Updated Aug 28th, 2024 by Aoife Johnston
The Problem: For anyone in the video production and live-streaming space, stagnant viewership is a constant struggle at one time or another.
For Ecamm Live, a leading video production studio and live-streaming app that allows users to create professional videos and live streams, it was important to get more people to attend and engage with its virtual events for continued growth.
As experts in the industry, this team continually seeks innovative ways to engage with their community. So, when they were introduced to calendar marketing, they quickly decided to test it out, eager to see the impact this new approach could have on their audience.
The Solution: Implementing AddEvent revolutionized Ecamm Live’s approach to marketing its live streams and virtual events, leading to a significant increase in live viewership compared to previous years.
By integrating AddEvent’s subscription calendars, viewers can easily add events to their personal calendars, ensuring they have the right information for where and when to show up. Because it’s easier for them to show up, it becomes even easier for them to engage.
The Results: After integrating AddEvent’s subscription calendar and automated add to calendar functionality into their workflow, Ecamm Live saw a 182% increase in subscribers for their annual Ecamm Challenge workshop, with a 36% increase in views over the first 24 hours. And since early viewership is known to help boost the YouTube algorithm for extended reach, these first-day views grew 130% in 2023.
When it comes to live-streaming and video production, boosting viewership is essential for a channel to grow. When more people watch, a platform like YouTube is more likely to recommend that content, which can lead to more subscribers — and a greater potential to monetize a channel.
But it’s not just about getting eyeballs on content. Active and engaged viewers are more likely to join in live chats, share the stream, and stick around as loyal fans, creating a dynamic community. These stats alone can attract sponsors and advertisers, which means more financial support and growth for the channel down the road. In the end, having more viewers makes the live-streamer more credible and influential in their field.
As experts in the industry, Ecamm Live is no stranger to finding new and innovative ways to grow and engage their community. So when they were introduced to the concept of calendar marketing, it took them no time at all to decide to test things out themselves to see what level of impact this new channel could have on their audience.
After being introduced to AddEvent through one of their influencers, Ecamm Live decided to implement the subscription calendar tool to see how it would impact this 3-day event. By subscribing to the calendar, attendees could easily add the entire event schedule to their personal calendars, which resulted in more people blocking time to watch the live shows and showing up.
“We went from 50 average live viewers to 130. I think our peak was 175 live viewers on the first day, and the only change we made in the sign-up strategy was adding AddEvent to the flow so people would be able to see it and get a calendar reminder and click directly through to the live-stream,” Caleb Dempsey, Ecamm’s Digital Campaign and Project Manager explained.
Observing this initial success, the Ecamm Live team gradually began to incorporate AddEvent into their other regular marketing campaigns.
In 2022, they decided to integrate AddEvent’s calendar solution into their annual Ecamm Challenge, a multi-day live-streaming event. Year over year, they experienced a 36% increase in views over the first 24 hours—and the only change they had made to their signup flow was to include AddEvent.
Early viewership spikes will also boost the YouTube algorithm, leading to extended reach over time. For example, their first day of Ecamm Challenge 2023 accrued about 1,300 views in the first 24 hours but ended up reaching more than 3,000 people over time because they had so many people watch it within the first day.
Moving forward, Ecamm Live plans to expand its calendar marketing efforts with embeddable calendars, workflow automation, and much more. Their aim is to continue improving how they communicate with their audience and make it as seamless as possible to get viewers to show up to their valuable virtual events.