Promoting Your Special Events With Video: Tips and Inspiration
When planning any event for your business, you want to be sure to promote it as thoroughly as possible in the days and weeks leading up to the occasion. Usually, there is plenty of time and effort that goes into something like this, so getting as much attention for your occasion as possible is going to maximize its impact. This is where some video marketing strategies can be of use. Creating an event promo video for your occasion is one of the best ways to highlight the event and promote it to your audience.
According to a study done, in 2018, 95% of events that used video said it was effective. However, 57% of events still aren’t using video, according to a report published by Eventbrite.
Before you go running in the other direction at the thought of creating your own videos, take a breath – it’s actually much easier than you may believe. With our easy-to-use online video maker and ready-made video templates, you can get your content up and running in a matter of moments.
Event Promo Video Ideas
There is very little limit on the types of events you could market with promotional videos. As long as you are willing to be a little creative, you can apply this strategy to nearly any kind of event or activity hosted by your organization. Some common targets for video promotion include:
Grand reopening
In the wake of the pandemic, many businesses are excited to welcome back customers for the first time – and a video promoting this special event, or a series of videos, is a great tool to get the word out about it and get your followers excited for your big return.
Special sale
Are you going to be discounting one of your products or services? Make sure as many people as possible know about this event well in advance with an exciting sale announcement video.
Customer (or any) birthday
This is a quick and easy way to promote loyalty among your customer base. Who wouldn’t love to be surprised by a happy birthday video from one of their favorite businesses? Our Birthday Video Maker lets you check off this project in no time at all. Easily create as many versions as you like of the same video. All you need to do is duplicate your video and replace the name in the text. Want to go an even more creative route? Happy birthday GIFs can be a fun and funny way to stand out online and create a buzz.
Holidays
During holiday time, there are sure to be plenty of events competing for attention. A well-planned video can help yours to stand out from the crowd. With social media over flooding with special offers, sales, and well-wishers, you want to make sure to create a promo event video for your holiday event that will get noticed and drive engagement. We offer holiday templates specifically for this task.
Live events
From big game screenings to pop-up sales and open houses – all live events require promotion because their success depends on a good crowd showing up on the right date and time. Get people excited about attending by presenting them with a compelling video.
Why Should You Create Videos for Your Events?
It’s certainly possible to hold a special event without creating a promotional video. You could choose to simply promote your event through other means, such as sending out an email to your list or running a few PPC ads.
And, most likely, you will still want to pursue some of those options even if you do create a video. However, it’s important not to overlook the power of event promo videos and the opportunity they represent to take your event to a higher level by reaching your audience right where they are.
Greater engagement
The real “secret” behind the power of promo videos is the way they engage with your audience. Even a beautifully written blog post – such as this one – is unlikely to grab the attention of your target market in quite the same way as a video. With a video, you can demonstrate personality, create memorable scenes, and make a lasting impression. The biggest challenge with any marketing endeavor is to get your audience to engage with the message, and nothing does it quite like video.
A quick impact
Another benefit of video marketing is the speed with which you can make an impact on your target audience. Your videos don’t need to be long in order to be successful – in fact, you will almost surely find more success with shorter videos, depending on what it is you are promoting.
Lend credibility
Your audience doesn’t know how easy it is to create a promotional video with Promo.com. So, they will think that you have invested significant amounts of time and money into the process of making a video for this event, which gives added credibility to your overall brand. After all, if you’ve done the work to create a video just for this event, that signals that the event itself is worthy of extra time and attention.
The list of benefits you can enjoy when using promotional videos for your special events can go on and on. In the end, you just need to understand that these kinds of videos are a powerful tool, and they aren’t nearly as difficult to create as you might think.
How Long is a Good Event Promo Video?
Before we dive into some insider tips on how to create a successful video to promote an event, we’d like to quickly talk about the length of your video. Some people are put off by the idea of a video simply because they think it will need to be long for it to be useful – and they don’t want to do the work to create a long video.
We are here to alleviate those fears. You don’t need to make a long video to promote an event. As mentioned above, you may find that short videos perform better than longer ones, as your audience will be more willing to click “play” on a short video than a longer piece.
There is no perfect length of time for an event promo video, as it will completely depend on the specifics of each project. You could easily make an impact on your viewers in ten seconds or less, in some cases. For other videos, you may want to take it out to 15 or 20 seconds, or more.
The key to making your video the right length is not picking a specific number of seconds, but rather paying attention to the content you want to include. The sweet spot is creating a video that is as long as necessary to deliver the information you want to provide, and no longer. Dragging it out just to make a longer video is only going to turn away your audience. Decide what you want to say and how you want to say it, and let your video be as long as it needs to be to reach those goals.
Five Helpful Tips for Event Promo Video Success
Even with a tool like Promo’s online video maker on your side, it can still be helpful to have a few tips in mind when you get started. Let’s take a look at five tips that will get you pointed in the right direction from the start:
Tighten your focus
Before you even start creating the video, perhaps the most important thing you can do is figure out what you are trying to achieve with this project. What do you want the viewer to come away with after watching the video? What is your call to action? For example, do you want to simply make people aware of this upcoming event, or do you want them to fill out a form and register to attend. If you have a clear picture of what the ideal outcome is for the viewer, it will be easier to dial in the content and the message of the video.
Let your creativity run
The templates we offer at Promo.com are a great starting point for an effective video, but don’t feel compelled to stay within the lines. Let your creativity run and show some personality within this type of video. It’s hard to be memorable if you play it too safe, so don’t hesitate to step out a bit and be different.
Give a reason to share
It’s no secret that having viewers share your video with others would be a great outcome, but how do you make that happen? Just asking viewers to share the video isn’t likely to be effective – you need to give them a reason to do so. Using humor is a great option here, as getting someone to laugh creates a strong connection and leaves them feeling compelled to share that laugh with family and friends.
Offer all the information
Even if the video is going to be embedded on your site, remember that it might be seen in other places, and in other formats, on the web. As things get shared, they often end up in spots where the surrounding information on the original page is not available. So, that means your video needs to make sense even if the viewer gets no other info. Plan your content to ensure a viewer gets everything they need from the video alone.
Get started early
This sounds like a basic tip, but it’s extremely important. You don’t want to push yourself up against a hard deadline when working to create a video – especially if it’s your first one. As soon as you have the details of the event worked out, take some time to get started on your video. This will take the pressure off and it should allow you to have fun with the project and tweak the details until you get it just right.
