The 4 Biggest Challenges Marketers Face with Live Streaming

Despite its increasing professional use, live streaming still takes up only a small space in the vast world of marketing tactics. Of course, its prevalence is increasing as brands recognize its value, but many companies still aren’t exactly sure how to use live streaming.

If you’re a marketer, you’ll need to be strategic about your live content. You don’t want to wind up streaming to no one, streaming to the wrong people, or streaming content that doesn’t engage your target audience, right?

Here are some of the most common challenges businesses face when incorporating live streaming into their marketing strategy:

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1. Gathering a large audience

Gathering a large audience for your live stream is not easy, and requires a few different steps. Of course, like every event, you’ll need to do a fair amount of promotion leading up to it. This means posting about it on social media, sending out emails, using PR networks — essentially using your usual marketing tools.

In the context of live stream, it also means figuring out an effective means of distributing your live video on a mass scale. You’ll need to be sure that you’re placing your video on high-traffic pages that contain content relevant to your target audience.

If you plan on expanding your live stream audience past the traditional online video platforms, you may want to work with a distribution service that can display your content on more diverse sites. Getting your video on the Wall Street Journal website, or on TechCrunch or the New York Times, will guarantee that more people will see it.


2. Targeting the right people

We’ve discussed this before in other posts, but it always bears repeating. You have control over the what, where, when and how of your live stream, but you can’t change the personalities and preferences of your customers, so you need to understand them.

You can’t engage everyone, so be sure your content appeals to the people who are likely to buy your product or service. Think about what problem your offering solves, and consider where and how you deliver it. If your product is a tooth whitening solution and you mainly sell it online, your audience is more likely a young to middle-aged adult than a child, for example.  

Once you’ve determined your buyer profile, you’ll need to ask another set of questions to find them online, but that’s another post altogether. You’ll also need to come up with a means of staying on their radar after the event.

3. Producing high quality, engaging content

There are some simple steps you can take to make sure your live stream is successful. Beyond the technical tools, you’ll need to come up with content ideas based on your own research. Among your other pieces of content, which topics garnered the most attention? If blog posts about apples consistently get more comments or traffic than posts about bananas, maybe your live stream should focus on apples (excuse the unimaginative example).

You’ll need to determine what constitutes engagement. Some platforms count 3 seconds of visibility as a view, while some have a higher standard. In order to determine which formats, topics, and types of live content get the most engagement, pay attention to what was happening on screen in the moments with high chat activity and in moments with a high exit rate.

4. Translating audience to leads

So you’ve got everything ready to go — you’ve used the right tools, created the right content, and were seen by the right target audience. Now what? How do you ensure that your viewers don’t just watch the video and then disengage with your company?

First, you’ll have to strike a balance in your presentation. You want your brand to be present in your content, but it should provide significant value outside of just instructing people about your product. Make sure you provide your audience with something unique to your brand that they won’t forget right away.

Also, make it easy for people to return to your video or your page after they’ve left. This is where retargeting comes in. Let’s say a viewer has engaged with your video, but then traveled off the page. A service that offers retargeting will help get your video and brand back in front of them, and increase the likelihood that they remember who you are and follow up with you.


Hopefully this list helped reduce some of the uncertainty surrounding live stream. Remember that the most important thing is to always keep in mind that your video should provide value, and will always represent your brand. Best of luck on your live endeavors!


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