Events are a huge investment for any organization. And while it takes a number of teams coming together to produce a successful event, it falls on the marketing team to ensure that the right attendees show up and sponsors are happy.
Event and Experiential Marketers have a number of tools at their disposal, but when it comes to really capturing the heart of your event, showcasing it’s value, and creating excitement and FOMO, there isn’t a tool quite as sharp as multimedia content. When used strategically, audio and video content will not only build year-round awareness, but it will also drive significant registration numbers, filling seats, and ultimately providing the ROI organizations are looking for.
The first step to leveraging this content starts at your next event. If you haven’t been doing so already, start capturing as much multimedia content on-site as you can. Your event is a treasure trove of content opportunities, between keynote speakers and sessions, workshops and case studies, cocktail receptions, show floor interactions and networking, and general show-level b-roll, you have the opportunity to build a huge library of content pulled from your event. Once you have this captured, the possibilities are endless!
While endless possibilities can be exciting or overwhelming (depending on who you are), let’s start things simply, with four easy and creative ways to incorporate multimedia into your next event’s marketing campaign.
1) Drive Excitement & Hype Your Brand With Event Showcase Videos
Think of this as the theatrical trailer for your upcoming event. These high-quality showcase video assets can be used on YouTube, social media and embedded right on your website in full 16:9 format. Ultimately, the goal of these videos should be to answer the question “why should I care?”
So, how do you answer this question?
Capture the lifeblood of your event and give potential attendees a glimpse at what they can expect while attending. Start by identifying the highlights of your event. Maybe it’s the lineup of keynote speakers, or the networking opportunities attendees have. If your event is hosted at a destination resort, it can even be the venue itself! Use feedback and testimonials from past attendees to identify what they felt was most valuable and lean into those points. Your attendees will give you invaluable guidance into what to highlight in a showcase video. At the end of the day, you should be shooting for 3-5 key points to highlight in your showcase video.
Event showcase videos should be no more than 1-2 minutes in length and contain an amalgam of highlighted clips from previous events. Keep things energetic by utilizing fun, upbeat music coupled with quick video cuts that correspond with the tempo of the music. If you have testimonial footage from previous events (you should be capturing these), pick the best clips and use them as much as possible. Nothing gives your event more credibility than the experience of your past attendees who already love your event!
Ultimately, an Event Showcase Video should give your potential attendees a full overview of what to expect at your event and drive excitement. With this in mind, you should consider this a lower-funnel piece of media that includes a clear CTA to register and any other next steps.
2) Strengthen PPC Campaigns with Promo In-Stream Ads
If your Event Showcase Video is your theatrical trailer, your Promo In-Stream Ad is your teaser. This video is literally a shortened version of your Event Showcase Video and is used for PPC campaigns, specifically YouTube and social advertising. If there was an elevator pitch for your event, this would be it.
With an Event Showcase Video, we talked about capturing the heart of your event and highlighting the key value features your potential attendees will experience while attending. Now it’s time to distill that down into a 15-30 second clip.
This isn’t easy. Finding the right messaging in that short a timespan can be difficult, but by getting creative you can certainly capture the attention of the endless scrollers on social media.
Typically, we find on-screen animated text particularly effective here. Take the key features for your event and distill them down into a few keywords that you can highlight in animated text over b-roll footage. This will help in social feeds that are muted.
Keep in mind, to take advantage of all channels in your PPC campaigns, you’ll want to have two versions of this video in different aspect ratios. 16:9 horizontal format for pre-roll and mid-roll YouTube advertisements as well as 9:16 or 1:1 vertical formats for social story streams.
Utilizing these eye-catching videos in your PPC campaigns automatically elevates discoverability and brand image, leading to higher conversions and ultimately ROI.
3) Visual Storytelling with Social Stories
With TikTok dominating the airways nowadays (especially with Gen Z), storytelling via social feeds has become an incredibly important piece of the event marketing puzzle.
Unlike the polished Event Showcase Videos we discussed above, these videos should be short snippets of content posted on a regular basis on TikTok or Instagram Reels and Stories. These videos should be 20-30 seconds in length, vertically-oriented (9:16 or 1:1 aspect ratio), and include animated transcription so viewers can consume the content even if their feed is muted. Sharing daily or weekly videos will ensure a consistent presence on social feeds, maintaining a high awareness and piquing interest on the different topics your event will be covering.
While working with clients, we typically dive into the footage of previous sessions and keynotes to find snippets of their presentation that we feel will intrigue viewers into clicking through and learning more. It’s a quick glimpse into the caliber of content they will experience while attending the event.
You could even map this out so that these stories will enable viewers to click-through to the full version of the session being highlighted and we’ll cover a creative way to do that in just a minute!
4) Better Attendee Engagement with Podcasts
And, of course, how could we not talk about podcasts? Podcasts are key to keeping your attendees engaged between events, building a sense of community, keeping people connected and informed.
There are an infinite number of ways you could position a podcast series alongside your event. In fact, we published an entire blog post on how to do just that a few years ago. Be sure to give it a read if you want a more in depth look, but here are a few strategies to consider.
The easiest way to produce a podcast alongside your event is to publish episodes of session replays from previous events. Let’s face it, it’s almost impossible for attendees to experience everything an event has to offer and sometimes they need to skip a session for another one taking place at the same time. This strategy offers attendees the ability to tune in to sessions they may have missed while simultaneously offering a long-form preview of the content experience for folks that have not yet attended.
With the Social Story videos we mentioned above giving a short clip of a previous session, you could have that story link to a podcast episode which contains the audio (and/or video) replay of the entire session. Be sure to include some commentary from a host, talking about why they decided to highlight that particular session and maybe even have the original session speaker on the show for additional commentary as well!
You could also set up a podcast booth on the show floor for on-site interviews at the event. These episodes usually contain a ton of energy as attendees and speakers are excited from sharing ideas during the event and are eager to share what they’ve learned. Not to mention you also get a ton of energy from the background noise on the show floor. These episodes always do a great job of creating that good old fashion FOMO!
Conclusion
From awesome event showcase videos to fun social stories, impactful promo in-stream ads, and community-building podcasts, these strategies can become one of the most powerful tools in the Event and Experiential Marketer’s toolbox.
Building a successful event marketing campaign hangs on the thread of creativity, consistency and real human connections. Telling your event story consistently with audio and video will grab the attention of your audience, develop these human connections and make a lasting impression well after they’ve attended your event.
