Conference Video Marketing

Enhance Your Conference Experience with Video

Integrating video messaging into your tradeshow, conference or annual meeting is a great way to create excitement around your event. Used strategically, videos can add a new dimension to your event before, during and after the affair. Here are some ideas to consider for your next conference:

Use Video to Promote Your Event

 Including promotional videos in your marketing strategy is a great way to broaden your reach. Because videos are highly accessible via the Internet, social media platforms are ideal for these promotional tools. In addition, videos are especially effective when reaching out to target audiences that span across geographic regions such as regional, national or international events.

To create a buzz around your next event, use video to:

Preview Featured Speakers. Create a brief video highlighting keynote speakers and major headliners at your next conference, particularly if your agenda includes popular or nationally know figures. If your speaker has a promotional video clip, integrate the segments of his/her clip into your video to really get potential attendees excited.
Showcase the Destination. When it comes to conferences, destination is everything! If your conference or annual meeting takes place in an awesome location, use this destination to lure attendees. Creating an alluring video to showcase the destination, its amenities, tourist attractions, natural resources will surely help sell conference registrations. Footage or b-roll promoting the destination should be easily obtained from the local visitor’s or tourism bureau.
Showcase Highlights from Previous Conferences. To do this, you’ll need footage from the previous year conference, or at least a series of excellent photos. If you can’t use this strategy this year, be sure to videotape key segments of your upcoming event and include footage in your promotional video the following year.

Enhance Your Conference Program with Video 

Integrating video into your conference program not only creates a more dynamic agenda, if used properly, it can be a very effective time management tool. Here’s how using video can help you tighten up your program agenda:

Add Excitement to Opening Sessions. Using a high-energy kick off video to open your conference or tradeshow is an excellent way to get attendees pumped up and excited. If your event is being held simultaneously in several locations, streaming in conference opening sessions from the other locations adds to the excitement and highlights the broad reach of our event. Tonal Vision’s production Scottish Right 2017 Biennial Meeting Opening Session video provides a great example.
Introduce Honorees and Award Recipients. Award ceremonies during conferences are common. However, for organizations that want to recognize a large number of honorees, awards presentations can take up much of the program. To avoid boring attendees with lengthy introductions and drawn out speeches, pre-record honoree messages and present their brief “thank you” remarks via video. Be sure to make it entertaining by adding music, high-energy voice over narration, images and b-roll to bring it all together. With this approach, you can turn a dull 30-minute awards ceremony into a sensational 10-minute video presentation. Our ULI Baltimore 2017 WaveMaker Award Winner video is a great example of how honorees can be creatively presented via video.
Enhance Training Sessions. Detailed technical presentations sometimes need more than slides, and many established presenters already have their own videos. These videos assure information is presented thoroughly and consistently with magnified visualization where appropriate. A good example is Dianne Glasscoe Watterson's video on sharpening dental instruments.

Stream to Those Who Can't Attend 

Do you have members and other target audiences who can't attend your conference or event? You can make key presentations available either by live-streaming them as they occur or by recording on video and uploading later. It's possible to do this yourself with a cell phone or other inexpensive equipment and to broadcast to Facebook or YouTube. Alternatively, you can have this done professionally -- a whole industry is developing around live-streaming events to expand their audience. Large corporations and associations are live streaming many forms of communications to better connect with remote team members, onboard new people, keep employees engaged, reduce travel costs, and share public-facing events with social media followers.

Compile Awesome Footage for Future Promotion

If you like the idea of integrating video into your event marketing efforts, then you want to start compiling footage now! So, at your next conference make sure you have a professional videographer on site to capture the memorable moments. Here are key activities you want to capture on video:

Keynote speakers in action;
Key workshop presentations;
Footage of attendees in breakout sessions. (Full room views are priceless.);
Attendee testimonials. There’s no better footage than an ecstatic attendee raving about the great time he had at your event;
Summaries of break-out sessions. Grabbing the session organizers for a quick recap before they have to leave will generate educational footage for your web site, as well as testimonials for future conferences; and
Attendees networking conference activities (i.e. receptions, exhibit hall, social gatherings).

 Conference season is upon us so now is the perfect time to take your event to the next level. The key to leveraging video is to plan ahead, think outside the box, and maximize use of your resources (i.e. popular speakers, happy event goers, beautiful destinations, and awesome venues.)