way. My first summit, the Solopreneur Accelerator Summit, started on August 31, 2020, eight weeks after I left my job to start a coaching business. It had 27 speakers over four days, and I built it in two weeks. It worked (my list went from about 100 people to 750), but I don't recommend that pace to anyone.

Podcast guest Danny Den Hartog described the other side of the same problem. He set his summit date three months out, and he said the fixed date saved him. But he hadn't broken the work into milestones, so he spent his early weeks on things like the summit logo. Eleven days before the event, he hadn't sold a single ticket and had to change his model at the last minute. A quarter only works when each week has a job, as our [13-week plan for a first virtual summit](/summit-planning/first-virtual-summit-small-list-90-days) lays out.

## The Four Phases of a 13-Week Campaign

Here's the shape of one quarter. The week numbers are a starting point, so stretch or compress them to fit your client load.

| Phase | Weeks | What gets done | Your part |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | 1 to 3 | Choose the problem, the format, the offer and the partners; write the follow-up | Decide the topic and offer, approve the speaker list |
| Promote | 4 to 9 | Pages go live, partners share their links, reminders are scheduled | Personal invitations to partners, a few emails to your list |
| Host | 10 | The event runs | Teach, host and make the invitation |
| Follow up and review | 11 to 13 | Nurture emails, call invitations, speaker thank-yous, debrief | Take calls, review the numbers, pick next quarter's topic |

If you want this mapped against your whole year, our guide to [building a campaign calendar that survives busy client months](/growth-strategy/coach-campaign-calendar) shows how to stack four of these cycles without them colliding.

### Weeks 1 to 3, Choose One Problem and Decide the Offer

Start with a problem your prospects already describe in their own words, one that connects directly to what you sell. "Better wellbeing" is too wide. "Getting your energy back after 50 without giving up the foods you love" is something a person types into a search bar at 11 p.m.

For example, a health coach with a 12-week program might run a spring campaign on that energy question, then switch to sleep in the summer quarter. Same audience, different door in.

Then decide what you'll invite people to do at the end. A discovery call, a VIP pass, a waitlist, a program. Do this in week one.

Here's a tip from one of my own summits. I was too exhausted to put a proper offer together, and although speakers and attendees loved the event and it added 476 new people to my list, it made only about $1,800 while it ran. I still count it a success, because those people will keep buying for years. But the lesson stuck: the offer gets decided first, while you still have energy.

This is also the time to choose partners. The [authority partner map](/authority-building/authority-partner-map-for-coaches) helps you pick speakers and collaborators whose audiences match yours. If you need more names, Speaker Connections, the free networking event Jennie started in February 2022, meets on Zoom on the first and third Tuesday of each month, and usually 70 to 110 speakers and hosts attend.

### Weeks 4 to 9, Promote Through Partners

Your own posting will bring some people in. Speakers and partners sharing with their audiences will usually bring far more, and that's the whole reason a multi-speaker event grows a list faster than solo content.

More than 5,000 people on the EventRaptor list came from other speakers promoting our summits. That's the kind of reach you can't get by posting more often.

[Make promotion easy for partners](/summit-planning/summit-speaker-recruitment). Give each one a unique link, a couple of ready-made emails and a clear date. A leaderboard they can see adds a little friendly competition without you chasing anyone.

### Week 10, Host and Make the Invitation

Keep sessions short enough that busy people actually watch them. Podcast guest Tiffany Neuman ran 10 experts over five days, two a day, with 20 to 30 minute interviews. She called it "consciously consumable content", and the idea holds up: one topic, strong speakers, no marathon.

Then invite people clearly. Say what the next step is, who it's for and how to take it. You've spent nine weeks earning the right to ask.

### Weeks 11 to 13, Follow Up While Interest Is Warm

You've got two groups to follow up with, attendees and speakers.

For attendees, the booking step should already be live in your welcome email, your event dashboard and every follow-up message. Podcast guest Jon Schumacher linked a call booking page from his welcome emails and summit pages, added a short questionnaire to filter leads, and sent people to a pre-call page with case studies and talks to watch before the call. He said the three consulting engagements he closed from that summit came from people who, to his knowledge, never attended a single session. So give non-attendees a way to raise their hand too.

