Whether your company is doing a special employee thank you dinner or a three-day seminar for clients, an event can be one of best ways to capture important moments that dramatically boost your marketing and promotion initiative.

In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute, in-person events have been rated the most effective content marketing tactic for the past several years.

So, if you already have a good thing going, then you should probably remind people about that good thing as much as you can, right?

We’ll that’s where an event highlight video comes in.

It’s the perfect form for capturing the sights and sounds of your gathering, and it can be used as a promotional piece afterwards.

So what kind of events could use an event highlight video?

All kinds.

Here are a few examples:

Educational Forums, Seminars, Workshops and Conferences

These are some of the best events to film because they inherently provide a lot of value for the intended audience. Often at these events, there is a high level of quality content provided by subject matter experts. Capturing the many activities and engagement with the attendees, gives you the ability to recap the event and create a video that gives a sense of what took place and the value that was provided.

Here’s a video we did for Amalgamated Bank’s Small Business workshop series that showcases the value it provided to the participants:

Speaker Q&A Videos

As writer Alison Jane Smith suggests, consider doing quick Q&A’s with speakers after their presentations, and then post the interviews on your blog. Ask them about their area of expertise with questions like “What is the one thing people seem to always get wrong about [topic]?” or “What’s the one piece of advice you would give to a young person who’s trying to climb the ladder in [industry]?

You could also create “micro-content” video campaigns with your interviews, as Entrepreneur Magazine suggests.

A micro-content video campaign is a series of videos on one topic that you can release slowly over the next several months or for the next year. The topic is related to your sales or marketing goals.

For example, if you’re part of a bank that wants to become an authority on small business, then during your small biz seminar series, you could schedule time for six of your speakers to answer a simple question like this: “What’s the biggest financial misstep people should avoid in the first year of their business?”

From there, you can edit the six interviews and then release them on your blog and social media, once a week for the next six weeks, or once a month for the next six months.

One (or two) Question Attendee Surveys

These quick interviews can be done at any type of event, and they’re great to use in promotions for future events. A couple questions you could ask: “What’s the most surprising thing you learned today?” and “What would you say to people who are on-the-fence about attending next year?”

Testimonials

Testimonials can be some of the most powerful videos for your brand, allowing people to gush about how great your company is. The resulting videos can be placed on your website or spread through social media as promotion pieces.

Employee or Investor Thank You Dinners

Any event where you’re rewarding your team or customers is ripe for a video record. It showcases your internal culture, allowing people to see how you serve others.

Check out this fantastic highlight video from Mindtree’s client appreciation event:

Fairs and expos

Whether you’re an attendee or a host, fairs and expos are great to capture on video. As a host, you can do an overview of everything going on at the event. And as an attendee, you can recap your personal experience and talk about key takeaways.

Here’s a video from the Small Business Expo that gives a taste of the wonderful time you can have:

Other events that could be great for video:

• Fundraisers or volunteer activities for special causes (Perfect for showcasing how much you care.)
• Major milestone celebrations, like your company’s 50th anniversary (Perfect for creating awareness about the significance of your accomplishments.)
• Special recognition events, like end-of-year retreats for high-performing salespeople (Perfect for highlighting the fantastic work done by certain employees and encouraging others to aspire for similar results.)

Additional event video content

Highlight videos are only a tip of the iceberg. Here are a few more ways you can capture event video content for your marketing.

Speaker Recordings (for free or a fee)

If you have speakers providing valuable advice that they don’t share anywhere else, then speaker recordings can be a goldmine that increases revenue and subscribers.

If you choose to charge for recordings, consider giving away some of the videos for free, to whet your audience’s appetite.

Check out on how MozCon presented their “Video Bundle,” offering one talk as a free preview alongside a highlight video:

If you choose to give the videos away for free, then you can get more than just love from your fans. You can get new subscribers.

Check out how Unbounce’s Call-to-Action Conference gave their visitors free talks (and presentation slides) for the price of an email address:

Speaker Q&A Videos

As writer Alison Jane Smith suggests, consider doing quick Q&A’s with speakers after their presentations, and then post the interviews on your blog. Ask them about their area of expertise with questions like “What is the one thing people seem to always get wrong about [topic]?” or “What’s the one piece of advice you would give to a young person who’s trying to climb the ladder in [industry]?

You could also create “micro-content” video campaigns with your interviews, as Entrepreneur Magazine suggests.

A micro-content video campaign is a series of videos on one topic that you can release slowly over the next several months or for the next year. The topic is related to your sales or marketing goals.

For example, if you’re part of a bank that wants to become an authority on small business, then during your small biz seminar series, you could schedule time for six of your speakers to answer a simple question like this: “What’s the biggest financial misstep people should avoid in the first year of their business?”

From there, you can edit the six interviews and then release them on your blog and social media, once a week for the next six weeks, or once a month for the next six months.

One (or two) Question Attendee Surveys

These quick interviews can be done at any type of event, and they’re great to use in promotions for future events. A couple questions you could ask: “What’s the most surprising thing you learned today?” and “What would you say to people who are on-the-fence about attending next year?”

Testimonials

Testimonials can be some of the most powerful videos for your brand, allowing people to gush about how great your company is. The resulting videos can be placed on your website or spread through social media as promotion pieces.

Event Highlight Video Cost

So how much does the typical event video production package cost?

As with most things, it depends.

Considerations:

• The size of the event
• Length of the event (which may affect how long it takes to edit the video)
• What you want to capture (which may affect the number of shooters you need)
• How soon you need the finished video
• If you want photographs included

That said, an event highlight video for a typical 4-hour event, like an employee thank you dinner, should start at $3500.

Final thoughts

If you’re already putting tons of effort into creating the most jaw-dropping, heart-stopping, unforgettable event possible, instead of making it a one-time-only thing, magnify its impact and capture it on video.

If you have any questions about testimonial videos, let us know by leaving a comment below. Or, if you’re interested in creating one, contact us. We’d love to help you.