The goal of any type of online video, be it live streamed or pre-recorded, is to grab the attention of an audience. Beyond that, once you’ve gotten the attention you likely want the audience to buy your product or service.
Content that leads to sales is the oil all brands and marketers are drilling for. To do that we put a ton of thought into planning out the right kind of content, the right guests, the right lighting, the perfect time of day, a written script. Sometimes all of that is just over-thinking.
Go Behind the Scenes With a Company Tour Video
One type of video that viewers, or potential clients, are frequently lured into is also one of the easiest to make: a behind-the-scenes, “live from our business” type of video. If you’ve ever gotten sucked into watching the TV show “How It’s Made” you know these types of videos grab attention quickly. You could have no interest in golfing whatsoever yet that show will get you totally enthralled in a 15-minute segment on how golf clubs are made. All they've done is show you the people and the machines of the manufacturing process, with a simple narration describing the steps along the way.
Your business can also garner this same type of dedicated attention with infotainment content that reveals what you do behind closed doors.
In these videos, you can figuratively show how the sauce is made (or literally, if you’re in the sauce business). Or you can give a tour of your business, introduce the audience to your staff, explain how they do their job, display the tools and equipment they use, etc. This creates a personal connection with the audience and promises that you are more than just a sales pitch. It’s also a great way to unveil the progress or completion of a big project. By showing off what you’re doing for one client you’re telling many others what you can do for them, without a typical sales script.
Marketing the Business Live Stream
All you need to do is fire up your video with a multi-streaming service like Switchboard Cloud. You’ll instantly be live with your followers and their friends on Facebook, Twitch, or any other video platform you prefer, even your own website. Pay attention to your viewer's questions while you’re live. Being able to interact with them, and answer their questions live, makes your content exponentially better.
This type of content can be created frequently and will still maintain - or increase - the success of the first go 'round. The time of day isn’t all that important. The key is having something new and interesting to show or update the audience on. If you live stream frequently and have a large number of subscribers you may not need to promote your stream a lot. Just going live will notify those people and hopefully they’ll jump on and share it.
If you don’t have a huge following just yet, hype the video a few hours before you go live. Ask your co-workers to spread the word online. Don’t bother telling your audience about it days in advance, because they likely won’t remember - grab them the day of and convert a curious web searcher into a client. After the live stream be sure to publish your video with a keyword heavy title and description. This will help the search engines connect interested people and businesses to your video.
Keep A Few Things Off-Camera
While this type of video can be totally off the cuff, you may want to give your co-workers a little bit of advance notice. Of course, it all depends on your business but there may be a few things you don’t want to broadcast to the world. Things like trade secrets, proprietary processes, private information that may be visible on computer screens, or documents on desks are things you don’t want to share. Talking to your team about your plan to shoot video is the best way to avoid any of these problems.
Sometimes businesses get so tied up in the marketing and sales pitch of their product they forget just how impressive their team and process is. Pull back the curtain, people will love it and so will your bottom line!