For speakers, Ivy Slater suggested a personal thank-you note right away (she likes handwritten ones), a personal email 30 days later that mentions a tip they shared, and a debrief call at 60 days. Those calls turn one-off speakers into long-term referral partners and future collaborators.

In my experience, a good follow-up process might turn 10 to 15% of a summit list into clients over time. That's my experience, not a promise. Without follow-up, plenty of hosts add hundreds of people to their list and convert almost none. "Build it and they will come" is a myth.

## Choosing the Right Asset for This Quarter

The asset should fit the quarter you're actually going to have, rather than the one you wish you had. A heavy client quarter calls for something light.

| Asset | Best when | Host effort | What it builds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speaking on other people's stages | Client load is heavy or your list is small | Low | Borrowed audience and new partner relationships |
| Micro event (one short workshop) | You want a focused win around one problem | Moderate | A small, warm group and fast feedback on your message |
| One-day summit (roughly 5 to 12 speakers) | You want partner reach without a long event | Moderate to high | List growth and several new partners |
| Multi-day summit | You have room to host and want a big list and authority boost | Highest, unless it's run for you | Authority, list growth, VIP sales and a library of content |

If a summit feels like too much right now, [running a micro event](/authority-building/micro-event-authority) gives you most of the rhythm with a fraction of the moving parts. And if you've got no capacity to host at all, [speaking on other people's summits and podcasts](/authority-building/coaches-build-authority-without-posting-content-every-day) keeps you visible while you serve clients.

You can also rotate. For example, a business coach might run a summit in the first quarter, speak on other stages in the second, host a micro event in the third and return to a summit in the fourth. The theme changes, the follow-up structure stays the same.

Whatever you choose, plan to reuse the recordings. Each session can become a short clip, a blog post or a podcast episode, which gives you something useful to share during the quiet weeks between campaigns.

## Wiring the Event Into Your CRM Before Anyone Registers

The follow-up only works if every registrant lands in your CRM with tags that tell you who they are and how they found you. Set that up in the planning phase, while things are calm.

Use this checklist before your registration page goes live:

- [ ] A campaign tag (for example, "Q2 Energy Summit") applied to every registrant
- [ ] A separate tag for VIP buyers
- [ ] One custom registration question about their biggest challenge with the topic
- [ ] A booking calendar link in the welcome email, the event dashboard and every follow-up email
- [ ] Three to five post-event emails written and scheduled
- [ ] A speaker thank-you sequence, with a note to personalize each one
- [ ] A slower nurture sequence for people who aren't ready yet

That last item is easy to forget. Someone who isn't ready this quarter may be ready next quarter, and your next campaign gives them a fresh reason to come back. Our article on [keeping client attraction running when your calendar fills up](/automation/busy-coach-client-attraction) goes deeper on tags, nurture and booking.

## What EventRaptor and Our Team Take Off Your Plate

Let me explain what a quarter looks like with EventRaptor carrying the operational side.

Speakers apply, sign their agreements and upload their details through the platform, so you're not chasing headshots by email. The schedule, speaker pages and attendee dashboard are built from those records, so nothing gets rebuilt by hand. Every promoter gets a unique link and can see the leaderboard. Welcome, reminder and follow-up emails go out on the event's timing. Registrants sync to GHL/CRMRaptor with their tags, so your nurture and booking calendar can start the moment someone signs up.

When Jennie and I ran Own Your Stage in February 2022, our first summit on EventRaptor, it took about 20 hours of admin. It brought in about 600 registrations and 466 new people on our list, sold 109 VIP tickets at $47, and produced more than $24,000 in sales within two weeks of the event. By February 2024 that one summit had led to more than $50,000 in sales as new registrants kept buying. Those are our own results, and they don't predict yours.

