A Broadfield Distributing, Inc. and Digital Joy Events Success Story
Executive Summary
A few years back, Broadfield Distributing, Inc. – a video production and streaming equipment company – started doing a “Liquid Lunch & Learn” weekly live webinar series in their in-house studio to inform dealers about new video equipment and promotions. Last year, they switched from doing the shows on YouTube to hosting them on a custom landing page powered by Digital Joy Events, with a live polling widget built with Digital Joy Engage. The webinar destination page allows them full control over viewership, custom branding for their vendors each week, and audience interaction tools like polls and downloadable links that allows for valuable back-and-forth. Broadfield, the dealers, and the manufacturing partners that they showcase have all been extremely happy with the switch to Digital Joy.
Lack of Control Creates Problems
Jim Bask, VP of Marketing at Broadfield Distributing, knew that a change needed to happen with the Liquid Lunch & Learn webinar series. Although popular, they were running into some problems hosting them on social media sites.
“We originally started doing the weekly shows on YouTube Live, but I didn’t like the lack of control over the platform. We are a B2B distributor, and the shows are very specific to our dealers. When we post on YouTube, we cannot control who views the video, so we have to be very careful about giving specifics on dealer pricing or promotions. By hosting on our own landing page, we can control who is invited to watch the videos. It is also much easier to have a targeted discussion than to try to manage the comment sections on public CDNs like YouTube.”
That’s when Broadfield decided to turn to Digital Joy Events.
Making the Switch
When Bask learned that Black Dragon was backing a new digital event and audience engagement software company, he knew it was time to partner up.
“I knew Louis (Hernandez) from way back, so when I learned about Digital Joy I was excited at the prospect of offering the software to our integrator channel and even using it for our Liquid Lunch & Learns. We know that our industry is moving toward SAAS tools; it’s where live production is headed. We made the switch about a year ago, and it has been a wonderful partnership.”
The Power of a Custom Page
The new custom Liquid Lunch & Learn landing page makes it so that Broadfield’s audience has all the information they need when tuning into the live show. When we invite a vendor to join us to launch a new product, we can customize the landing page with their logo, downloadable product data sheets, links to other resources, and even contact information for our guests. Our vendors love that branding and customization! Our dealers appreciate all of the supplemental content and resources and, as a result, are even more engaged in our show.”
Another benefit is being able to be hyper-specific with messaging to dealers.
“Another goal of our live show is to teach our dealers’ sales teams how to be successful in selling the products we offer. When we host on a custom page with Digital Joy, we can speak freely about the sales opportunities, the competitive advantages of one product over another or the sales trends that we see in the industry. These are not polished marketing messages that we want to post on LinkedIn or YouTube. They are very specific to our dealers, and it is helpful that we can share it directly with them.
Having the live show hosted on the landing page also makes it convenient for the audience to tune in when it fits their schedule.
“Before we had a dedicated place to put the videos up, if you missed it, you missed it. This was unfortunate because, in the B2B space, it can be difficult for hundreds of dealers across the country to stop what they are doing every Thursday at 1pm. They get busy! So now the dealers can either tune in or watch it later at their convenience.”
Audience Interaction Makes for Great Content
The audience interaction widget powered by Digital Joy Engage is another great benefit to using a custom page. By offering polls and Q&A to the audience, Broadfield is able to keep them engaged throughout the show. We can also customize the message in real-time based on the questions or feedback coming in.
“I’ll give you a good example. We did one show where one of the Q&A questions was about a specific feature on a new product. The guest from the vendor was able to answer the question talk about a firmware update, and the product ended up being released with the firmware that enabled the feature our dealers wanted. It’s great for manufacturers to understand what people are looking for, getting that first-hand information.”
Another benefit of the Q&A and polling is that it allows Broadfield to shape the content schedule.
“One of the most difficult parts of presenting each Thursday at 1pm is getting content ready by that Tuesday! Getting direct feedback from the dealers has helped shape the content moving forward. Now, we are able to have a schedule 8 weeks in advance.”
Bask believes that the adoption of SAAS models is the future for live video production in general.
“It’s inevitable that the SAAS model is what is going to push the production world forward. Anyone can watch a video. You have to be able to pull them into the show. The polls, the QA, the chat, the feedback. From a commercial point of view, you don’t want it to be the wild west. On social sites, you know the comment thread can devolve and become a huge risk. Being able to control and moderate and curate that is what broadcasters are going to need to improve their live capability.”
Digital Joy Makes All the Difference
Partnering with Digital Joy has made a big difference to the Broadfield Liquid Lunch & Learns.
“We couldn’t be happier with our partnership with Digital Joy. Our manufacturing partners love it because they get valuable feedback from the audience, and the audience loves it too, because we can get really detailed about promos and programs. I absolutely would recommend Digital Joy to others doing live webinars or weekly events.”
You can tune in to Broadfield Liquid Lunch & Learns every Thursday at 1pm EST.
Learn more about Digital Joy Events at https://www.digitaljoy.media/events
