Feb '16 | Video Tips That Will Increase Event Attendance

With event season well underway–who watched the Oscars last night?– I wanted to take a moment to highlight 8 video tips my San Francisco Bay Area based video production company applied during technology’s biggest event of last season, Dreamforce.

With the goal of creating brand awareness and driving traffic toward their booth, parties, panels, and ultimately, sales teams, DocuSign hired Patina Pictures to create and roll out a video strategy that had us delivering, in real-time, 45 videos in 10 days.

Here are a few tips that led to our successful video production strategy:

Empathize With Your Audience

On average, US adults spend 5.5 hours watching video content per day. But there’s nothing average about Dreamforce, or their attendees for that matter. They show up in hordes, scurry between 18 venues, and suck the Internet connectivity out of downtown San Francisco, all while consuming a reported 5,000 cups of coffee per day for 4 days straight.

If you want to gain attention from the over-stimulated, you need to think like one of them. And that’s ultimately how we chose our video format, platform, and strategy.

• Video Format: Our target was 15 seconds, with a 30 second max. We wanted to create videos that were easily sharable by attendees, as well as DocuSign employees.

• Platform: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter–if attendees had a moment to spare in between sessions, we wanted to find them.

• Video Production Strategy: See below.

Repetition & Relevance

Only 2% of conversions occur in the first meeting. On average, it takes 8 attempts to successfully reach a prospect.

Repetition was our main strategy during Dreamforce. Spending resources to create one video that highlighted a unique customer story wasn’t going to cut it. This strategy called for multiple bite-sized videos that told a highly relevant (and simple) story:

• Don’t miss the DocuSign booth this afternoon!
• Make sure you RSVP for Thursday’s party!
• Did you miss us last night? Don’t worry, catch us again at MOMENTUM’16!

Make It Visual

Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than website copy, so if you’re creating video you’re already ahead of the game. But if you’re creating video for social media, you need to combine visuals with simple text pops that support your call to action, as most feeds are consumed without audio.

Keep the Story Simple

We know, 63% of attendees remember stories while only 5% remember statistics. But how do you tell a story in 15 seconds? Rather than follow your traditional narrative arc, focus instead on making one emotional impression per video. But don’t stop there. Let your impressions progress over several videos. That’s how you provide a narrative arc on social media.

Creating a Buzzworthy Video Strategy

Social media is a platform perfect for creating buzz because of the aforementioned time restrictions placed on story arc. The story has to come out in segments and (if done right) those segments should progress. But when it comes to events, specifically an event as busy as Dreamforce, how do you not only create buzz, but sustain it?

Don’t just make them aware of your attendance, give them something immediate to talk about.

We created and sustained buzz around DocuSign’s party at Ruby Skye by releasing a series of videos, some of which included:

• DocuSign’s Ruby Skye Party Isn’t Something to Miss.
• Have You RSVP’d for the Best Party of Dreamforce?
• Tip: Arrive Early & Beat the Crowd!
• Missed Us? Don’t Worry, Register for MOMENTUM’16 Here:

Creating A Consistent Call to Action

For DocuSign, this meant building upon their 2015 Dreamforce tagline– Find Us. Meet Us. Party With Us.– and scripting three different storylines that propelled these actions forward. For example, the storyline of Find Us spanned over 15 videos. Here are three highlights:

• A Behind-the-Scenes Sneak Peek: Digital is Here.
• We’re Kicking Off Dreamforce Right: Don’t Miss Us!
• Introducing Docuffiti: Does Your e-Signature Have Character?

Find Creative Ways to Repurpose Your Videos

Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. From the footage we captured and released during Dreamforce, we created three highlight videos that accompanied DocuSign’s nurture campaigns, and reminded them of the great time they had at the event. Each video was specifically edited to focus on a different audience:

• Consumer Focused
• Developer Focused
• And Everyone Else, AKA: Party With Us

Plan for Your Future Video Production

What events do you have in the future where video could be useful? A typical video crew is contracted for ten hours and you can capture a lot of video in that time. By way of example, DocuSign’s next big event after Dreamforce was their user conference, MOMENTUM. But repurposing footage with Dreamforce branding all over it wasn’t useful. That’s why I, as Patina Pictures’ resident video producer and strategist, made it a priority to capture a list of shots easily repurpose-able. Because finding value for clients is one of the pillars in which this video production company was built.

Up next: Tips On How to Create Compelling Video Narratives.

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