Live Shopping may seem intimidating to the uninitiated business. Now you are ready to launch your first Live Shopping event but are light on experience. What do you do? Google “video production agency” and pray they know what Live Shopping is? Work with experienced partners.
Among all things a brand needs to adapt to in Live Shopping, from strategy planning, concept, storytelling with Live Streaming and picking the right host for the event, it is all manageable but overwhelming at first. Partnering with people who has experience in Live Streaming is particularly important because they know what could happen before it happens, and you want to limit your risk with their help.
What is a Remote Live Producer?
A Live producer manages a live broadcast remotely without having to be onsite.
What should you prioritize when choosing a remote live producer?
Very often people think the location is the most important factor when choosing a producer, in fact, communication skills and problem skills should come first. As the location issue is simply not valid anymore at this time and especially not when you are working with a highly experienced remote live producer.
First, there are lots of work off site needs to be done, and your live producer can troubleshoot your issue remotely, as this is their profession.
An experienced remote live producer will be able to troubleshoot your problem in any surprising circumstances, know the exact question to ask you the exact button that needs to be clicked.
Social Integration
There are different types of remote live producers who master different scope of work around Live event. Some are basically your Chief Streaming Officer like Stephanie has mentioned – They are not there to only switch the scenes of the streaming dynamically for you but also take care of the social integration part for you including: Analytics, creative, paid media, earned media and SEO.
TIPS:
You can promote your Live Shopping event just like any other marketing initiative or tailor a killer traffic booster plan for it. Unlike the usual campaign that your team familiar with, promoting a Live Shopping show can be tricky as it happens at a specific time.
What to expect when you are working with a remote live producer?
A conversation on pre-production, production and post-production.
Pre-production
This is an important session to share your vision of the event with the producer. An expert like Stephanie will be able to brainstorm with you and turn your creative brief, storyboard and script into action items.
- The Brainstorming
As Stephanie said, the brainstorming phase is important to have when you are planning the live shopping event. Having the remote live producer to be in the meeting with your creative, marketing team and everyone that will be involved in the actual product, it’s one thing you absolutely don’t want to miss in the planning stage.
When you provide the producer the picture you have in mind, answer questions like:
- Do you want to sell more of your product?
- Bolster your brand’s image?
- Connect with audiences?
- How do you want people to feel after watching your video?
It will give you a good base to move to the next step – The storyboard.
- The storyboard
A storyboard work session to bridge the gap between the idea and execution. Your producer at this moment will be able to point out the visual branding elements you need, that you would likely overlook when you are handing it the first time.
- The technical Run
When you have a run of show, it allows your producer to identify items to check, potential bumper etc. A run of show is a document that lays out the timing, program, and content for each moment of an event.
Need a hand to build your script? Stephanie got you covered! Just plug in your show details and instantly generate an amazing video script template complete with your show intro, guest bio, questions and your sign off, and do it week after week without ever repeating your template.
Production
The unexpected. Everything that can happen might happen during the Live. An experienced live producer can troubleshoot on the fly and play a backup video when anything happens to give brands buffer to fix the problem. Where is that video coming from? A good live producer would have asked you to share a few videos for unexpected situations.
Post-production
Your live producer is with you the whole journey, and we mean before the live, during the live and after the live. As producers like Stephanie who has countless experiences on live event and marketing, they can picture what will happen before it happens, which is why they can help you to plan ahead how to repurpose your live shopping event recording [link to recording article] and come up with a distribution strategy with you.
Believe it or not. Stephanie had turn one live event’s video recording into 94 pieces of content to distribute in different channels. The key is to know what clips you need and drive the live shopping event content to the direction with your viewers.
What is the difference between a live producer and a live shopping event producer?
Now that’s the real question. How to choose a remote live producer for a Live Shopping event? Stephanie points out that every producer masters a different area of expertise – For a Live Shopping event as it involves e-commerce knowledge, you might want to go for one that has a marketing background relevant to that. As they will know how to give you suggestion that will direct to your goal either on lead generation or sales conversion.
Stephanie Liu
A Live video strategist for brands and entrepreneurs – from moonwalkers to MasterChefs.