Using video to get people to your events

If you read this blog a lot, you’ll know that I have a few favourite tactics.  This one is all about using video to get people to your events.

Actually I have a big bag of favourite tactics which I dip into and knit together when I’m helping clients with their marketing. A bit like your Nan making you a stripy jumper from unravelled old jumpers, but it looks much better. And works.

Using video to get people to your events

Two of my favourite tactics are using video and speaking at events / running workshops. So I really admire the way that Nick Price, my favourite creative business consultant, used both of these at the same time.

Nick is running a training session on Business Landscape Mapping. He won’t make any money out of it as he’s volunteering his time to share his knowledge with other members of Brighton Chamber. But he does get some valuable exposure from doing the event, he has something to invite key people along to, and he might meet some potential clients through the session.

Nick has done a promotional video for his training event. He gets to tell people about the event, what they should expect and how to come along. You can watch it here, and book a place at the event here. [Update, this event has been and gone now.]

You don’t need me to tell you that public speaking and making videos are good ways of promoting your business. But Nick has done both at the same time, a double whammy, which means that he:

• Makes his event stand out, because none of the other Brighton Chamber events have their own promotional video
• Can get his marketing message in front of many more people than can come along to the event
• Has a promotional video he can reuse if he wants to run that event somewhere else
• Has a promotional video to encourage people to pay him money to run that event for them in the future
• Can persuade people who might be just thinking about coming to his workshop that they should come along, because video converts potential customers like nothing else (except public speaking)

How this could have been even better

If you’re going to steal Nick’s idea, then you might want to improve on it.  That’s the point of creative swiping, isn’t it?

I’m generally not in favour of putting the videos on your website on YouTube.  If you have a lot of videos, and people find you on YouTube, then this works, but if you’re just looking for a way to host the video, I wouldn’t use YouTube.  I’d use Wistia instead.

Why not YouTube?

The problem with putting your video on YouTube is that YouTube is in the business of getting people to watch videos, not the business of promoting your business or your event.  So after your carefully crafted video for your event plays on your website, your visitors start watching something else.  You don’t want them to watch YouTube videos, especially if they’re not yours. And especially if they’re a competitor’s videos, which can happen.  You have no control over what YouTube show them next.

Everyone uses YouTube because everyone else does.  It’s the accepted way of doing things.  But you don’t want to do the same version as everyone else.  You can put 3 videos on Wistia for free, so using a professional service for your video hosting doesn’t even have to cost you any money.

Use Wistia video to get people to your events

If you really want to get going with using video to get people to your events, one of the clever things in Wistia is that you can put a call to action and a link directly into the video.  So at the end of the video you can clearly tell people to book, and give them a link to book the event. Which can massively increase the number of people who book, which is exactly what you want.

This clever bit is included in the Wistia paid for package, not the free one, but it’s well worth thinking about.

Help with stealing ideas and knitting them together

I regularly steal ideas from creative people like Nick. I love collecting marketing and business ideas and weaving them into a strategy which helps people to sell more and run bigger, better businesses.

I specialise in helping people to make more money and have more fun. If this sounds like something you’d like to work on, then let’s get together for a chat about your business. I’ll bring my bag of ideas and tactics.

Thanks to Nick Price for permission to talk about his workshop and video.

Photo credit to Thierry H whose photo I found on Flickr, under a creative commons license