Should I Livestream?

Occasionally, potential clients will ask me about livestreaming. 

In general, I advise them to avoid it, for a few specific reasons.

First, it requires that your performance be tight. Minutes of dead air, technical issues, or confusion will result in most viewers leaving for a quick fix of dopamine elsewhere.

Additionally, promotion of a livestream is nearly impossible if you don’t have a large or invested existing audience. Telling someone to show up at a specific time, even if it's just digital, is challenging. Many early stage video marketers will struggle to drive attendance.

But, most importantly, the type of person who’d show up on a livestream is not your ideal buyer.

If you sell B2B (like most of our clients) then you’re targeting busy executives who have a budget to allocate.

Those folks aren’t sitting around watching livestreams.

They’re reading reports, listening to podcasts, and digesting the densest information packets they can because their time is extremely limited.

Livestreams are more attuned to folks who are underemployed, working fake jobs, or looking for entertainment.

Could a live call-in show produce some entertaining/interesting moments? Sure.

But, your ideal buyer is more likely to end up watching a clip later, than the actual recording anyways.

The primary exception to this is if you have some sort of paid coaching community or affinity group. In these environments, folks have already bought in to your information ecosystem and might value the live access to you.

But, otherwise, my recommendation is to spend more time on pre and post production.

Develop content ideas, write opening hooks, and edit your content for clarity & pace.

It shows more respect for your Ideal Buyer’s time.

Supercharge your Video Marketing with support from Piper Creative