Starlog

Taking Full Visual Advantage of Your Customer Facing Events

Gatherings Are Marketing Opportunities

No doubt sometime during this business year you’ll be attending a trade show, or a conference, or an award excursion for top performers. Events like these are extremely important. They enhance personal and professional growth, they provide engagement, and they give people the opportunity to connect with thought leaders. No matter what the industry occasion is, you can be certain of one thing: The gathering of executives, dealers, suppliers, salespeople, marketing staff and other stakeholders is a unique opportunity to enhance your marketing efforts by having a film crew shoot the event.

Let’s use the example of a three-day event in the home security industry where a company is introducing new products to its dealers as well as sharing plans to expand into untapped markets. People at the corporate level can share directly with their dealers, and dealers likewise have the opportunity to interface with everyone from sales to R&D about topics ranging from boots-on-the-ground problems, to improved training and support. 

Saving Time, Money & Hassle

When the right film crew is on the scene for such an event, suddenly you have options:

• Opportunity to get dealer testimonials that can be essential for recruiting new dealers or employees. 
• Insights to case studies the marketing team may want to pursue and use. 
• Footage of senior-level executives talking about key address points that can be used in a myriad of ways from product launches to social media posts. 
• Onsite video creation that can be emailed to your network of stakeholders during the course of the year to keep them engaged and feeling like a professional family. 
• Cost savings. Events like these can cost hundreds-of-thousands if not millions of dollars. You have everyone gathered in one place at one time and if you plan out what you want to shoot and how you’re going to use it, you can save time, hassle, and the cost of shooting and editing are fractional compared to the cost of the event. 
• In other words, you’ll have assets you’ll be glad you have later.

Psychological Value

According to experts, corporate gatherings like seminars, workshops, trade shows, sales meetings and retreats have great psychological value:

• Boosts employee retention and morale.
• Promotes company culture.
• Gives people the chance to be updated on the latest trends and evolving technologies in their industry.
• Allows for important networking opportunities.

Overall, these events provide a welcome break from the daily grind. PR people often think of them as an opportunity to showcase the company, but they can and should additionally be part of a thoughtful marketing strategy. And even if that strategy isn’t fully formulated, it’s better to have the footage in the can. As one marketing executive put it: “I’d rather be looking at something now than wishing I had it later.”

Unobtrusive And Self-Reliant

At Hybrid Moon, we’re experts at shooting events in a variety of industries. Because we’ve done it so often, we know what questions to ask in advance, how to map out a shooting schedule, how to quickly collect soundbites and interviews, and we also gather all the B roll and ambience footage you’ll ever need. We do all this in an unobtrusive manner that doesn’t interfere with the event scheduling or planning, and although we’re always ready to work hand-in-hand with marketing departments, we can also be totally self-sufficient after a pre-production meeting. As one VP of Marketing said: “You’re great to work with, require little or no direction, and take all the project management of covering the event off our plate.”

So, the next time you have an event where you’d like steller coverage, look to the Moon!