1. Event Landing Page

Online events require a website, microsite, portal, or a simple landing page. Usually, they contain information helpful to viewers as they locate and view the live stream.

The event page itself contains the live stream player, and usually the name of the event and a brief description of the event. Of course, you can get much more creative than that!

You can create your event landing page in many different ways. If you have an existing website or blog, a simple solution would be to add a new page or a new blog post dedicated to your event. You can also use popular landing page tools to create a custom event page. For example, we use HubSpot, but there are numerous marketing platforms and landing page providers out there. 

When planning your live stream, this is usually one of the first pieces of the puzzle you need to put into place. After all, it’s likely to be where you’ll send viewers to register for and eventually view the event.

2. Viewer Registration

Unless you have an existing list of attendees (e.g. for an employee event), you’ll need a way to register your viewers so you can communicate important information leading up to the event. Making sure you have a way of messaging your attendees is crucial for sending event reminders and calendar invites to help ensure they’ll know when to tune in.

Most landing page providers have options for creating forms you can use to gather viewer information. Or, you can gate your live stream with a form that requires viewers to enter their information in order to watch. 

Be sure to create a new segment or list for your registered viewers to make it easy to send event information to the right people.

3. Sizzle Reel

What better way to promote a live video than with, you guessed it, more video? A sizzle reel is a type of teaser video that will hook your audience, but leave them wanting more. It should showcase your topic, speakers, and insights, or anything that would motivate someone to sign up. 

You can share your sizzle reel on your event landing page, social media, or in blog posts promoting your live stream. It’s an effective way to engage your audience and get them excited about the main event.

To help drive event signups, you can use in-player CTAs or a post-play screen to link to your registration form.

4. Social Content

To help promote your event, you’ll need plenty of content to share on social media. The right platform to choose depends on where your audience can be found. Each platform has slightly different formatting constraints, so be sure to refer to our guide to optimizing your videos for social media when planning your content.

A mix of images and short videos will add variety to your content and help grab your audience’s attention. Be sure to change it up and feature various aspects of your event to appeal to different people. And, work in the date and time to ensure everyone knows when it’s happening.

You’ll need at least two weeks of content in order to effectively promote your event. Depending on the scale and frequency of your event, you may choose to promote it on social media for longer than two weeks. 

5. Email Campaigns

For most types of events, email campaigns will drive a substantial portion of your registrations. Coordinate your email content with the images or videos from your social media campaigns to help it feel cohesive. 

Incorporating video into your email campaigns can help improve campaign performance. To help increase click-through rates, you can use an email embed code to easily add the poster frame for your sizzle reel to your email campaign. Including an image with a video play button has been shown to improve click-through rates, and the word “video” can improve open rates.

Like your social media posts, the timing of the promotional emails depends on the nature of your event and how often you typically reach out to your audience. Still, you’ll likely want to start promoting your event at least two weeks out from when it kicks off.

Email Reminders

Be sure to build event reminder emails into your campaign planning to ensure registered viewers will show up when the time comes. Typically 24 hours prior to the event, and the day-of, these are crucial to driving attendance.

6. Paid Promotions

Online ads are one of the best ways to reach beyond your owned and earned audiences and find new targeted prospects for your event. From promoting posts on social media, to podcasts, or search and video ads, there are many options worth exploring. 

The right choice depends on your budget and your goals for attracting attendees. Larger events, like conferences or concerts, usually have significant ad budgets for online campaigns. To help weigh your options, consider the demographics of the users, and the popularity of each platform. 

Your ads should be designed to send traffic to your event landing page or event registration form. Be sure to add UTM parameters to your campaign URLs, and enable conversion tracking, if possible, to help evaluate campaign performance.

Suggested Timeline

Depending on your internal resources, the scale of your event and audience, this timeline could look really different. Still, the essential structure is likely to be fairly consistent even if the timing shifts.

Of course, not all live online events will require all of these components to be successful. It comes down to the nature of your event and your connection to your audience.

How far out do you start marketing your live streams? Any extra tips to share? Sound off in the comments below.

The post Your Live Stream Event Marketing Plan appeared first on SproutVideo.

In this post, we’re sharing the ten key questions you need to answer before you go live.

To better understand what it takes to move in-person events online, we sat down with Emma Stones from the Garden Museum in London to get her perspective. With a wealth of experience around in-person and online events and festivals, Emma was able to talk us through how the Garden Museum found success by shifting their event series online.

Based on our conversation with Emma, as well as our own experiences with live events, we came up with the following questions that will help you succeed with online events.

