Shorter really is sweeter

Whether you’re a communication professional for a corporate titan or a local non-profit, you have sales or fundraising goals to meet, regardless of the global pandemic. It seems corporations have gone all-in for the tried-and-true webinar while non-profits are taking their fundraising galas online. This post focuses on corporate online “events.” (We’ll get back to non-profit galas in the next one!)

In the early days of the lockdown, production values of online events didn’t matter much. Your broadcast zoom call could stutter or cut out and it was acceptable, charming even. What’s more, corporations pre-recorded hundreds of presentations that would have been delivered live at a live conference, thinking customers were actually eager to spend hours exploring a web platform that stored all that content. That was then and this is now; the online honeymoon is over.

Just as you do for other communications, start planning your broadcast with the audience in mind; who they are, what they need, and now you need to consider how and where they’re tuning in. In broadcast, more than live presentations, clear, concise, and coherent content is key. Customer audiences do want to hear what you have to say and when you’re online, they also care a lot about how you say it. Production value—the visuals, the scripting, the performances, the pacing—is a whole lot more important than it was six months ago. 

The goal of any online event is to inform, engage, and move your audiences to action, all in a matter of minutes. Our advice is to make your broadcast shorter and sweeter.