At AVI, we love hosting regional events, trainings, and educational seminars. We also understand you are busy and it’s not always possible to physically go to our events. You see something you’d really like to attend, register, put it on your calendar, yet something inevitably comes up – despite your best intentions.
That’s why we started thinking about how to bring an event to a wider audience – and we think that live streaming is not only a viable solution but one that delivers great value.
The real-time broadcasting of a video or an audio stream over the Internet can help you spread beyond your target audience to an even broader, connected audience across the world. This means more audience, greater scope of revenue, and a greater exposure to digital media – benefits that even ‘real’ events could not give you. That’s the beauty of live streaming.
It also gives you a way to deliver content to those folks who were interested in attending live but for whatever reason couldn’t make it – also a big benefit.
Here’s more on how live streaming can help your events create a bigger impact:
If you are streaming the contents of your events live for a single time, it becomes something rare and special. Often, Internet users have a passive attitude toward videos or online content that they can access frequently. However, by creating a one-time stream, you can create a sense of urgency and exclusivity and, thereby drive more viewers.
Midco had two fully equipped production trailers. The challenge with these production trailers is that it’s hard to load everything up, get the trailer to its destination, unload everything, do the broadcast, and move to the next location.
Live streaming is one of the most effective ways to spark interaction between you and your customers/prospects. Remember, an online audience is a sucker for things interesting and/or that in some way add value to their lives. If your content falls within either of the two categories, and if marketed correctly, you can potentially draw many interested viewers. Good and to-the-point content goes viral, so if your event is captivating enough and if you are offering bite-sized information that’s easy for the online audience to consume, you’ve hit the bull’s eye.
While a free live stream offers more viewership, when you charge for access to your stream, it’s a way of qualifying viewers (or leads) and deliver you a targeted audience that is most interested in the topic you’re covering. While this might be a great opportunity to find and qualify prospects, you can also earn some extra revenue from the fees. In fact, if you are live streaming your physical event, it makes sense to charge a fee for your online attendees as well.
Streaming live events gives you the leverage to get your voice heard by your audience. While this method popularizes your event, it can also let you further the marketing goals of your company in a distinct and a different way. It can also be a point of differentiation and something that sets you apart from your competitors.
There are many benefits to live streaming your events. As we’ve laid out above, when you capture and stream your content, you can help more people stay connected to your events for a longer period of time. One additional thing to consider is that once you’ve gotten live streaming down, you can offer this kind of service as a benefit for your clients as well. The possibilities are really pretty exciting, don’t you think?
What do you think? Do you participate in live streaming events? Are you presently live streaming the live events you’re doing for your customers and prospects? If not, do you see any value in starting? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.