How Live Streaming Can Improve Your Marketing Reach

It’s no secret anymore that live streaming is one of the most effective ways to reach your audience and generate sales. People prefer watching a video rather than reading - and that applies to the sales funnel as well. 

This article has some interesting stats about live streaming; just to name a few that might interest brands and agencies:

• 80% of consumers prefer watching a live video to reading a blog; at the same time, 82% prefer live video from a brand to social posts
• 67% of viewers are more likely to buy a ticket for an event or a concert after watching a live video
• Businesses say their top 3 live streaming challenges are: live streaming to remote employees (41%), live streaming from remote locations or conference centers (39%) and managing bandwidth (36%)

Any brand or agency that has not yet gotten onboard with live streaming will miss out on a lot of opportunities. Luckily, business owners seem to understand the need for that, given all the new brands making their way into the live streaming world, each on their own pace and budget.

Read below to see how Speedify LIVE was born, what results we have seen so far and what our roadmap has been so far.

Given the nature of the service we offer here at Speedify - a channel bonding app that helps combine multiple Internet connections at the same time rather than switching between them - live streaming was just up our alley. 

Over the last few years, we have had lots of users doing live streaming and using our service to help get the best out of their Internet connectivity. And then, one day, we decided to go ahead and drink our own champagne and enter the live streaming world. That’s how Speedify LIVE was born, back in August 2021!

Believe it or not, we weren’t even thinking of the success Speedify LIVE had had in just a few months since we started doing it. Going from us and a few users watching the first live stream to hundreds of viewers on every live stream is great, especially when you’re also getting interaction - questions, comments, etc.

Over the last year or so since we started, we have seen tremendous interest from our users and also from influencers and creators who have been on Speedify LIVE. Here are some of the results we’ve seen so far:

• Better engagement with our own users, since we’re doing a once-a-week ask-me-anything type of a live stream - Speedify LIVE Office Hours.
• Getting in front of new qualified audiences, as we’re constantly being referred by past show guests to their peers and respective followers. 
• Building trust with potential users - after all, we are demoing our solution and validating it for live streaming on a weekly basis.

Do you want to get in front of more potential customers - brand awareness? Do you want to generate more sales as a result of your brand getting into live streaming? Do you simply want to better engage with your existing audience? 

The goal(s) need to be clearly defined at the beginning, as you will use them to evaluate the success of your live streaming marketing campaigns. That’s why you need them to be measurable as well.

In our case, the topics revolve around live streaming as an industry and how to be better at it - highlighting best practices and success stories of content creators, as well as the latest hardware and software for live streaming.

Regardless of the industry you’re in, you can surely find something to live stream about - here are some suggestions:

• Questions and answers over your products and services / live support
• Live selling (read more)
• Industry thought leadership

A live streaming video can be done with as little as a smartphone. Of course, if you’re a brand, you will want to make sure it looks professional. That’s why you need to think about:

• The budget and human resources needed for your live streaming activities
• Where you’ll be live streaming from - is it a studio space or will you be doing IRL?
• The equipment needed to live stream - phone, dedicated camera, dedicated microphone, extra battery pack for IRL, bonding solution for Internet connectivity (nice plug - thank you!), streaming software etc.
• Where you’ll be live streaming to - YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, your own platform, etc.
• Who will be live streaming - can somebody from your company be the host, will you get influencers onboard to speak about your products / services, etc.
• How often will you be live streaming - is it weekly / daily? 
• Who will be handling the script for your live stream - is it the host themselves / the marketing team?
• If you’re interviewing people outside of your organization, you also need a person to reach out to potential guests and be the contact person for them.

Alex Gizis, our CEO, is the host of the Speedify LIVE show, and he’s being helped by our producer, who handles everything show-related - research, the script, being in touch with guests, coordinating with the marketing team for social media, content, etc.

We’re live streaming from both a studio room we built at our HQ, as well as doing IRL streaming from all over the world. Here’s a video of our IRL live streaming setup, centered around an iPhone:

After you have everything planned out, just go at it and stream live. Make sure you stick to a regular streaming schedule. We recommend doing this at least once per week.

As in any activity, you will probably get in situations where something will go wrong - we certainly had our share of mishaps. The important thing is to learn from each and everyone of those and make the necessary adjustments in order to not have that thing happen again. To help with that, we created a live streaming checklist which we verify before each sessions - yeah, just like the airline pilots!

There’s certainly a learning curve and errors are part of it. So don’t be discouraged and keep on live streaming!

You need to do this on a regular basis, but remember that learning curve. From our experience, you should plan to live stream for at least 3-6 months on a regular basis before evaluating whether live streaming marketing helps your business or not.

Make sure you get as much as the impact measured - most common KPIs to look at would be website visitors, interactions on the website and social media, inquiries about your products or services and even conversions - sales, trials, downloads etc.

If you get positive results for your goals, then you may also think of augmenting the impact by including your live streams in your brand’s advertising campaigns. When done right, that should help grow faster than just organically.

There’s a common denominator when it comes to being successful at live streaming. Every content creator we’ve interviewed so far on Speedify LIVE has said that: it’s being committed to live streaming and doing it on a regular basis.

If the above sounds too complicated or not worthwhile for you, do a little research on your competitors’ live streaming efforts and look for best practices. There are also specialized agencies and professionals who can help you tap into this productive stream of new audiences.

We are proudly attending the Agency Summit virtual event on August 25th, 2022, where we will be sharing more with those interested about our Speedify LIVE experience and how to get better at live streaming.

Drop by our booth to talk to us. And also check out the great speaker roster prepared for you!