If you'd rather not run the campaign yourself, our done-for-you team can handle speaker outreach, the pages, the copy, the Zoom setup and the reminders, leaving you to teach, host and sell. We've produced over 40 summits for clients and run 13 summits of our own. One client, Lucy Bedewi, a personality-driven copywriter, hosted the Out-Earn Your Man summit in September 2021, which we produced for her on EventRaptor. Her list grew from 25 people to 825, and she booked 4 discovery calls right after she presented, all of which became clients. That's one person's result, and it doesn't predict results for another host.

To be straight about the limits: live sessions run on Zoom, and EventRaptor doesn't include in-event Q&A and polls. Video hosting is available through CRMRaptor, our GoHighLevel solution, so your session recordings and replays don't need a separate video host. Registrations, VIP status, promoter performance, CRM tags and video view analytics are where it gives you clear data.

## How to Tell Whether the Campaign Moved Your Pipeline

Registration totals feel good, but they're only the first number. In week 13, sit down for an hour and look at these:

1. **New contacts added** under the campaign tag, and how many were new to your list.
2. **VIP or offer purchases** during the event.
3. **Promoter performance**, so you know which partners brought registrations and who to invite back.
4. **Calls booked** from the campaign tag, and how many were a good fit.
5. **Calls that became clients**, whether this month or later.
6. **Partner follow-ups**, such as speakers who invited you onto their stage or referred someone.

Then keep watching the campaign tag for months. Summit audiences buy over time. Across our own summits, people who joined through a summit have gone on to account for more than $250,000 in sales. That's our experience over several years, not a forecast.

Finish the debrief by writing down three things: what you'll repeat, what you'll drop and next quarter's problem. That note becomes week one of the next campaign.

## A Note for Therapists and Healing Practitioners

This rhythm works well for private practice, with a few adjustments covered in our guide to [virtual summits for therapists](/summit-planning/virtual-summits-for-therapists-explained). Choose educational topics that help the public understand a specialty, such as how couples counseling works or what to expect from trauma-informed bodywork, and invite respected peers to speak. That builds professional referral relationships as much as visibility.

Keep the event clearly educational. Summit content isn't therapy, so say so, and never use stories or testimonials from therapy clients. Your call to action can be a consultation, a group program or a private-pay waitlist. Before you publish anything, check your licensing board's advertising rules, especially around claims and endorsements.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### What Is a Quarterly Authority Campaign?

It's a 13-week marketing cycle built around one client problem, one visible event or stage, and a planned follow-up sequence. You plan, promote, host and follow up within the quarter, then repeat with a new topic. The goal is a steady supply of warm prospects and booked calls instead of occasional bursts.

### Do I Need a Big Email List to Start?

No. When I ran my first summit I had about 100 people on my list, and the event grew it to 750 because speakers promoted it to their audiences. Partner promotion does most of the reach, so a small list mainly affects how much you lean on speakers and promoter links.

### What If I Can't Run a Summit Every Quarter?

Rotate the format. Run a summit when you have capacity, and use a short workshop or speaking on other people's stages in heavier quarters. Keep the same CRM tags and follow-up structure so every quarter still feeds the pipeline.

### How Much Time Does a Quarterly Campaign Take?

It depends on the format and how much help you have. Our first summit on EventRaptor took about 20 hours of admin across the whole campaign, and a micro event usually takes less. With a done-for-you team, your time goes mostly into teaching, hosting and sales calls.

### Can Therapists Use This Approach?

Yes, as long as the content stays educational and follows professional ethics. Invite peers, teach your specialty, avoid client stories or outcome promises, and make it clear the event isn't therapy. Check your licensing board's advertising rules before you promote.

## Your Next Step This Week

Open your calendar and block the next 13 weeks. Write down one problem your best clients were struggling with before they found you, and one offer you'd happily invite people into at the end. Those two lines are enough to start week one.

If you'd like help choosing this quarter's format and sorting out the follow-up before anything goes live, [Book your Client Attraction Planning Call](/planning-call). We'll look at what you sell, how people find you now and which campaign makes sense for the quarter ahead.