Putting on an event takes an incredible amount of work. Whether you’re hosting a small expert Q&A forum at your office or going all out and sponsoring a major conference in an entirely different city, events can offer you a deceptively high ROI – but only if you know how to make the  most out of every event you put on.

But how do you do that?

One of the best ways is by filming it! Capturing your event on video is a crazy easy way to make your event last and a highly cost-effective way to spread brand awareness, brand engagement, and brand authority.

And the best part is event videos can be used before, during, and after an event to boost your promotional efforts, marketing efforts, lead generation efforts, and more.

Your video’s primary goal should be to capture the heart, feel, and purpose of your event. Capturing that while balancing your brand’s overall messaging can be tough, though. Not to mention putting on an event itself is complicated and stressful. From picking the right event management software to setting up, presenting, and breaking down, adding the logistics of filming can seem overly complex or difficult.

But we’re here to tell you – it’s not! Filming an event is actually incredibly easy (with the right team on your side) and the payoffs are huge.

Let’s take a look at just a few of the ways filming your next event can help you and your company grow.

1. Filming your event extends its length and reach.

Events are great, but they have a major downside: they don’t typically last long enough to make a noticeable impact on your marketing efforts. You might expose your brand to hundreds of people who attend the event, or you might hand out flyers that people will keep for a long time – but outside of that, your event’s reach is minimal.

This isn’t the case when you record it, though! Recording your event does two major things:

1. Extends its length. With a video, your event will exist in perpetuity – people can see you held an event and even see what happened, for years and years to come without having been there.
2. Extends its reach. If only locals can attend your event because of limited promotion or resources, video helps share your event with tons of people across the country and across the world! All they need is a video link.

In that sense, video is the gift that keeps on giving.

Imagine all the leads you capture at a live event – they could be in the form of emails added to a  contact list, business cards you were given for a raffle, or just follow-up emails you get from people you talk to. Those are all great, but alone, those efforts aren’t scalable.

Video makes them scalable. Video enables you to continue to collect leads from people anywhere at any given time. Even when your event is over, video can keep all the information offered alive and keep providing value to interested users.

2. Filming your event gives you more dynamic content to distribute.

You’re probably already swamped with marketing initiatives. You likely have a website to maintain, an email list to communicate with, social pages to update, and more. Not only is it a lot to do, but finding the best, most engaging, most relevant content to publish takes a lot of time and effort.

Event video can help here, too. Video is one of the most engaging content types and actually helps drive sales more effectively that other forms of content.

Just take a look at these statistics:

• When learning about a product or service, 72 percent of consumers prefer video to text.
• Companies that use video average a 66 percent higher website conversion rate.
• In 2017, businesses that used video grew revenue 49 percent faster than businesses that didn’t.

That means you should be using video everywhere you can. And event video in particular works almost anywhere, including on your website’s main pages, on blog pages, in email communication, on social pages, in your sales funnels, and more. Even embedding your event video on an ads’ landing page is a great way to drive direct sales with a simple, super low-effort update.

And, in addition to giving you great content to distribute in a variety of places, event video is highly repurpose-able, meaning you can use it in tons of different ways.

• Use it to promote future events.
• Gate the full video to capture more leads.
• Cut the video down to short quotes or tips for social media.
• Establish industry insight and credibility.
• Share it with thought leaders you want to collaborate with.
• Boost your SEO by publishing it with full transcript.

Your options are almost unlimited.

3. Event videos can be used at any stage of the buyer’s journey.

So you’ve got your event going on. You know you want to introduce your brand to a new audience, but you’re also wondering – what else can this event bring other than new eyes?

The magic of event videos is how they can be used throughout the entire buyer’s journey, not just in targeting users who don’t know who you are, but targeting users at different stages of their purchase decisions.

Top of Funnel – Yes, events introduce your brand to a new audience. Use your event video in ads, boost your website’s performance with video, or optimize your SEO with video to reach new people fast. No matter what, event videos can get your company in front of brand new audiences, allowing you to introduce a problem to them and then offer your solution.

Middle of Funnel – Here, users are considering their options, doing research, and really just gathering more information. This is the perfect time to use an event video to show off your industry knowledge, subtly pushing users further down the funnel and helping your brand remain top-of-mind.

Bottom of Funnel – Event video here can encourage user sign-ups, boost sales with event video testimonials, or function as a piece of gated content that helps you close that final sale. Be creative – event video is also a great value-add in personalized sales communications and more.

Are you ready?

There are tons of reasons to film your next event. A lot of companies film their events without even thinking about the marketing benefits, but do it only to document their event in full and use it internally.

No matter the reason, filming should be one of your top priorities for your next event. For video production companies specifically, the beauty of filming events is that they require relatively little planning. Videographers essentially need event information and a rough outline of the day’s activities – and that’s it! They’ll capture top speakers, activities, networking moments, and more, or can set up shop in one location and film the entire event from start to finish.

Just think about how you’ll be using your event video and be sure to capture the shots you’ll need most.