1. Who is Your Audience?

It all starts with who you are trying to reach. If you’re lucky, you might have an existing audience to tap into, such as people who used to attend your events or patronize your business in person. If you’re starting more from scratch, try to do as much research as possible before getting started to build out detailed viewer personas.

The more information you have on your audience, the more likely you are to craft content they’ll want to watch. And it will inform many other decisions down the road, such as your pricing and delivery methods (more on those below).

2. Will They Actually Show Up?

This question is formulated specifically to help you put yourself in your viewers’ shoes. Why should they take time out of their busy day to attend your live stream or watch your video?

It takes more than you’d think to motivate people to take a specific action. The longer your event or video is, the greater the opportunity cost for your potential attendees.

It has to be worth their while. How will you stand out from other competing demands on their attention? Why do they have to attend your event, today?

3. How Will Your Audience Register for the Event?

Even if you already have a large following, you’ll still need to figure out how to get your attendees registered for the event. This is just as important for your audience as it is for you.

For your viewers, you can set up a registration page and workflow that sends email reminders. This will make it easy for them to add the event to their calendars, and you’ll be able to keep track of how many people will attend and capture important information, such as name and email.

Are They Willing to Pay for the Experience?

While you’re figuring out how you plan on getting folks to register, you should also consider if you plan on charging them for joining your live stream. If you’re replacing an in-person event or trying to drive new revenue with this series, charging for events might make a lot of sense.  Explore this guide to learn more about paid virtual events.

4. What Kind of Audience Interaction Do You Want?

One of the best parts about creating a live stream is that it’s one of the best ways to interact with an audience outside of being in the same room with them. You’ll need to decide just how interactive you want it to be.

You just want to deliver a message in real time, or maybe you’ll want direct feedback and discussion. The latter would require additional software like live chat or a commenting feature for your guests to leave comments or questions.

Depending on your format, you may need additional team members available to field questions, moderate, or pass questions on to your speaker to respond in real time. 

5. What Kind of Equipment Do You Need?

Equipment is going to be an important part of your live stream setup. It can range from the bare minimum like a webcam and microphone, all the way to top-of-the-line video production equipment. 

A professional setup will take your production value to a whole new level. This type of setup might include lights, cameras, tripods, microphones, and more. For a full run-down on the equipment you may need, explore our “How to Film Yourself for a Professional Result” post.

6. How Are You Streaming it to Your Audience?

There are a ton of ways you can reach your audience with live video nowadays. Deciding on which avenue to go down will vary depending on the type of content you are trying to present to your audience. 

Are you trying to reach a broad audience? Hosting live events through social media may be the way to go. This is best if you already have a large audience on one of the many social platforms that offer live streaming.

Do you want complete control over your production? Opting for a professional video hosting service might be the right move. Professional services give you more control over your brand presentation, and give you access to privacy settings and video marketing tools like lead capture or calls to action. Some software also allows you to multi-cast your event to social media platforms, making it the best of both worlds.  

Are you planning for a ton of audience interaction? Trying a video conferencing application may work best. This is great when you have multiple speakers, panel discussions, or need direct audience interaction. 

7. Who Are the Hosts?

All the planning in the world is great, but you’ll need someone who can actually present the information. Hosting can look easy, but it actually can be a lot of work. You’ll need someone comfortable on camera, good at asking questions, and quick on their feet if anything goes wrong. 

Typically this may fall on the shoulders of someone in your marketing department but be sure to ask around your office and assess people’s willingness to being on camera. Once you pick a host, be sure to run through these 27 tips with them to help them appear more natural on camera.

8. How Will You Keep it Interesting?

Beyond having great information to share and a captivating host, consider adding additional elements. This could be video segments, photos, statistics, screen captures, and more. Ask yourself what sort of additional elements will help you convey your message even more effectively.

9. What Happens After the Event?

You just absolutely crushed your event. Now what? This is an important question to consider since your audience is probably thinking the same thing. 

Are you sending a follow-up email? Do you have additional material for attendees to look into directly afterward? Do you have a call to action for attendees? Will there be a recording of the event available for those who couldn’t make it live? Great follow-up will help keep your audience coming back for future episodes.

10. What Metrics Will You Track?

When it’s all said and done, you’ll most definitely want to take a look at how each event performed. Tracking metrics during and after each broadcast will allow you to better understand how you’re performing overall. 

You should look at metrics like: watch time, peak views, average minutes watched, location, and more. The more information you can acquire from your viewers’ watch habits, the better decisions you can make moving forward.  

