Top video marketing tips from Wistiafest 2017

Last week I had the pleasure of heading over to Boston, MA in the USA to attend Wistiafest, the annual conference hosted by Wistia. You’ll probably recognise the name as we use their platform for sharing and reviewing video projects that we’re working on. Here are some of the key takeaways from the conference.

Use video everywhere

“People buy from people” is one of the first lessons you’re taught before you step into the world of sales. Unfortunately the move towards online selling has taken away the human element of the sales process. Video solves this problem.

At Wistiafest, many of the sessions focussed on using video for sales and product support. While we’ve long been advocates for creating promotional videos and customer testimonials, try experimenting with recording a short video to go alongside online quotes and estimates, rather than typing a short essay to explain your reasoning.

The future of video is a blend of pro and DIY

For product support, a short video explaining what to do can be incredibly powerful. Wistia demo’d their new product, Soapbox, which aims to make this easier to do yourself.

Although we wouldn’t recommend recording your next corporate promo video yourself, there’s a time and place for the DIY approach, and tools like Soapbox are only going to make it easier to make better quality video that has a short shelf life.

It’s time to be smarter with video

When you hire a professional video production company to produce a film for you, chances are that you’ll be sent some MP4 files at the end of the project and then left to your own devices. We’re a little bit guilty of this, although we have made a substantial investment in Vimsy, which helps you do more with your training and event videos once they’re ready to go.

However, when it comes to marketing and sales, it’s time to be smarter. Services like Wistia provide great insight into how videos are performing, so expect to see us doing more to help our customers get the most out of their sales and marketing videos in the future. It’s time to crack open the black box of analytics, metrics and performance.

Those are the three key takeaways from my time in Boston and I’m excited to look at how we can work with our customers to improve the way we develop smarter, ongoing video strategies for sales and marketing.