The costs and benefits of livestreaming: What Project Managers need to know

15 August 2018

 

Livestreaming may be the marketing strategy flavour of the month, but many businesses wouldn’t be so keen to have a taste if they had a longer look at the costs. It’s not as simple as just picking up a smartphone and starting to record. In reality, a lot of time and effort needs to go into setting the stage for your event before you even reach out to your audience.

Any Project Manager charged with arranging an event livestream, whether a product launch, webinar or other occasion, should ensure they’re fully across all the costs of the strategy.

The real costs of high-quality livestreaming

As with any marketing strategy, cost is one of the primary factors affecting decision making. Too many Project Managers make the mistake of not fully considering the cost of setting up their event and hosting the livestream. This cost goes beyond just dollars and cents too:

  • Time – It takes time to set up an event space and make it ready for a livestream. If you don’t normally do this day-in, day-out, it takes even longer. Other associated time costs include sourcing the equipment needed to shoot the video, testing and prepping recording quality and, of course, setting up your recording device to stream securely.
  • Effort and expertise – From conceiving the message you’re communicating through to packing down your event space and ensuring your content is brand-consistent, the effort and expertise required often goes beyond businesses’ forecasts.
  • Budget – Of course, hosting a livestreaming event has a dollar figure too. Hiring all the equipment needed, paying camera operators and production experts ad-hoc to manage your event and renting your event space are obvious expenses that come to mind – and are only some of requirements of hosting a livestream yourself.
Project Managers should know all the costs of running an event livestream.Project Managers should know all the costs of running an event livestream.

Another common issue is with Project Managers who assume there is a cheap and easy way to deliver the same high-quality production value. A smartphone is an invaluable tool for modern communications and is an excellent start point for a simple way of delivering a very human feel in your video. However, it simply lacks the production value that you gain from working with event production experts.

Similarly, trying to host your livestream event with the bare minimum of production equipment reduces your ability to tell a story. No matter your event, this storytelling ability is vital to engaging your audience. Then of course there is the cost of hosting the event on a secure stream! Scrimp on this, and you could find yourself in major trouble.

What are the benefits of livestreaming?

So with all of these costs, why livestream at all? Because it’s obviously an effective marketing strategy. Event livestreaming on your business’ website or social media feeds (the latter strategy is used by six in ten event enterprises according to Event MB) directly engages your audience. It also connects new viewers that may not otherwise be able to attend your event or engage regularly with your business. This expands your reach, and means your event’s message is spread further afield.

So what do Project Managers need to make livestreaming their event worthwhile?

Is cost-effective and high-value livestreaming possible?

What Project Managers really need is to partner with livestreaming experts. Investing in expert video and event production services costs, yes, but also delivers a high-quality, valuable result without breaking the bank. CMS Australasia can maximise your event budget and offer the best possible video and event production services.

Our team starts the livestreaming production process by meeting with Project Managers to discuss event aims and the message you’re trying to communicate. From there, we create a comprehensive production plan, considering details such as equipment needed, server details and content schedules. Next is the live test, where we run through the event in full and set up the livestream equipment. And lastly – the event itself. We connect everything, manage the process, and let your amazing ideas and message do the rest!

For more information about costing your next livestreaming project, or to talk about event production services, contact CMS Australasia today.