Asking yourself these 10 questions will set you up for success when planning a compelling live-stream series. Hammering out the details, growing an audience, and hitting your stride while going live may take some time, but it will be worth it.  In the comments below, let us know what types of live events you have planned for the future. 

The post 10 Questions to Ask Before You Launch a Live Stream Series appeared first on SproutVideo.

If you’ve never put together a virtual event, now is the time to learn how it can benefit your business. Over the last year, ticketed virtual events have become part of our new “normal” and will continue to be a way for brands to reach audiences like never before. 

In this post, we’ll be going over what a paid virtual event is, examine the many benefits of creating one, and look at some examples of successful events you can emulate in the future.

What is a Virtual Event?

A virtual event is a shared experience online with a group of people all focused on a particular topic. It can take many forms, whether it’s a webinar, a live stream, or a mix of live and pre-recorded content.

Unlike internal virtual events, which we covered in this post, external, ticketed, or recurring events are going to need a different approach to create a similar experience to something you would put together for an in-person event. They can be as simple as just a live video showcasing a speaker appearance, or as complicated as having virtual breakout rooms, pre-recorded presentations, or multiple days with a virtual meet and greet space. 

Benefits of a Paid Virtual Event

While you could host a free event, paid events have their own unique set of advantages that may sway you in that direction, especially if it’s replacing a ticketed in-person experience. 

Higher Quality Leads 

Considering they are paying for it, attendees are more likely to engage with the content instead of popping in and out of sessions as you could if it were a free event. The same thought process can be applied to the leads you’ll gain from a paid event. You may have potentially fewer registrations, but they will have high intent and interest in what you have to offer.  

Increased Reach 

Moving an event online isn’t always ideal, but it does make it more accessible. As long as your audience has an internet connection, your reach has endless potential. People from any corner of the globe can attend your event without having to worry about extra travel expenses. Further, since the event is digital, those who may not be able to make it to live sessions will be able to go back and view the recording on their own time if you allow it.

Recurring Revenue 

Virtual events can quickly become a great way to generate another revenue stream for your company. Depending on your business, you could potentially host events, classes, or shows on a regular basis. Charging per event or implementing a membership or subscription fee will allow you to reach a whole new audience and bring in money at the same time. 

Even after the pandemic is over, this model can be useful for reaching people who may not be able to attend your in-person events, classes, or shows. It could also be a premium add-on to boost your fees.

More Affordable 

Events of any kind will cost money to produce, but virtual events tend to be less expensive. Depending on your format, your cost may only include software, booking presenters, video equipment, and the cost to promote your event. Another thing to consider is where you’ll be filming your sessions. If you and your presenters have a nice at-home video studio, or you are filming on location like a gym, you won’t have to worry about it. However, if that doesn’t apply to you, you may need to rent a space that will increase your overall spend.

Planning a Virtual Event 

Whether you’re adjusting to the times and moving your event online, or creating a new recurring event to drive revenue, a good plan is always the best place to start.  

Lean into the Event Being Digital

From the get-go, it’s important to address the elephant in the room. If you’re taking a previously in-person event online, it’s going to be different, and that is completely okay. This past year, in-person events were few and far between, and brands have been doing their best to create an experience that was similar to the real thing. 

It’s better to acknowledge the fact that things are going to be different than shy away from it. You’ll need to set expectations for your team and your audience which will help lay the groundwork for a great event. 

A good example of this is Hubspot’s Inbound event. Knowing that they couldn’t do their usual in-person event activities, they took the extra steps necessary to make it as “normal” as possible. A big emphasis for them was creating a sense of community. Before the event even started, their social media team created a specific Facebook group to allow attendees to interact and start conversations. Furthermore, their event platform featured a virtual map, interactive components, and even avatars to emulate an actual community during the event. Read more about their experience in this piece from Simple Machines Marketing. 

Explore What You Want Your Event to Look Like 

This step is going to be crucial for setting up an event your attendees will love. Take some time to envision how your event is going to transition to a digital space. 

• How will users register for the event? 
• Will there be chat rooms, or other forms of audience participation? 
• Are you going to have multiple speakers? 
• Do you need sponsors for your event? 
• What levels of access will you provide at different price points? 
• Will it be a live stream, or would a webinar be a better fit? 

Starting your planning process with questions like these will help you develop a full picture of how you’ll begin setting up your event. 

Virtual Content Format 

When it comes to the format itself, there are two ways you can go: live or recorded. With an in-person event, typically, you’re tied to doing all the presentations and procedures live on the day. However, with a virtual event, you have a unique opportunity to pre-record segments if you choose. 

