Conferences can be powerful catalysts for learning, networking and growing together—an efficient way for industry professionals to meet other professionals and share their experiences. But what happens when the event is over?

Most people go home with a pocket full of business cards they’ll likely never look at again and too many companies head back to their headquarters without much to show for the event except a slightly longer email list to manually update—if that.

How do you get more out of your next conference? Film it! Capturing your conference on video is an excellent way to not only get the most out of the money you spend on your conference, but enhance your overall branding efforts.

Let’s take a look at how videoing your conference can actually help your business succeed and how you can get started.

Benefits of Videoing Your Next Conference

1. Spread Information to a Larger Audience

Conferences are, by their very nature, limited in size and scope. Only people who live or travel to their location can attend. When recorded, however, your conference can reach exponentially more people. Expert sessions can be spread far and wide, increasing not only the reach of your brand or a particular speaker, but of the information itself.

Sharing this information is a huge value-add, too. The more open you are to educating your audience, the more you’ll be seen as a credible and authoritative source within your industry.

2. Generate More Leads

Remember that pocket full of business cards and the signup sheet with people’s email addresses? Generating leads this way is cumbersome and ineffective and doesn’t scale very well.

Instead, focus on generating leads by recording specific speaker sessions, topics or other snippets of the event and gating that video content behind a lead generation form. That will allow you to gather the exact information you need, segment it on the appropriate lists and continue to remarket to these contacts however you see fit.

3. Promote Future Conferences

Whether you’re putting on the entire conference yourself, or just want to promote the fact that you’re attending, having video footage of the event can help you promote it in new and exciting ways.

You can show potential attendees the type of information they can expect, drive more conference signups and convince more speakers to participate. Market your conference directly to other companies and feature your video prominently, so executives have a clear idea of the purpose and benefits of attending.

4. Repurpose Footage

Want to promote your conference on social media? Send out a promotional email to one of your segmented lists? Retarget users you think will be interested in your event via paid ads?

Recording your conference means you have the footage to do all that, and more. Filming your event means you can create a video to suit every one of your needs, from the typical event video that summarizes your event succinctly, to shorter clips for social media, to more promotional content and beyond.

Because you have different marketing goals (more website visits? More product purchases? More speaker invitations?), you can have different videos made to accomplish each of these separate goals. Having the right footage on hand is a necessary first step.

5. Unify and Rally Internally

Nothing is worse than putting a ton of effort into an event—building a website, designing branded materials, launching ads—and never seeing the fruit of your labor. You put so much into making sure your event goes off without a hitch, but unless you’re the speaker running an expert session or you were put on conference booth duty, you’re likely not seeing all your work payoff.

Conference videos allow employees to see the direct results of their efforts manifested. They can see audience reception, hear all the action and get a feel for the final product—creating pride in their work and a stronger interoffice bond.

Conclusion

If you’re wondering whether or not you should film your next conference, stop wondering and do it! The results are huge and the cost is small with help from a video marketing and production company to film, edit and distribute your video. The right company should provide everything you need, from an experienced videographer to day-of instructions and more. Then, you’ll have a piece of content that’ll keep paying off for years to come.

Laura Cueva is content strategist at Lemonlight, a video production company based out of Marina Del Rey, California. She helps plan, create and execute content initiatives that spread brand awareness and engagement, serving as the brand’s primary voice and proponent of high quality, affordable video production at scale.

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