Video Transcription
In this video, you will learn how using Wistia could help generate more leads for your business.
Wistia is a video hosting platform built specifically to help businesses improve the performance of their video content.
And today, I’m gonna go through what we here at Spiel think are Wistia’s 9 best features and when using the platform could benefit your business.
Welcome, I’m Jess.
But before we begin, make sure you subscribe to our channel and hit the bell notification, so that each time we release new videos to help you with your video marketing, you get notified.
So let’s get started.
Feature #1 – Custom Video Player
With Wistia, you can customise their video player to fit your branding like a glove. This can be a really useful feature when you embedyour videos onto your website.
You can change the colour and design of the actual video player itself, including the play button, the play bar, player controls, and even add your logo into the video player.
And most importantly, unlike YouTube, you can customise the end screen of your videos. That means you can capture leads, or directly recommend the next video that you want your viewers to watch.
So when using Wistia, you won’t have to worry about losing your viewers to your “competitor” videos or cat videos which can happen when you add videos hosted on YouTube to your website.
Feature #2 Video Thumbnails
Most video hosts allow you to upload your own static thumbnail, but with Wistia, you can add a video thumbnail. This seemingly small change can really help boost the play rate of your videos by making them instantly stand out on your landing pages.
Feature #3 Social Sharing
Wistia also allows you to add a social sharing function into your video player. In other words, the viewer can instantly share your video across any social platform you want, while also allowing you you to add your own pre-written copy.
Feature #4 CTAs
If your video’s goal is to generate more sales, Wistia allows you to add a customisable call-to-action at the end of your video, or at any point throughoutyour video.
This can be something like an email capture form in the middle of your video, urging viewers to enter their details in order to watch the remainder of your video. You can then keep testing the placement of your CTA to find out what works best for maximizing sign-ups
Or, if you want people to visit a specific page on your site, you can add a direct link to it from your video.
This is a major advantage of Wistia over more popular video hosting platforms such as YouTube who prioritise keeping users on their site. This means that YouTube do not allow most of their users to add direct links in their videos.
Feature #5 Sales Automation
If sales automation is a key priority of yours, then Wistia can be great for this as their platform can be directly integrated with many of the leading sales automation software’s such as SalesForce, Hubspot, Eventbrite and Marketo.
Feature #6: Sophisticated Analytics and A/B Testing
One thing you will often hear about Wistia is that it’s great for analytics.
Just having a quick look at this example page of the stats and you can see the level of insight you can get. Heat maps allow you to see where your audience where they dropped off, re-watched, and where they followed through on a CTA (or didn’t).
While other video hosts have caught up with Wistia in terms of the analytics, an important difference with Wistia is that it actually allows you to re-upload an updated version of your video without having to replace the videos url, like you would have to with YouTube for example.
This feature really helps when it comes to testing different CTAs, hooks and storylines to see what works best as each time you make a change to your video, you won’t have to worry about editing all the old video links to the new one.
Feature #7 Embed links
With longer form videos such as webinars or other educational content, it can be really helpful to break your content into different sections. Using embed links, Wistia allows you to create custom links for specific points in your videos.
Feature #8 Channels
Wistia now encourages the use of its channel feature, where you can group your videos together so that your viewers can view – or binge watch – your videos on certain subject matters in a specific order. Whilst this can be useful in certain situations, we don’t think Wistia can really compete with YouTube on this front due to the visibility and reach that YouTube offers.
Feature #9 Soapbox
Soapbox allows you to make very personable videos from your webcam and upload them in a matter of minutes. This can be a great feature if you want to send out bespoke personalised videos to your prospects as part of your sales strategy or communicate with your existing customers in video format.
Wistia Plans & Pricing
There are three plans: Free, Pro and advanced.
All the plans have access to their ‘standard’ features, which is most of the features we’ve mentioned in this video, with the exception of Soapbox, A/B testing and Wistia channels.
On their free plan, you can only upload 3 videos, all of which will have a Wistia logo in the bottom corner of your video player. I only recommend this free version as a means of testing Wistia out to see if it is right for you.
If you have any intention to use Wistia long-term for your business, you will need to consider their pro plan at $99 per month. Yes, it can be a bit pricey if you are on a tight budget.
This plan has the same features as the free one, except you can upload up to 10 videos for free (any extra video upload after that costs you an additional 25 cents per month).
And finally, you have the advanced plan at $399 per month: 100 free videos, A/B testing, and Premium integration with Hubspot, Pardot and Marketo. You can also make use of the Wistia Channel feature.
But most importantly…
Is it worth it?
As always, it’s totally dependent on what you need to get from your video content. If your target is to get more conversions on your website landing pages, then Wistia can be a great place to start if you can afford paying $99 dollars a month.
However, if you want to increase your brand strength, direct more traffic to your site and grow your social media presence, then hosting your videos on a more popular platform such as YouTube would be a better option for you. It really depends on your specific needs.
Personally, I don’t really see much value in going for the Advanced plan unless have a sophisticated marketing set up. The main value of this plan is integration into other marketing platforms and A/B testing, which can be done manually if you are on a lower budget.
In conclusion, Wistia is a great tool when the main goal of your videos is to drive more conversions from your landing pages. This is because their features allow for better testing, optimisation and lead capturing for this specific purpose.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this video! If you found it useful, then make sure you subscribe to our channel for more such content.
And if you have any further questions regarding Wistia, or any of the other popular video hosting platforms, let me know in the comments below and I will do my best to answer.
And lastly, if you need more help with your video marketing, you can get in touch with our agency Spiel at www.spielcreative.com
Thanks for watching!