Whichever way you decide to go, having proper video and streaming equipment is going to be vital for producing a quality experience. If you’re just getting started, we have several guides and posts that explain what equipment you may need for video production of any level. Explore our How to Video Series to get started. 

Examples of Virtual Events

Whether you’re starting from scratch or moving an event online, there are three main categories of virtual events that may work for your business: one-off video events, recurring events, and hybrid events.

Singular Video Event

Typically, all you would need for this type of event is a service that allows you to implement a paid gateway to charge attendees and a video hosting service for the video feed. At SproutVideo, we do just that, working with multiple partners to allow for easy integration of paywall solutions to sell tickets to video events hosted on our platform.

Because of the simplicity of a singular event, there are a lot of use cases that can apply to this. We’ve seen a lot of webinars, theatre performances, live video podcasts, concerts, museum tours, and more all go virtual in the past year. If you could do it in person, there is a way to replicate it online.

If you are looking to take this style to even higher levels, you could go for a virtual conference or festival. This type of event is typically going to be one that lasts multiple days, has dozens of speakers, and maybe even special items and access for different price points. 

A great example of this is The Sundance Film Festival. As one of the biggest film festivals on the planet, the team at Sundance had to figure out a way to create the same magic they do every year in Utah, but in a virtual setting in 2021. They did this by working with a platform to create a virtual Main Street, scheduling the 70+ virtual screenings, and much more. Explore this article from IndieWire to learn more about how Sundance pulled it off. 

Recurring Events

When it comes to recurring events, you’ll still need a hosting platform and a payment gateway solution, but the differences arise in the content and the way you charge for it. These events typically are going to be ones that are easily repeatable or the type of content you create on a regular basis. 

Typically, this includes fitness workouts, classes, access to shows, and beyond. Since you’ll be consistently putting out this content, it adds an opportunity to use a subscription model to sell these events and create additional revenue as mentioned above. Sites like InPlayer, MemberPress, Cleeng, and LearnDash all have subscription options that will make set up relatively painless. 

Hybrid Events

This type of event is a ‘best of both worlds’ situation. Hybrid events are experiences that are available both in-person and virtually. This format works incredibly well when you have the capability to have an in-person event, but you know that a portion of your audience won’t be able to attend, like during a pandemic for example. 

However, this has to be more than just live streaming your in-person event. You’ll need to make sure that people in both environments are getting a valid experience. Virtual participants will need to feel just as important as the ones you see in person. 

An example of a recurring hybrid event is Crunch Live’s virtual workout classes. They have a recurring subscription model that allows you to get an in-person membership, along with access to virtual workouts you can access at any time from anywhere.

Naturally, there are infinite possibilities for the types of events you can host virtually. Virtual events won’t be replacing in-person events in the long run, but they are here to stay as another tool in your marketing toolkit. Let us know in the comments below if you’ve had success converting an in-person event to an online virtual experience. 

The post Everything to Know About Paid Virtual Events appeared first on SproutVideo.

Live streaming a company event is easier than you think, and can even save money compared to in-person meetings. It’s an important technological investment to make to future-proof your company and to ensure your entire workforce can participate, regardless of their location. Here are the important steps to take, and the technical resources you’ll need to live stream your next event.

Online Company Event Planning

Online events turn regular event planning on its head. Rather than bringing everyone to a particular location or venue, you’re bringing the event to them. The key for corporate events is to do so securely while ensuring all stakeholders have the access they need.

1. Selecting a Location

The location is really about where you’re sharing your video. Your event landing page could be just one video, or it could be an entire website containing multiple broadcasts. It all depends on the nature of your event. 

A suitable location for sharing your event could be on your existing website, company intranet, or a landing page or microsite hosted by a third party. Each option has implications for video privacy and viewer access.

Sharing On Your Website or Intranet

If your audience is exclusively made up of employees with access to your company’s intranet, or a secure logged-in area of your website, embedding your live streams is likely the way to go. That way, your attendees would simply log into their employee portal to view the event videos. 

Many internal company events cover proprietary information that must be kept under wraps. While publishing your content in an intranet will limit your audience to existing employees, there are extra steps you can take to ensure the video embed code can’t be shared beyond your intranet, and that the videos will only load for employees on approved connections.

For instance, a domain whitelist enables you to specify the websites where your videos can load and play back. If someone attempts to share the video embed code on another site, it won’t work. Signed embed codes are a similar, more technically advanced option.

For even more security, you can restrict access to a specific IP address or a range of IP addresses. In other words, if the event is only for people connected to a VPN or company IP, this doubles down on security and ensures anyone on an unapproved connection will not be able to load the event video. 

