Live Streaming Video: Why Does This Make Sense for Your Business?

What are your marketing goals? What are you trying to achieve right now, today, with your marketing? Think about your blog posts, your email messages, your webinars, social media and any other form of marketing that you are currently engaged in? Chances are your goals are one or more of the following:

• Build your email list
• Drive traffic to a page/website
• Build/strengthen your brand
• Increase awareness
• Brand loyalty
• Establish yourself/your company as a thought leader
• Make additional sales
• Increase engagement

Live streaming video is a relatively new tactic that is now available to marketers. Two very popular applications were launched earlier in the year and show great signs of success and growth. A third, owned by Facebook, was released in a sort of beta release or trial release and is expected to expand and there are more options expected to be released over the next year.

New marketing tactics can be extremely powerful if they’re used strategically and if they help you achieve your overall marketing goals. You don’t want to jump on the bandwagon without making sure that there’s something in it for you. So what do you have to gain from live streaming?

Stronger Personal Connection – Because your audience and prospects can engage with you while you’re talking, you’re able to essentially talk to a large group of people in a very personal way. We buy from people that we like and live streaming provides the opportunity to tap into that trigger and forge an emotional connection.

Wider/Different Audience – The people who find and follow you on a live streaming video network may be quite different from the prospects you’ve already connected with. You’re able to reach and connect with a whole new group of people thus enabling you to widen your audience.

Different Form of Content – Being able to reach your audience, to educate, and inform is a powerful tactic. Each time you’re able to leverage a different content format, you’re strengthening your position in the market place. You’re not only giving your audience a choice on how to receive your information, you’re connecting with them multiple times which strengthens your brand and awareness.

There are more benefits as well. In fact, researchers are finding that live streaming is more engaging than other forms of content and can lead to a longer view time than some on demand content. You can also leverage real time statistics and analytics to see how your content is performing.

Finally, while live streaming isn’t easier to create than any other form of content, you may find that it suits your needs and goals. You may also find that your audience responds quite positively to it. Do you have experience with live streaming videos you would like to share with us here?