Have you been trying to come up with a solution to improve your brand awareness? Well, take a step back from those ad payments and switch gears as we dive into, what we believe, is the real solution to your engagement problems: creating episodic video content to increase your brand affinity.
In this week’s episode of Coffee Talks, Nextiny Marketing CEO Gabriel Marguglio sat down with Phil Nottingham, Video Strategist for Wistia, to discuss Wistia’s latest creative venture: Brandwagon and why they created it as a means to continue investing in their brand affinity.
Last Week's Episode: Why Invest in Education: HubSpot Marketing Resources in Sarasota
Brand Awareness vs Brand Affinity
Branding has always been a complex process. If you asked marketers about their brand efforts a decade ago, they would have likely told you that awareness led to affinity. But, after sitting down with Phil, he explained how Wistia used to heavily invest in ads, hoping to create the affinity they desired, but quickly found that the ROI wasn’t there.
So, Wistia got to thinking about the reasons why and after Wistia’s CEO Chris Savage met with Adam Lisagor from the creative production company Sandwich Video, they got started on a joint idea. The result was a highly successful documentary by the name of One, Ten, One Hundred which won a Webby award for best branded web series.
This series resulted in an approximate 10% increase in Wistia’s brand search. Needless to say, this got their creative wheels spinning even more. After identifying their niche audience (or “nerds” as Phil calls them), Wistia invested in the production of their very own episodic video series, Brandwagon. Investing in brand affinity can seem daunting because so much is still unknown as far as its measurements, but Wistia clearly recognized the value in it and as Phil concludes, “Brand Affinity is more important than brand awareness.”
The Importance of Episodic Video Content
Episodic video content is to affinity as ads are to awareness. It’s fuel to an engine.
Unlike standard video marketing content, episodic video content is structured to keep viewers coming back for more. But not just anyone and everyone. We’re talking about a small group of like-minded individuals who would want to hear or view more on a given topic. Once you can identify this group, you can get started on creating content that is curated to directly attract them.
“Give people a reason, that they actually enjoy, to spend more time with you and your brand,” Phil Nottingham, 2019.
When this takes place, that’s when the connection is developed.
But the question remains: how can we measure brand affinity?
How to Measure Video and Brand Affinity Success
For Wistia, Phil mentions a few key metrics for measuring brand affinity:
- Time Spent: How much time are people spending on your content and your site? This directly relates to how much people are engaging.
- Subscribers: One you’ve found your audience, word-of-mouth will keep the engine running. Subscribers are the people who make this connection with you and want to come back for more as soon as it's available.
- Brand Search Volume: How many people are searching for you?
These metrics indicate a step away from traditional video marketing and a leap into, as Phil calls it, “Marketing like a Media company.”
Marketing an Episodic Series
When taking the steps necessary to create your episodic video series, keep in mind that your audience may be different from that of your company. Wistia echoed this notion when developing Brandwagon as a sub-brand. (Read: How We Created a Sub-Brand for Brandwagon)
As we mentioned, brand affinity is driven by word-of-mouth. This means that for these efforts you need to stop focusing on selling and start focusing on creating enjoyable content for your niche audience. The goal should be to deliver value and entertainment for your viewers. In other words, you can look at selling this content as its own product.
Although you can use video for sales, these creative brand ventures do not need to serve as a means to an end. Phil concludes that Brandwagon was not made to help sell the Wistia software, but simply a way to build their brand.
So, if you’ve been scratching your head trying to think of ways to create engaging video content, we highly encourage you to take the leap of faith into the world of Episodic Video Content. Looking for more resources? Be sure to check out our Episodic Video Content guide to learn more about getting started.
