How to Use Video Marketing to Promote Your Next Event

Video marketing statistics have become more and more impressive over the past few years. For example, about 50% of all internet users look for videos about a product or service before making a purchasing decision and 90% of consumers say that product videos help them make purchasing decisions. These trends are only expected to escalate in the future.

Video can increase the success of any type of marketing, including promoting your business at an industry event. While video is just one of many many creative ways to promote an event, in this day and age, it is absolutely crucial.  Below we’ll take a look at three effective ways you can utilize video to promote your booth at the next event.

Start promoting your video before the event

When it comes to event promotion, you need to begin your video marketing in advance to properly prime your audience. Start sending your videos to recipients six weeks before the actual date in order to get a jump on all of those other exhibitors who will be competing for your audience’s attention. Getting to your targets first is one of the principal keys to attracting business.

While you can certainly upload your videos to YouTube, you’ll also want to direct your audience to a landing page. This way they can find detailed info about the event, provided your marketing videos stoked their interest. As for where to obtain a list of recipients,  you should receive a registered-attendee list with emails once you register as a distributor with the event organizer.

The next thing to think about is specific video ideas to promote the event. Consider what types of marketing videos you’d like to craft and distribute – create a promo video for your event is a great way to promote it.

Create marketing videos with value

There are three principal types of videos that are perfect for event marketing:

• Value videos
• Prize/promotion videos
• “You” videos

Ideally, you’ll want to incorporate all three into your event marketing. The cardinal rule, however, is to eschew self-promotion and ensure your videos have tangible value for your audience. Produce quick explainer videos and vlogs based on subjects that are helpful to the viewer. “Must-visit booths at this year’s industry expo,” “networking tips from sales pros,” “take part in this event giveaway and win big!”—these are all examples of value-video topics that focus on the viewer.

This directly connects to the second type of marketing video: prize promotion. Even if you are doing in-booth giveaways, we recommend that you generate interest beforehand by sending out a video that announces pre-event contests on social media. Create a promotional reel that whets your audience’s appetite for prizes and schedule to announce the winner at your specific booth at the beginning of the event. Contests, overall, are a great way to promote an event on social media.

Regarding the “you” video –  while you don’t want to be self-promotional with your marketing, you definitely want to give a face to your operation. So the “you” in question is a video that will ideally feature whoever’s running your booth. Shoot footage of them introducing themselves so that the audience knows who will be in the booth when they arrive.

Also, it’s always a good idea to have a video in which host answers questions and tells the guests what they can expect to see at the event and at your booth in particular. Remember, even though the video subject is the host, the information he or she is offering should be focused on the attendee.

Film everything and be everywhere, not just in your own booth

The marketing doesn’t stop when the event kicks off; in fact, this should be the moment when you put the pedal to the metal and produce as much video content as possible. A great benefit of this, beyond adding to your marketing video library, is that it will give you content to promote future events. While this, of course, means having your booth operator speak to guests on camera, it also means leaving your booth to gather content from the event.

A key strategy to getting great video content is to designate an employee (ideally one of your sales team members) to act as an on-camera “host.” Have them and a camera person rove the event floor and look for interview subjects. You should write up a list of two or three stock questions that won’t take up too much of people’s time but also subconsciously direct them to your event booth.

Examples include:

• What is your favorite booth so far and why?
• What obstacles is your business facing now, and have any booths addressed these challenges?

The second question is designed to be a primer that, regardless of the specific answer, should be enough of an opportunity for you to guide the subject to your booth so you can showcase your new product or solution. This is one of the best ways to promote yourself at an event.

And whether you’re out on the event floor or in your booth, try to get as many interviews as possible. Speak to influencers and key speakers; talk to a wide swath of guests and inquire about their industry challenges, buying cycles, upcoming plans, etc. You can use all of this content immediately after the event in the form of blogs or by uploading it to your YouTube channel to show off your booth and the overall experience.

Get testimonials on camera

If there are visitors whom your host knows enjoyed your booth experience, get them on camera for a few-second snippet of positive testimonials. Better yet, if you have a list of confirmed clients/customers whom you know will be attending the event, see if they’d be amenable to sitting down for a moment or two to offer a testimonial about your business. For anyone who does appear on camera, have them sign a release authorizing the use of their image. This could then double as a contact form which you can use in the future for your outreach.

The whole idea is to get as much positive feedback as possible on film so that you can then cut it together into a promotional video and send it out before your next event. Use our video maker to add merge videos together, add photos, and more. To this end, shoot event recap videos, survey results, and feedback from folks talking about what piece of technology or product or digital solution they liked most.

Conclusion

Remember that event follow-up is just as crucial as any marketing you do beforehand. So while your sales team is following up with leads, share your new footage with the event company and see if they too can’t use any of it in upcoming promotional campaigns. It will all serve to make the following year’s event even more successful than the last one.