The idea of live-streaming a conference originated from participants who wanted to attend an event but couldn’t make it to the place where it was being held. Now, different live streaming platforms such as Facebook Live and YouTube Live are commonly used for broadcasting a conference to absent participants. It is the best way to include all the participants of a conference even if done virtually or remotely.
Conference live streaming has gained a lot of popularity in recent times because of the benefits that it provides to businesses and companies. Although some of them are still warming up to the idea of live streaming, other businesses and brands have made it an integral part of their marketing strategies.
Here is why companies nowadays prefer to live stream their events:
- Enhanced ROI
- Cost-effective
- Massive consumer participation
- Brand awareness
In the end, it’s up to you to live stream your conference to the rest of the world but it’s hard not to, seeing the benefits that live streaming comes with. Enhanced or off-the-charts ROI is why most businesses have made it a necessary part of their marketing strategies.
Here are the benefits of live streaming a conference.
Maximum participation
While holding an event, it is the aim of every event planner to maximize attendance. Thanks to a ton of live streaming tools, people from any part of the world can be a part of your conference. Not only that but they can also see what they are missing out on by not being there physically.
An audience is an audience even if it is virtual, especially in times when most consumer-based transactions happen online in the form of online shopping. Live streaming provides higher conversion rates of first-time visitors to loyal customers of businesses or brands.
If maximizing physical participation is your goal, live streaming can also help with that, for future events at least. If a person does not attend your event because they kept thinking whether it is worth the time and effort and upon seeing the live streaming, they come to know that it was worth it, they will surely make it to the venue next time.
According to a study conducted by Meetings Today, businesses that live stream their conferences see a 23% increase in physical attendees for their future events.
Improved marketing efforts
Many may think that live streaming is not useful after the event has ended but that’s not true. The recorded live stream of a conference can help you improve your marketing efforts throughout the year until the next event. Your marketing team can edit the recorded stream and use it as an efficient marketing strategy to draw more customers and increase sales.
Here is how you can use the recorded conference live stream to use it for marketing purposes.
- Upload parts of your stream to Instagram and YouTube to increase brand awareness.
- Make reels of your live stream and upload them to different platforms to get maximum engagement.
- Use the highlights of the previous event and showcase them in future events.
- Cut out the most engaging parts of the stream and use them to gain sponsors for your next conference.
- Upload the complete footage of the event on your website.
Not only will these strategies help you increase brand awareness but they will also help your marketing team create compelling and original content for their blog posts. This increases your chances of attracting more people to show up for the event in person.
Additional revenue opportunities
There are many ways you can use your conference live stream to avail of additional revenue opportunities. The first way to do that is by offering sponsors a spot where you will showcase their name and logo throughout the live-streaming event. You can also strike similar deals with several sponsors and have your team members or speakers represent them.
You can also gain more revenue by making the footage available to your virtual audience for a small fee. It doesn’t stop at that. You can also reach out to organizations who might be interested in using your live stream and sharing it as short videos, reels, or in full to their website.
