Let Your Virtual Events Live On: 3 Companies Using Wistia Channels for On-Demand Content

At this point, accessible events are almost expected of companies — and that’s a good thing! Whether it’s a live streamed event, a webinar, or an on-demand library full of content you’ve created or events you’ve hosted, you can get so much mileage out of your virtual events.

Today we’ll dive deep into the world of virtual events and talk about how you can make your content stand out online using Wistia Channels. We’ll also show you three companies currently using Channels for their on-demand events.

What is a Wistia Channel?

Before we start, in case you aren’t familiar with our products, let’s get on the same (dare we say it?) channel!

A Wistia Channel basically allows you to turn an assortment of webinars, product videos, podcasts, and other content into a customizable, lead-generating experience. It’s a convenient way for marketers to display relevant content in a gallery format and drive an audience to one central location. It also works for both video and audio content.

Channels features that benefit brands

We launched Channels back in 2019 and have been hard at work ever since, rolling out capabilities that work for you. Let’s cover some of our favorite features so far.

Customizable look and feel

With Channels, you have total control over your content — no developer needed! You can customize your Channel to match the look and feel of your own branding. You can also use our headerless feature to omit headers from your Channel and directly embed it on a webpage. And, you can use our new List feature to give your Channel more of a playlist feel.

Seamless user experience

Your audience can easily subscribe to your content while they’re viewing Channels videos. This means you’ll grow your email list while making sure your audience is always up to date with your latest content release. Viewers also have the option to view transcripts of your content to learn more or dive deeper into a topic.

One of our favorite user-focused features is the ability for people to resume watching right where they left off in a video, which makes viewing a more pleasant (and hopefully bingeworthy!) experience.

Easy-to-implement forms for lead generation

We know you care about collecting emails with video, and like we mentioned above, Wistia Channels makes it easy for your audience to subscribe to your content. In the backend of your Channel, you can enable our Email Subscribers feature and integrate your video gallery with your favorite CRM. Then, when viewers subscribe, that contact information will push to your marketing automation platform to use for future communications and campaigns. It truly couldn’t be any easier!

3 Companies Using Channels for On-Demand Events

Now that you know a bit about some of the best Channels features, let’s talk about how companies are using Channels specifically for their on-demand events. We’ve got insights from Klaviyo, Tomorrow.io, and OpesPartners that we think you’re going to love. Let’s get to it!

Klaviyo

Klaviyo offers a powerful marketing automation platform for e-commerce brands. The company uses Wistia Channels for its Live From Your Laptop series, a weekly live talk show featuring some of the top e-commerce brands around. The show hosts companies who have experienced a lot of growth over the last couple of years, as well as new Klaviyo customers who share their stories.

COVID fundamentally changed the nature of Klaviyo’s events; they went from seeing about 90 registrants to over 15,000. That’s a massive increase! Using Channels to offer this content on demand has created a virtual community during a time it was much needed. Morgan Laskey, Klaviyo’s Head of Community Events, notes that they’ve seen replay numbers shoot through the roof, which means keeping the content available post-event has been critical to its growth.

What makes this online content resonate so much? Morgan believes it’s the human element. “What makes it so special is that it is so human and it is so raw,” she says. “It is filmed in my closet. We don’t use special lighting. We don’t use special microphones. And I think people really needed that human kind of relatability during the time of COVID, and they still need it now.”

Learn more about why Klaviyo leans on Channels for its ease of integration and valuable analytics:

Tomorrow.io

Tomorrow.io, a weather and climate security platform, is the company behind ClimaCon, a weather intelligence conference that helps business leaders understand the impact of weather on their operations. Tomorrow.io uses Channels to host its ClimaCon videos and showcase them long after the event is over.

Cara Hogan, VP of Enterprise Marketing at Tomorrow.io, appreciates how easy it is for Channels users to create a beautiful page — no matter your level of technical expertise. “It’s just like, oop — and we have a beautiful page now!” she explains. “I barely had to involve a designer or web developer to build it.”

Cara loves that Channels allows Tomorrow.io to integrate with HubSpot, gate specific content, and then ask interested viewers to provide email addresses in order to watch the full video. Not only does this provide insight into who’s watching what content and grow the company’s email list, it’s also key for demand generation. People who give you their email addresses are indicating they actively want to hear from you, which means you can start nurturing them with tools like drip campaigns right away.

Hear Cara talk more about the HubSpot integration and the ability to gate specific content to collect emails:

Opes Partners

Opes Partners is a property investment company that found itself hosting lots of webinars when COVID lockdown began. Ed McKnight, Resident Economist at Opes Partners, realized pretty quickly they needed a home to keep all of the webinars so that people knew they existed — if you’re only putting your webinar on a blog, it’s bound to fall off the radar at some point.

The company now sends the Channels link to all webinar registrants after the events and promotes the on-demand experience on their podcast and other platforms. Having a single link to use has been invaluable. Ed also personally enjoys being able to offer a bingeable experience with Channels along with the ability to quickly and easily capture viewer information.

In this video, Ed talks more about “TV Tuesdays,” a strategy Opes Partners used to remind people what episode they were on and encourage them to return to the company’s Channel:

Wistia Channels gives your on-demand content a forever home

It’s clear there are many ways to use Channels to showcase and promote your on-demand content. Whether you’re building a community like Klaviyo, revving up demand generation like Tomorrow.io, or creating personalized marketing campaigns like Opes Partners, Channels gives you the features and the analytics you need.