Meet Podcasting: Telling Your Brand’s Story Your Way

At the core of who we are as a company, we want to help businesses be more human and build longer-lasting brands. And if you’ve followed Wistia for a while, then you know the best way to do that is by creating compelling, educational, or just downright entertaining content for your niche audience. As a video marketing software company, it’s no secret that we think video is a great way to do just that. But, video isn’t the only way to tell your story and connect with your audience. Another great way? Podcasting.

We love everything about podcasts — we love listening to them, creating them, and even talking (maybe too loudly) about them. We love them so much we decided to build our product to support them. Wait, what? Yes! You read that right. We’re super excited to announce that Wistia now supports podcasts!

“We’re super excited to announce that Wistia now supports podcasts!”

We think videos and podcasts are better together. And by expanding our offering into audio, it makes it easier for us to do what we love most: help brands tell their stories, share their values, and build deeper connections with their audiences.

Learn why we’re investing in audio

Over the last couple of years, as we’ve been working on our own podcasts here at Wistia, we started noticing some parallels between audio and video. We saw a ton of potential for great storytelling and making stronger connections with our audience, but we also experienced some frustrations, too (just like we did with video in those early days). When picking our podcast host, we found that they didn’t really look or feel like us as a brand, and the stats left, well, something to be desired.

Just like with video, we wanted to host our podcast on our site. And ideally, we’d have the flexibility to have our podcast episodes and videos live side-by-side. We wanted our audio to look good, sound good, and give us the stats we need to make better marketing decisions.

Ultimately, we just couldn’t find the platform that did it all for us — and we heard the same from other marketers. There was a real need for marketers to have a podcasting tool that helps them connect with their audience and nurture their brand affinity. So, in true Wistia fashion…we decided to build it.

Hear about podcasting in Wistia

Now, if you already use Wistia, then you’re probably familiar with our video marketing tools and analytics. When it came time to build our audio product, we wanted to make sure we offered the best of these features for your podcast. Starting right now, all Wistia users have access to podcasting — at no extra charge. That means you can start using our customizable audio player, in-depth analytics, heatmaps, marketing tools, and Channels, all in one easy-to-use interface for your podcast. Yep! Podcasting is included in all of our plans, so you don’t have to wait to start exploring this new tool. Speaking of this new tool, let’s take a closer look.

Make your podcast look and sound great

We make all of our business decisions based on our values, and with podcasting, that was no exception. When it comes to presentation, we knew our audio player had to look great. That’s why our player is fully customizable, responsive, and specifically designed to look like your brand (not ours). Plus, we’ve prioritized accessibility, just like we have with our video player — with accessible colors, controls, and transcripts.

And if you want to create an experience that incorporates both audio and video, you can do that with our Channels feature. If you haven’t seen them, Channels are a beautiful way to show off your videos — and now your podcasts, too. You can add a video trailer and audio episodes, or just your audio episodes. And yes, those episodes can easily be distributed to all the top apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and many more. And when it comes to subscribers on listening apps, if you want to switch to Wistia, we’ll help you make sure there’s no interruption to the subscriber base you’ve already built. You truly have the flexibility to create the best brand experience on or off your site.

Connect your content to your marketing strategy

Podcasting can be an amazing marketing channel, but to reach the full potential of your brand’s podcasts, you’ll need some marketing tools to go with them. Marketing tools have been super important for videos, and we felt these features would be just as important for podcasts.

So, what exactly can you do with our marketing tools? Well, with your audio data, you can use Reach & Retarget to create smarter, highly targeted ads for your audience on search and social. Plus, if you want to go beyond what the other platforms offer for subscribers, you can also collect emails from your listeners right from your podcast Channel page and automatically email them every time a new episode is published.

With these marketing tools, we wanted to make sure you could meet your audience on their preferred apps without sacrificing the experience (and the data!) that comes along with having audio hosted on your site.

Go beyond measuring listens with audio heatmaps

When it comes to data, we know how powerful it is to be able to see a show-level view that breaks down where your audience is listening — both on and off your site. That’s why we’ll pull in data from platforms like Apple Podcasts and Stitcher, plus stats from your embedded Channel, giving you a side-by-side comparison on your episode performance. You’ll also see hours played and average session length.

And if you want to get really detailed and dive into the nitty-gritty, you can look at the individual episode level to see engagement rates, play rates, and heatmaps. Yep! Heatmaps. They’ll show you exactly where people listened, replayed, and where they dropped off. With these insights, you’ll have everything you need to grow and improve your podcast creation and marketing strategies.

“Heatmaps can help you understand what’s resonating (literally) with your audience and give you ideas for what content to lean into.”

Show and tell your story with video and audio

We’re excited about way more than just the features of podcasting, though. With this update, we hope we’ve made it easier for you to connect with your audience in new ways. Now you have everything you need to show off your videos and podcast episodes side-by-side without having to cobble together all of your content — linking out to other platforms or sending people off your site to watch and listen. You’ll have the marketing tools you need to bring your audience back to you, create a larger owned audience, and take back control over your brand’s audio and video experiences. No matter how you want to show or tell your story, now you can do it with Wistia.