How To Choose An Event Topic That Actually Attracts The Right People
If picking an event topic has you staring at a blank page for days, you are not alone. I talk to so many course creators and online entrepreneurs who want to host a bundle, summit, or other collaborative event, and feel stuck on the very first step: what on earth should this thing be about?
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to find a magical, never‑seen‑before idea that blows everyone away. In reality, a great event usually comes from a simple, well-scoped topic that speaks to real humans and is executed with care.
In this post, I am sharing the exact way I think about event topics, the same process I walk clients through behind the scenes. By the end, you will know how to narrow in on a clear, compelling idea that fits your audience, your expertise, and your business goals, without needing a stroke of genius to get started.
Why We Overcomplicate Choosing An Event Topic
When we think about events, we usually want at least three things:
To stand out in a busy inbox
To feel proud of what we are hosting
To bring in the right people for our offers
So we start hunting for a “brilliant” idea. Something no one has ever done before. Something shiny. Something big.
That is where most people get stuck.
From what I have seen, the success of an event usually has a lot more to do with:
How clearly the topic speaks to a very specific group of people
How well the project is scoped and organised
How much attention you give to the humans involved, not just the numbers
A simple, focused event topic that feels obvious to your audience will often outperform a clever idea that no one really understands or needs right now.
The good news is, you do not need to be wildly creative to land on a strong topic. You only need to get specific in the right places.
The Simple Framework I Use For Every Event Topic
When I help clients pick an event topic, we always come back to three key pieces:
Who the event is for
What timely challenge they are facing
What you are actually an expert in and well positioned to host
When you put those three together, you get a topic that:
Is automatically more niche
Feels timely for your people
Matches your authority and your offers
You do not have to guess. You just have to answer these questions with honesty.
1. Get Clear On Who You Are Speaking To
This sounds basic, but it is where most people skip ahead.
If your answer to “who is this event for?” is “online business owners” or “busy mums” or “anyone who wants to grow their audience”, your pool of possible event topics is enormous, and very hard to work with.
I like to zoom in until the audience feels almost a little too specific.
For example, there is a big difference between:
“Online business owners”
“Online course creators in their first 2 years who want to fill their next launch”
Or:
“Parents”
“Parents of neurodivergent kids who want calmer afternoons after school”
When I lock in that kind of detail, a few things happen:
My brain can start to imagine real people, not a vague crowd
I can already discard lots of event topic ideas that do not fit
I can start to notice patterns in what those people ask me about
A practical way to test your audience clarity is to ask yourself:
Could I name three real humans who would be a perfect fit for this event?
If the answer is no, your audience is probably still too broad.
2. Spot The Timely Challenge They Are Facing
Once I know who I am speaking to, I ask:
What are they struggling with right now, in the area I help with?
Timeliness is a big part of a strong event topic. I am not talking about chasing trends for the sake of it. I mean noticing what feels urgent for your people at this moment.
Think about what they are:
Googling late at night
Venting about to friends or biz buddies
Journalling about in frustration
Some examples of timely challenges might be:
“I have a course but my list is too small to sell it”
“My last launch flopped and I do not know why”
“I am drowning in client work and never have time to create content”
“I want to move from 1:1 to group offers but feel scared to lose income”
When your event topic hooks directly into one clear, timely struggle, your people feel like you have read their mind. That is what makes the event feel worth signing up for now, not “sometime later when I have time”.
It is also what makes it easier to invite collaborators and speakers. They know exactly who they are talking to and what angle they should bring.
3. Match It To Your Real Expertise
The final piece is the one we often skip in our rush to chase a good idea.
You can choose a topic that your audience cares about, but if it does not line up with:
What you are known for
What you have real experience in
What your current offers and business model support
…Then it is going to feel off, both for you and for your attendees.
Your event topic should make it obvious why you are the person hosting this event.
I like to ask myself:
What am I already helping clients with?
What topics do people naturally come to me for advice on?
Which offers do I want this event to lead into as a next step?
When I can answer those, it becomes clear which ideas support my bigger strategy, and which ones would just send people in a random direction.
You want the event to be helpful on its own, but also to act as a natural bridge into the deeper work you do.
Bringing It All Together Into One Clear Event Topic
Once I have those three pieces, I look for the overlap. You can think of it like three circles:
Circle 1: Your niche audience
Circle 2: Their most timely challenge
Circle 3: Your proven expertise and offers
Your best event topic sits in the middle, where all three meet.
