As such, you need to accommodate the ever-growing need for instant gratification, and one such way is the online webcast, which is live, interactive and designed to help consumers form stronger, more personal connections with your brand. So let’s take a look at some of the ways in which you can prepare for such an event, so as to gain the maximum benefits when you choose to host live webcasts.
Plan According to Your Target Audience
Hosting an online broadcast is always exciting, and can help your business boost profits through increased awareness and interactivity with consumers. However, these events are primarily for the target audience, since without them your broadcast is relatively redundant. So, as InfiniGeek shares, in order to enjoy the maximum benefits from connecting with consumers and offering an entertaining or interesting broadcast, you need to plan around what’s best for them. This way, you can have a full list of attendees, ready and eager to learn more about your brand and connect with you on a more personal level. And remember, you may not only have interested consumers in your country alone, so consider the times and days that are good for your entire target market, and try to accommodate everyone as best as you can.
Allowing in Fresh Air and Natural Light
One of the most common mistakes that are so prevalent right now, as brands and individuals become more accustomed to video broadcasting, is a lack of natural light – or at least lighting that doesn’t make the event seem dull or bland. You see, when we are actually at a location, our eyes and brains can take in all of the light and visuals around us to create a composed perception of the room. Even if the light is coloured or dimmed, our brains are excellent at filtering such factors out and most of what we see seems normal.
On a webcam or video camera, however, lighting is far more important, and becomes much more noticeable to viewers – often resulting in either bland or highly contrasted colours. As such, try to let in as much natural lighting as possible, or enlist the services of professionals like BlueJeans Network who understand the value of good lighting during large scale webcasting events. This way, your viewers won’t be distracted by any overwhelming – or underwhelming – lighting effects and can simply focus on the important or exciting information you have to share with them.
Consider a Moderated Chat or Message System for Real-Time Interaction
There are few things that excite customers more than real-time interaction with important people from brands they love. This can be seen in the thousands of AMA’s – or “Ask Me Anything’s” – that happen on a yearly basis on forum sites. In these events, someone famous or important within a big brand like Nike will sit down for an hour or two and simply answers any questions that people present to them. And while this may sound strange to those hearing about these for the first time, the amount of insight and information that one can gain from direct interactions with someone they love, aspire to or simply want to talk to can be staggering. This is also evident in the sudden rise of popularity of YouNow, which is like the popular video site, according to Slate, but instead of prerecorded videos, the creators are live-streaming themselves.
Find ways to Make Your Broadcast Exciting
In our modern world of instant-gratification, you need to ensure that your itinerary will keep your audience entertained and glued to their seats for the entire time. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t offer a beverage or snack break, but just be sure that they don’t get bored. The potential problem of an online broadcast – similarly to changing channels on a television during an ad break – is that your audience is able to switch over to another form of entertainment within seconds. So keep your audience entertained at all times to ensure that you don’t lose out on invaluable engagement, as well as opportunities to connect on a personal level.
Large scale broadcasting can certainly help your brand boost its reach and impact by connecting with consumers where they feel comfortable. And rather than force-feeding them advertising that they don’t want, webcasts are far more effective by offering interested consumers the information they actually need or have always been eager to learn. So give your target market the opportunity to connect with and form a personal relationship with your brand with interactive webcasts today.