Chris Savage: Investing in Brand One Episode at a Time

August 19 & 20: Built to Last Audio Conference from Buffer and Wistia

Speakers:

• Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO of Wistia
• Dan Mills, head of Wistia Studios

Links:

• Chris Savage on Twitter
• One, Ten, On Hundred
• The Brand Affinity Marketing Playbook

Downloads/worksheets:

• Finding Your Niche Audience
• Coming Up with a Great Idea for Your Show

Episode notes and action points

Marketing is about resonance, not reach

Wistia spent $2 million on an advertising campaign that generated very little in returns. But it helped Wistia to understand that marketing is not just about reach, it’s about resonance.

Great relationships are built over time and the goal of your marketing should be the amount of quality time people spend with your brand.

After Wistia released its documentary One, Ten, One Hundred it saw a much larger brand lift from having tens of thousands of people spend over an hour watching the film that it did from having tens of millions see its ads and billboards.

Brands like Wistia, Mailchimp, Shopify and InVision have started to shift budgets that would have been previously spent on advertising to making podcasts, documentaries and video series themselves. The idea behind this is that by focusing on a small niche of folks who really care about a topic, you can create brand affinity with members of that audience.

Understand who you want to create content for (and why they should care)

Wistia is creating content for marketers that care about the creative process. And no matter your industry, there’s an audience out there for you.

“I think it's pretty hard to get too specific,” says Chris. “The most specific stuff is usually the stuff that shows off your expertise the most.”

Each show Wistia creates is aimed at connecting with a different subset of its audience. And to ensure that its content is always on point, Wistia has a mandate that outlines its overall audience and a set of brand values it wants to communicate. If an idea doesn’t fit with its mandate, that show isn’t right for Wistia.

By understanding exactly who you content is for, and why they would care about your brand, you’re able to create shows that will drive loyal audiences and brand affinity.

Anyone can get started with binge-worthy content

Today, everyone is making stuff at home. The production playing field has never been this even. A huge reason why people have been afraid to try video and audio content in the past is like, they're afraid of the brand risk of like, “Ugh, my videos don't look good enough” or “My audio doesn't sound good enough.”

If these worries sound familiar, Chris is here to tell you that authenticity is going to trump professionalism (in fact, his Built to Last episode was recorded in his basement). If you have headphones, you can start with your computer. And over time, you can make it better.

The key thing you want to think about is consistency and trying to figure out how you can repeatedly produce content around the problems that you think your customers are going to be interested in.