Third-Party Landing Page or Microsite

If you need to allow people outside your organization to access your videos, you may need to consider sharing your broadcast outside your intranet or your website. In that case, you’ll want to explore third party hosting options for sharing your event.

For instance, SproutVideo offers video websites that support single sign-on, secure viewer logins, or site-wide passwords. Depending on the level of security your event requires, any of those privacy options could be a good fit.

2. Attendees

For attendees, think through the entire online event flow. It might be as simple as sending a link to your whole team, or you may want to create a specific list for the event, or ask attendees to register.

If your event is for employees only, and you already have your list, great. Otherwise, you may need to create a landing page with a registration form to build your list.

Once you have your list of attendees, they need to know the usual key event details, including the start time, run time, speakers, topics, and the URL where the video will be shared. Sometimes that information is included on the event landing page or microsite, but it can also be shared in a calendar invite, email, or PDF as well.

You may also want to provide guidance on internet speed requirements or browser recommendations if applicable. Note that a professional video hosting platform will ensure browser compatibility, and automatically adapt streaming for viewers’ connection speeds, so this is unlikely to impact you. Finally, if your company event requires any software to be downloaded and installed to view, getting attendees to handle it ahead of time is ideal.

3. Presenters

For presenters, while you don’t have to consider travel needs, you do have to think about their technology needs in order to participate in the event. Some people may need cameras, microphones, tripods, or even a loaner laptop. Due to inventory shortages and extended shipping times, the earlier you can assess the equipment needed, the better.

If you’re not sure of the exact gear to use, we shared the details of the camera equipment we used for our own live stream, and we have guides to cameras, microphones, and lights in our “How To Video” series.

If presenters aren’t able to speak live during the event itself, you can still stream pre-recorded video as part of a live broadcast. Ask anyone unable to make the main event to film themselves ahead of time. For certain important messages, this might even be preferable to allow for editing and higher production value.

Also, if your on-camera talent has to set up by themselves, be sure to share our guide to filming yourself solo with them. It contains tips for framing your shot, lighting, and delivering lines on camera while working solo.

4. Scheduling

Just like in-person events, scheduling should be one of the top priorities when it comes to planning your online event. You and your team will want to make a concrete schedule you can turn to throughout the planning, execution, and post-event stages. 

Typically, this would include pre-launch communications, the event itself, deliverables, post-event communications, and more. Especially with a primarily remote workforce, a solid schedule will keep everyone coordinated and on track. 

If possible, make time for several practice rounds with your presenters to fix any flaws in their broadcasting setup ahead of time. The more run-throughs you can squeeze in, the more smoothly it will go on the big day.

5. The Main Event

Now that you have your location, attendees, and presenters squared away, it’s time to launch your company event.

To go live, you need the video and audio feeds from the presenters, encoding software to allow you to mix in the different video sources, and a video hosting platform that supports live streaming.

With SproutVideo, you’d first set up your video sources in the encoding software of your choice (a popular one is OBS, but there are many others). Then, in the SproutVideo platform, create a new live stream and configure its settings for embedding or for sharing on a SproutVideo landing page. Next, add your SproutVideo stream key and RTMP URL to your encoding software settings.

Finally, once your live stream player is published and shared with attendees, you’re ready to go live. It’s really that simple.

We have guides with detailed instructions on creating a live stream, using a switcher, and a behind-the-scenes example from our own live stream with more than one presenter if you want to take things further.

6. Post Event

When it’s all said and done, you’ll need to sit down and go over how the whole thing went. Usually, a meeting with event organizers can be really helpful. This is intended to dissect and investigate what went wrong, what went right, and how you can improve performance going forward.

Another important post-event practice is to survey attendees and presenters for feedback on their experience. It will help you pinpoint any issues your audience or speakers encountered, and identify areas for improvement for next time. We use Typeform, and there are plenty of other survey tools out there, but this could be as simple as emailing a couple questions to everyone. The important part is to be sure to ask.

In addition to reviewing the event itself, you’ll want to take a look at the numbers for how the video performed during the broadcast. With SproutVideo, you not only get real-time reporting during your broadcast, but you’ll also get analytics and engagement metrics from the stream immediately afterward.

Finally, if anyone missed the event live, share the recording with attendees so they can review it as needed. If any editing is required, you can download the recorded live stream, and replace it with the edited version when ready without needing to share a new link or update the embed code.

Switching from an in-person event to a virtual live event isn’t quite as complicated as it may seem on paper. We’d love to hear how it’s going if you’re making the leap to live streaming! Share your tips in the comments below.

The post How to Live Stream Your Next Company Event appeared first on SproutVideo.