Video to enhance your event marketing strategy

From pre-show advertising to post-show highlights and client testimonials, event industry professionals acknowledge the power and reach of video marketing. But there are times and tasks that call for a more delicate hand; when you want to go beyond the basics of video marketing for your event yet still fly well under the radar, here are three ideas on how to softly shift the perspective of your strategy for a more subtle — yet equally effective — impact.

Find and Embrace Emotion

Whether you actively acknowledge it or not, as a planner — and perhaps, by extension, a marketing professional — the events you organise are largely built upon your ability to effectively trigger human emotion to get the results you seek. Whether you’re aiming to drum up a sense of anticipation ahead of your event, offering up a heartfelt compliment to your speakers, or reminiscing over the event that was, the sensory power of video is unparalleled in conveying an emotion or vibe — be it excitement, nostalgia, or even a sense of FOMO.

As an event planner, it’s key to know both precisely the kind of feeling you want to tap into and how you can best create content to trigger the reaction you want. Regardless of the type, length, or purpose of your video, this is a medium that enables you to wield the emotional power of a script or story, a moving soundtrack, striking cinematography, and precise editing to influence your target audience. Don’t be afraid to lean into and embrace that emotion; it can be woven into your video content strategy to subtly yet powerfully influence the overall outcome of your event.

Get Personal Before and After

Virtual, hybrid, or in-person — no matter the format of your event, the customisable power of video makes it the perfect vehicle for personalisation. This means that different kinds of video content can be created with a view to fostering a deeper and more meaningful connection with your delegates, your speakers, or anyone connected to your event. It’s one thing to capture video during the course of your gathering, but as a planner, you can seize upon the element of personalisation inherent in the medium of video to create thoughtful content both before and after your event.

For example, rather than simply sending a nondescript email, consider creating a personalised video to invite your delegates to your event or — as in this example from Vidyard — flipping the concept around to use the power of video as an outreach tool to speak directly to individual delegates and bring about a feeling of excited anticipation ahead of your gathering. Post-event, you can likewise create personalised videos to offer up your thanks to your speakers and delegates for their time and attendance, perhaps even weaving footage captured during your gathering back into your video to subtly remind attendees just how good your event was. In addition to fostering a deeper emotional rapport with your audience, the judicious creation of video before and after an event can help to increase ROI and conversion rates and boost the efficiency of your sales cycle.

Mine Your B-Roll Footage for Video Gold

When it comes to making the most of your video footage, you may have had a set strategy in place and known in advance exactly who or what you wanted to film. But that doesn’t mean that any B-roll or alternative footage captured during the course of your event should be discarded; on the contrary, B-roll can offer up a veritable gold mine of content that can be used to continuously connect with your audience well into the future. Whether you want to create a post-event highlights video, send a heartfelt thank you, or even incorporate some footage of this year’s event into your personalised invites for next year, your B-roll footage can be cleverly re-purposed to suit your aims. Think: the use of B-roll means that you film just once, but have the opportunity to create multiple pieces of video content from just one single effort — a true return on ROI.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that this kind of alternative footage adds visual interest and an authentic feel to any video content you’ve created; in a sense, it offers up another avenue for building a rapport with your audience long after your event is over. Delve into your B-roll with an eye for any interesting moments and use them to your advantage. Humour is always a great tool for engagement and if, for example, you’ve been lucky enough to capture lots of funny moments during your event, you might even consider creating your very own blooper or outtake reel using your B-roll footage. But from a technical standpoint, it’s worth knowing that your B-roll can also be edited into your main footage in order to enhance or extend it, as needed.

For event planners, the sheer power and reach of video is undeniable. Yet when used as a tool for engagement, it can be subtly deployed for maximum impact before, during, and long after an event.


 

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