Item: Wistia
Rating: 8
Author: Justin Chidester

Overall Satisfaction with Wistia

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I needed a place to host evergreen video content for my clients in a way that was easy to manage, looked professional on my website, and could provide some level of viewing statistics and analysis. Their features for marketing, advertising, and creating lead magnet videos are great as well. I love the feature where people can watch the first portion of content before being prompted to enter their email address in order to see the rest of the video.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Clean, professional video layout
Post-production editing features
Website embedding

Cons

It's more expensive than its direct competitors.
Should include video capturing/filming tools (Soapbox) as part of the Wistia subscription, in my opinion.
Some editing features are harder to use than others.

Most Important Features

Customized branding
Website embed capability
Lead capture

Return on Investment

Doubled lead capture from lead magnet on website from one year to the next.
Increased email interaction on newsletters when embedding Wistia video thumbnail into email campaigns (10-15% links clicked bumped to 30-40% links clicked).
Can save us about 50+ hours of one-on-one client meeting time per year for pointing clients to video content rather than presenting the same info in a live setting.

Alternatives Considered

Vidyard and Vimeo

I found Vidyard to be a tad clunky, at least when I tried to use it. Vimeo's design features didn't seem as modern to me and didn't integrate as well with other apps/website platforms, at least when I was investigating a video hosting platform. Wistia is more expensive than Vidyard and Vimeo, but the small differences I have found to be worth the additional cost.

Key Insights

Do you think Wistia delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Wistia's feature set?

Yes

Did Wistia live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Wistia go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Wistia again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

For longer-form content, it is really nice to be able to break up your video into chapters or sections that create a navigation menu for the viewer. I also find it helpful to be able to but different pop-up links at different parts of the video. I don't think it is a great choice for video hosting if you aren't going to create and host a fair amount of content because it is pretty expensive to start with. They also add on a small monthly charge for each video beyond a certain base amount, which I think is not like the pricing models of other video hosting tools. Nevertheless, Wistia is used by many well-known companies and brands, and using their video player for your own videos will come across as high production and very professional because of that association.

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Makes video content for your small business feel like a big brand