How to livestream and promote online classes effectively

Livestreaming online classes has fast become a realistic and profitable mode of service delivery for businesses across the country, and indeed the globe.

The world has shrunk, the technology has advanced and most importantly, the general population has become comfortable with online service delivery in a manner previously unrealised. Some of this has to do with recent necessity, but in part, it’s also an acceleration of pre-established norms.

How do you go about livestreaming your classes, be they music lessons, dance classes or virtually anything you offer? Let’s find out.

1) Set it up!

Fist thing’s first, let’s get your setup right! If you’re going to do this professionally, it helps not to skimp on this part. Your setup should reflect your service quality and prices. Make it exude the excellence you want to portray in your class.

What you’ll need:

  • quality video camera and microphone
  • tripod
  • proper space with a great background
  • encoder
  • streaming platform
  • fast internet

If you need a hand in choosing some great video cameras and microphones for streaming, check our blog here. After you have that covered, set it up with a tripod in a dedicated space and link it to an encoder.

What’s an encoder, you ask? It can be either hardware or software and essentially it acts to compress your video stream, so it runs smoothly without buffering. This is important! A stuttering glitchy stream is the death of an online service.

Unlike a pre-recorded video, you can’t compress and mess with frame rate settings after the fact, so get yourself an encoder.

You’ll also need to look into your chosen streaming platform. Straight out of the gate, Facebook Live and YouTube are great places to start, but have a look at dedicated platforms for a more professional experience and ways to introduce payment gateways.

If you go the ‘ticketed’ approach, alongside smaller dedicated platforms, Facebook have recently launched a similar experience. As the company said in August 2020:

“We’re launching the ability for businesses, creators, educators and media publishers to earn money from online events.”

“Now Page owners can create an online event, set a price, promote the event, collect payment and host the event, all in one place.”

2) Get some viewers!

Once you have your setup and platform sussed out, you should be embedding this link on your website for the lead up and duration of your class.

Next up, you need to leverage the power of your social media channels. This can be the most robust tool you have to actively promote your stream and business in general.

Ensure you have well branded and fully set-up social media pages and start your marketing drive. Use evocative, short copy alongside unique imagery in your posts and ensure they’re on-brand.

You have one goal here – to get people to your link that promotes your free or ticketed online event. Always keep this top of mind – this is the sole objective of all your promotional activity.

Target your most popular channels and think about throwing a few dollars behind your posts to ensure a wider reach and get your livestream posts trending.

3) Start with your base

It’s no secret that your established client base is the best place to garner fresh sales and interest. After all, they know you and have likely taken live classes with you already. Those fish are already in your barrel.

Assuming you’ve been making good use of your CRM, like the one in your BetterHQ solution, you have the contacts already.

Target your database with email, SMS and social media messages. If you know them well, you can even place a friendly call.

This is also the time to offer discounts and ‘bring a friend’ deals to widen your paying audience.

4) Practice!

Before you wade into the world of livestreamed classes, you’d better have your ‘performance’ down pat.

Practice the whole stream by yourself, or even better, have a friend, colleague or patient family member view your class first.

The last thing you want is your viewers having buyer’s remorse and rethinking the value of your class. This can happen easily if you aren’t well versed or spoken. Practice until perfect, then monetise it.

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