“Video is where we play best on this event,” said Dan Hanover, vice president, event marketing group, for Access Intelligence, at the June SIPA Conference. “Our attendees eat with their eyes. So rather than market this event from the beginning as a traditional event with brochures and copy, we do all video marketing.”
Hanover was referring to EVENTtech, their Las Vegas-based, mega-conference and exposition on using social media and technology to optimize live experiences. Attendance is up, and video marketing is a huge reason why. He then showed the
81-second video that drove their marketing—and won their group a 2016 SIPAward for Best Use of Video. “Who’s not gonna want to go that event?” Hanover asked after it played.
He pointed out that the video “has content from the awards our readers submit as well as content from our actual event the year before.” The faces in the video make a strong impression because of this. (Matt Bailey and Amy Africa are two marketing experts who detest using generic faces.)
Messages stand out clearly in the video while superhero-movie music resonates. “The Only Conference of Its Kind.” “Attend 100+ Classes.” “Get Ready to Upgrade Your Brand Experiences.” “The Latest Trends and Case Studies.” But spending the money to create such a powerful video only begins the work. The EVENTtech team succeeded—and won the SIPAward—because of what they did with the video.
- Improved the microsite. They posted the video to the microsite homepage slider spot. People were driven to this homepage video via email and social posts as well as paid and organic search. The website bounce rate decreased by 15% due to this click-to-play video slider.
- Created “models” to increase their audience. To reach new contacts, the EventTech team tracked their registered attendees and site visitors to create a “model” of how they behave while navigating the internet. “This intelligence allowed us to serve video ads to people who behave the same way as our exact customers,” wrote Sophia Sikes, a marketing associate with Access Intelligence. “Using programmatic advertising, EventTech video ads were optimally placed in front of our target customers on outlets such as other publisher sites, Facebook and in mobile apps. It pushed 7,821 unique clicks to the site.”
- Activated partners to get bigger social reach. Using their digital partners’ social share capabilities, they were able get video ads across platforms like Twitter and Facebook—and then those influencers shared the video with their followers. These social shares funneled 2,247 unique visitors to the site.
- Created shorter ads. “We took that video and cut it into 30-and 15-second YouTube buys and video banner ads,” Hanover said. “Those banners drove five times the click-thru rate for us.”
- Pushed out YouTube ads. The EventTech team then promoted the video with those 15- and 30-second YouTube ads. They targeted the audience based on viewer interest and demographics. The YouTube video ads resulted in 1,905 clicks to the website.
Still a bit reluctant about video? Hanover said that you have to change your mindset. What you did 5, 10 years ago is not what will work today. The marketing money that used to go into their direct mail all goes to video and digital now. Brochures are no more.
“My biggest lesson is you [have to] do it all,” he said. “We’re doing Facebook ads, we’re doing YouTube. We sprinkle it all over the place because you never know what’s going to work. But as much as we sprinkle it all over the place, we measure it all.”
Wrote Sikes: “Video promotion works. By getting the correct content in front of the correct audience, the use of video in marketing campaigns can be rewarding. And using your own content within video is key. For EVENTtech 2015 it created excitement and boosted engagement surrounding our event resulting in increased interest and ultimately sold attendees.”
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Nevena Jovanovic.
Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 and SIIA in 2013 as editorial director…