From there, I start playing with language:
What simple phrase would make my person say “that is exactly what I need”?
Can I name the outcome they care about in plain words?
Can I hint at the method or angle without getting too clever?
I personally love a fun event name, but I treat that as the icing, not the cake.
The real power is in a topic that is:
Niche enough that people can see themselves in it
Specific enough that they know what they will walk away with
Timely enough that it feels relevant to what they are facing today
When those parts are right, you do not need fireworks around the title. The clarity does the heavy lifting.
How A Strong Event Topic Helps The Rest Of Your Business
Here is my favourite part about doing this work. The same three pieces you need for a great event topic are the same ones you need for your whole business:
A clear niche audience
A deep understanding of their challenges
A clear position for your expertise and offers
So when you sit down to define these for your event, you are also getting clearer on your:
Messaging
Content ideas
Offer suite
Long-term marketing strategy
You can reuse what you find here for your emails, sales pages, and future events.
If you want support with getting more visible once your topic is set, my post on the How to pitch yourself for events guide walks through how to land spots as a guest expert and use events to grow your audience even further.
When You Feel Stuck Or Overwhelmed
If you are midway through planning and feel like your idea is “not quite right”, I like to come back to three simple questions:
Who exactly am I speaking to with this event?
What are they struggling with right now that I can genuinely help with?
Why am I the right person to host this particular conversation?
If you cannot answer one of those clearly, that is your homework.
You might need to talk to your audience, look at recent client questions, or look over your past content and offers to see what themes keep popping up.
There is no prize for picking the most original event topic. The win is choosing the topic that feels obvious, helpful, and aligned for the people you most want to support.
Want Help Picking Your Event Topic? Listen Along With Me
If you want to walk through all of this with more guidance, I created Timely Topics, a free private podcast designed to help you land on a standout event topic.
Inside this audio series, I guide you through:
Getting in touch with topics that actually excite you
Spotting what your audience is already asking themselves
Looking at the bigger picture so your topic lines up with your offers
Seeing what competitors are talking about so you can stand out
The most important question to answer before you lock in your event
You can sign up to the Timely Topics private podcast for event planners and listen on the go while you walk, clean the kitchen, or open a fresh Notion doc for your next event.
If you like to think out loud or brainstorm with someone in your ears, this will feel like having me there coaching you through it.
Once You Have Your Event Topic, What Comes Next?
After your event topic feels locked in, the next question is often:
What kind of event should I host to bring this to life?
Not every idea needs a huge summit. Sometimes a simple bundle, a short interview series, or a small challenge fits better with your energy, capacity, and goals.
If you are not sure which format is right, you can use my free quiz to discover the perfect online event genre for your business. It only takes a couple of minutes and gives you a clear event style that matches how you like to work.
With a clear topic and a clear format, everything else in your planning gets lighter. Speaker outreach, promo, tech, and timelines all become decisions that support one focused idea instead of a vague “let’s host something cool and see”.
Wrapping Up
Choosing an event topic does not have to feel like pulling teeth or waiting for inspiration to strike. When you strip it back to three pieces, it turns into a practical decision, not a creative crisis.
You look at who you want to serve, what they are struggling with right now, and how your real expertise fits into that picture. From there, the best topics tend to feel simple and almost obvious, in the best way.
If you want support while you work through this for your own summit, bundle, or collab, grab my free Timely Topics private podcast and let me walk you through it step by step.
I would love to see you choose an event topic that feels clear, exciting, and aligned, then watch the right people show up because you spoke directly to what they needed.
From quick cash to long-term community
Of course summit hosts want to earn money! I do too. For my recent Energy Savers audio summit, I knew I’d be opening doors to to my self-paced Simple Audio Summits course afterwards and I knew hosting a summit could help be grow my audience and prime my people for the launch.
But if I looked only at the short-term income, I would miss the long tail of value that comes from strong relationships.
Here is what you gain when you treat a summit as a relationship-building event:
Buyers who stay in my world for years, not weeks
Attendees and speakers who become affiliates
Collaborators for future projects
A network of people who mention my name in rooms I am not in
That compound effect is worth far more than squeezing every dollar out of one event.
Summits as conversation starters, not finish lines
I think of each summit as a big conversation starter.
It is my way of saying to the online business space, "Here is what I care about. Here is what I stand for. Who wants to talk about this with me?"
