From corporate town halls to sales and marketing campaigns, live streaming of company events online is becoming the new ‘norm’ in today’s technology driven-society.

Streaming your company live event is a cost effective way to expand your audience reach, boost engagement and increase the overall ROI of your events. For example, when hosting a product launch through a live webcast, the marketing team can quickly build product awareness and reach customers or partners around the globe. The marketing team can also easily track attendee information and follow up with qualified leads.

However, without proper planning, live streaming an event can be stressful. Production hiccups or technical glitches are surefire ways to lose audience members. To ensure your next live event is a success, marketers should keep in mind the following best practices.

Require Event Registration

Creating a registration landing page for your event allows you to track hits, registrants and attendees. And with some webcasting platforms, can drive attendance by sending out automated confirmation to registrants, event reminders, thank you emails and information about future events.

Confirm Event Bandwidth Requirements

Thanks to technology improvements, it’s easier to stream events than ever before. However, the quality of your webcast network has a major effect on the quality of your streaming media. Before the event, talk with your IT team to determine the bandwidth requirements needed to effectively broadcast your event. Be sure to communicate the expected number of attendees and anticipated length of the event.

Conduct a Full Test Run of Your Event

On the day of your event, ensure your team has enough time to set up and test the equipment, especially any cameras and microphones. Run a full test ahead of the event, preferably at the venue where you plan to stream from. Marketers and IT pros should also keep an eye out for any sound, lighting, or encoder problems, and make sure there is a stationary background without doorways or windows.

Be Strategic in Timing

Determine where in the world most of your audience lives and schedule your event for a time they will likely be able to participate. In the US, for example, holding your webinar/webcast between 10am and 1pm CT makes for the best attendance by leveraging lunch hour viewership across several time zones. Also, keep in mind that live events can be recorded and made available on-demand, giving events a longer lifespan and greater return on investment. The on-demand link can be the same link used to register for the event, making it easily accessible to those attendees unable to attend the live broadcast.

Make Sure Your Event Content is Mobile Friendly

Compatibility is crucial to maximizing your event attendance. When selecting a live stream webcasting platform, make sure your event will be accessible via smartphones and tablets to capitalize on the opportunity to engage these viewers.

Allow Audience Interaction

Rather than simply talking at your audience, interact with them. Marketers can incorporate interactive features like a live Q&A, online polling, social networking and chat features into their broadcast. This will keep your audience members actively engaged and more likely to attend your next event. Interactive features are also a useful way for companies to collect feedback and insights from key stakeholders.

Maximize Analytics

To get the most out of your live streaming webcast, take advantage of your webcast platform’s analytics to track attendee behavior like questions asked and materials downloaded. Use polls to collect audience feedback on your company, its products and the event. See how long attendees stayed for your event, and if they lost interest at any point. This will provide insight on their interest level for follow-up outreach. And, by linking this data into your company’s CRM such as Salesforce.com or Marketo, hosts can follow up with leads, and turn data into actionable metrics.

By carefully preparing for your event and taking full advantage of today’s webcasting platform capabilities, companies can reach key audiences, drive revenue and win market share. Hosting an upcoming event and aiming for optimum ROI? Broadcast your next live event with award-winning BusyBoy Productions.

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