Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Some wireless communications systems support beamforming to improve the reliability of transmissions from a transmitting device to a receiving device. In some cases, a wireless device broadcasts information using beamforming. In such cases, in order to limit the overhead and power consumption associated with the broadcast, the wireless device utilizes the techniques described herein for broadcasting information using beamforming. In particular, rather than broadcasting large amounts of data in a beam-sweep, a wireless device broadcasts a relatively lightweight signal in a beam-sweep to first identify a receiving device and/or a suitable beam for communicating with a receiving device. Once the transmitting device identifies the receiving device and/or the suitable beam, the transmitting device broadcasts the data to be received by the receiving device.