That simple mindset shift changes how I plan the event. I am not trying to dazzle people with fancy tech or endless bonuses. I am trying to:
Start real conversations
Create shared language around our values
Attract people who naturally align with my approach
Those people often become my best clients, students, and collaborators, because from day one we are on the same page.
How I design a win win win summit
My whole philosophy with collaborative events is that they need to be a win for everyone involved. I think of it as a win-win-win model.
There should be a win for me as the host, a win for the speakers, and a win for the attendees. If any one of those is missing, the event will not feel good long term, no matter how much money it makes.
A win for me as the host
For me, the win is measured more in relationships than in revenue.
Of course, I care about income. I am running a business, not an expensive hobby. I talk more about the money side of things in my article on How to monetize your online summit, where I break down monetisation strategies.
But inside each summit, I try to keep my priorities clear:
Relationships first
Revenue second
When I push too hard for fast cash, I risk burning trust. When I focus on creating a supportive, human event, the revenue tends to follow anyway, and I end up with a much stronger foundation.
A win for speakers
I want speakers to feel proud to be part of my events.
That means I try to:
Make the collaboration process easy and supportive
Give clear timelines and expectations
Highlight speakers as much as possible during the event
Pay them fairly when there is revenue sharing
These are people I genuinely admire. Showcasing their work is a joy, not just a marketing trick.
When speakers have a great experience, they are more likely to share the summit, say yes again in future, and think of me when someone asks for a host or collaborator who "gets it."
A win for attendees
Finally, I want every attendee, even those who only join at the free level, to leave feeling like it was worth their time.
My aim is that you walk away with:
More clarity on what you want and where you are heading
More connections with people who care about similar things
More confidence to take your next step
More sense of community and support
And since one of my other core values is accessibility, I also want people who are interested in these topics, no matter who they are.
When an event is set up this way, relationship marketing stops being a fluffy idea and turns into something very practical.
Why audio summits work so well for relationship marketing
I adore hosting audio-only summits. Recorded audio conversations make it easy for people to join while they walk, cook, commute, or do school pick-up. That relaxed format seems to create a different kind of energy.
Here is why audio summits fit so well with my relationship-first approach:
They feel like you are listening in on real chats, not formal lectures
Speakers often share more honest stories and behind-the-scenes details
Attendees can binge sessions and build momentum quickly
It is easier for many people to consume than video
In terms of relationship marketing, audio summits help me create a community of people with aligned values in a short space of time. They shortcut that "get to know you" phase, which then makes later offers feel natural instead of pushy.
What the data says
All of this is not just a gut feeling. I ran a large survey to see what hosts, speakers, and attendees are actually seeing with summits right now.
The results are pulled together in my State of Summits 2026 Report which breaks down what is working in 2026 for hosting, speaking at, and attending online summits, with real numbers from across the industry.
In that report, I also recorded a short video where I walk through the findings and share my take as someone who lives and breathes summits all the time.
If you have been hosting events for years and you have felt things shifting, or you are thinking about running your first summit and do not want to guess what works, theState of Summits 2026 Report gives a clear picture of where things are heading.
What stands out most to me from that survey is how important relationships, trust, and aligned values have become.
The data backs up what I have been feeling in my own business: people want to buy from people they know, like, and trust, and summits can play a big role in that.
How I bring relationship marketing into every summit
When I plan a summit now, I filter every decision through one simple question: "Will this help build real relationships?"
Here is what that looks like in practice for me:
I design the event as a starting point for deeper conversations, not as a one-off stunt
I give people plenty of ways to engage with me and with each other, not just consume content
I leave space for follow-up, like inviting people into my ongoing offers, such as my self-paced Simple Audio Summits course
Over time, this approach has built what I think of as a "circle of trust" around my work that includes:
Affiliates who share my offers because they believe in them
Past attendees who come back for new events
Speakers who refer me and introduce me to their own networks
Clients and students who stay and grow with me
All of that came from treating each summit as a relationship marketing tool first and a sales tool second.
Final thoughts: people first, profit next
The online business space will keep changing. Algorithms will shift, platforms will rise and fall, and new tactics will pop up every month.
What does not change is that we are still people, buying from and working with other people.
For me, relationship marketing is the most reliable path through all that noise, and virtual summits, especially audio summits, are one of my favourite ways to put it into practice.
If you decide to host your own summit, I invite you to play with this idea of a win win win event and see what happens when you put relationships at the centre. And if you want to ground your plans in real data, grab my State of Summits 2026 Report and see what is working for others too.
