Live streaming has been picking up in popularity since the coronavirus outbreak. During a long period of time, shops were closed and people were encouraged to stay at home. Businesses had, therefore, to find alternative ways to communicate with their stakeholders. One of them being live streaming. Like any other marketing medium, live streaming comes with its challenges. But once overcome, it has many benefits. Here in this blog, we will list them all to help you decide whether live streaming is also suitable for your brand.
Benefits of live streaming
1. It is not overcrowded yet
Organisations are still discovering the potential of live streams. Despite their increasing popularity, many businesses have not incorporated them into their marketing strategies yet. Therefore, investing in live streaming services could be key at the moment to outperform your competitors.
2. You can reach larger audiences
Unlike physical events, where the number of attendees is limited to the venue’s dimension, live streams allow you to invite as many people as you would like to attend your event. Besides, despite being interested, some people may not be able to attend a physical event due to work commitments or travelling expenses. Live streaming your event can make your content accessible to these people.
3. You can figure out which group of people are really interested in your product or service
A live stream can run for hours. A person taking his/her time to stick through till the end of the live stream shows commitment to your product and service. Therefore, live streaming can be seen as a way to filter out irrelevant followers. It will then be easier to convert audiences into leads.
4. Richer content
People expect more than a nice logo or a few articles from your brand. Sharing rich and informative content through a live stream is, for example, a great way to increase brand trust. Improving your relationship with your clients and increasing their reliability on your brand is now key to turning them into leads.
5. Cost- efficient
You do not need fancy equipment to get started with live streaming. All you need is a smartphone and a platform to stream the event. There exist many free live streaming platforms. Some examples are Facebook Live, Instagram or YouTube Live. If any of these suits your brand, you do not even have to pay for the stream. This makes live streaming one of the most cost-effective marketing tools.
6. Best way to get feedback
Live-streaming is making it easier for your audiences to communicate and discuss opinions with you. This is beneficial for your company as the instant and honest feedback you receive can help you make fast and effective changes to your products and services to keep driving results and stay ahead of the competition.
7. Ability to monetise
If you have valuable content to share with your audiences, you can monetise your live stream. You can either use a monthly subscription or a pay-per-view approach. If the content and audience are of their interest, related businesses may even sponsor your live stream. Obtaining a high ROI from your live stream will depend on the quality, value and professionalism of your content. Thus, careful planning and execution are essential to help you with this. If it is within your budget, it would be greatly beneficial to work with a professional video marketing agency.
8. Ability to repurpose
Once finished, your live stream can be repurposed in many ways. Indeed you can…
- Pick out some quotes and create graphics
- Create shorter clips highlighting the key moments of the live stream to generate buzz
- Write a blog post
- Create email series around the topic of the live stream
- Create short ads for your social media accounts
9. Ability to track the success of your live stream
Most professional streaming platforms are equipped with tracking tools to help you evaluate the success of your live-streamed event in terms or viewership and audience behaviour. This date is key to narrowing down your target audience.
Is it worth to hire professional live streaming services?
If any of your team members are familiar with streaming technologies… then yes. Hiring a team of professional videographers is definitely worth the investment.
Setting up a live stream requires experience and a set of technical skills. If you do not have them, live streaming the event will probably cost you more time and money than if you had hired professional live streaming services.
Here at Impress we have the skills and equipment needed to do so. So do not hesitate to get in touch if you need help for your next live stream.
Thank you for reading,
Melvin.
