Marketing + Video

Creating an Engaging Event Film

Films are a great way to showcase or explain your brand, product or service. We’ve talked about each of these following types of films in the preceding weeks (in case you missed it!)

Explainer Film
Branding Film
Product Film
Interview Film

Event films are another type of specialized promotional film that can be used in two ways:

1. To promote your event before it happens.
2. To share highlights of your event after it has happened

 

Because consumers are so trained to respond and engage with video, both pre-event and a post-event films can expand the awareness and reach of your organization. Consumers like knowing that the companies they buy their products from are active in their market, and attending the events and conferences that they would be expected to.

How to use film to promote your event before it happens

Your main objective when designing a pre-event video is to create energy and engagement around your upcoming event.

Showcase the Event

The pre-event video is similar a movie trailer. It’s designed to get people excited. So how do movie producers do this? With the best scenes from a movie.

That’s easy if you have had the event before, you can simply use past-year footage. But if this is your inaugural event, you’ll have to get more creative. Here are some ideas to promote your event:

1. Do you have big-name speakers? Use footage of them speaking previously (with permission of course).
2. Have customers been particularly praise-worth of your efforts or are they registered and excited about attending? Get them on film sharing why they are so pumped.
3. Is the event space uniquely epic? Take a film crew to get b-roll footage of it.
4. Do you have vendors you are partnering with that will be a high-value add to your attendees? Get them on tape explaining what they will be offering.

 

If none of this is an option, simple 10-second Instagram-type mini-videos from employees, customers, or people planning on attending your event with a simple backdrop and/or animation effects can generate excitement and signups.

Don’t forget “during” the event

At an event, you have all of your customers gathered in one place, so remember to send out a “scout” or “reporter” to talk with your customers and grab compelling stories. When you find stories, sit your customers down in front of a camera and grab some footage. There is always a story to be told, and great producers know when and where these stories are, and how to capture them. Who in your audience has a compelling story to share about how your product or service has helped them? Give them a chance to share their story on film.

How to leverage film after an event to expand awareness of your organization

You’ve had your event and it was wildly successful. Your film team was on location, capturing snippets of the event, testimonials and stories from customers who attended the event, and you even have drone fly-over coverage of the day. Now what?

Identify the Main Point of the Film

What do you want to showcase about the event? Your volunteers, the money raised, your involvement in the community, the number of people who attended? Whatever that main emphasis is needs to be identified prior to editing so that the final film re-emphasizes that point.

You may decide that you want your prospects and customers to see a few different elements of the event. In this case, identify up to three main points of emphasis that result in mini-films (no longer than 25-30 seconds) that can be edited and sent out in a variety of marketing channels.

At the end of this series, we will be releasing a FREE field guide that will help you with your overall film project, sign up here today to make sure you receive it!

Creative Elements

Most likely, the creative “look and feel” of the film was discussed prior to filming. This is great and it means that film was captured during the event that reinforces this direction. Now the discussion should be about what additional creative elements do you want to add to the segments that were captured. Do you want to add animation over any of the segments? Text? Whatever these elements are, determine them pre-editing.

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Promote, promote, promote

The first group that should receive your post-event film is the people who attended the event. Send a specialized email to only this list with a preview of the event film.

The next group to send the film is to your email subscribers and current customers (if the current customers weren’t on the first list). Wait a few days and then send a post-event promotional email to this segment of contacts.

Once these two specialized list segments have received the film, share it on your blog and schedule it to be shared on your social sites, YouTube, and Vimeo. You might even consider doing a Facebook or LinkedIn ad that showcases a link to your event film to build awareness.

Examples:

Here are two event films we created. Take a look at them and write down what you like and what you think could work for your own event film.

CCEF 17 National Conference

2016 Penn State College of Medicine Match Day

Not sure where to start? Contact us today. We’ve helped tons of organizations like yours get started on the right foot with films.