The Story Behind Cladwell’s Video Series Strategy

Cladwell is a personal styling app that makes getting dressed easy. What’s typically an expensive endeavor for clearing out overwhelming clutter and perfecting your wardrobe, Cladwell has made an affordable and accessible process for many. But the company’s values go far beyond only helping people enhance their personal style. For Cladwell, it’s also all about transforming the fashion industry into a force for good.

So, how are they showing people exactly what they stand for? Cladwell is creating binge-worthy content like The Making of Cladwell and using Wistia Channels to build their brand and grow their audience. Read on to learn more about their series and why they’re bought-in on producing episodic video content.

Behind the scenes: The Making of Cladwell

Cladwell’s Founder, Erin Flynn, comes from a content creation background, so she knows how powerful video can be for establishing a connection with potential customers. When she and her husband and co-owner, Colin, purchased the company this past year, she started carving out a video strategy to introduce Cladwell to the world and communicate their values.

To produce their video content, Erin and Colin worked with external contractors and their longtime collaborator and videographer-friend Levi Bethune of Le Video. With a self-proclaimed “scrappy” production strategy, Cladwell is a great example for many small businesses out there that you can get a lot done with some elbow grease, resourcefulness, and careful planning. It’s really inspiring to see it’s possible to create quality video content with very limited resources. Check it out!

From showing how Cladwell can help you simplify your lifestyle by creating a capsule wardrobe to explaining the major problems with fast fashion, each episode shares what they do and what they believe in. Although it looks like they produced each video as part of a series, these were one-off videos made entirely separately.

In order to keep people engaged and spend more time with their brand, Erin set out to find a way to group these videos together on Cladwell’s website, and that’s where we came in. With Wistia Channels, she was able to easily embed her videos right into a sleek-looking display that encouraged visitors to binge-watch each episode like they would a Netflix series. The final product is pretty neat if we do say so ourselves!

Here’s what the Channel looks like on their website:

Building brand affinity with episodic content

The Making of Cladwell isn’t the only episodic series Erin is excited to feature on their site. Cladwell has also created four other additional series from repurposed content she’s produced over the past two years. These shows are exclusive content for subscribers:

• Unboxed: Personal Styling with Cladwell
• Style Tips for the Everyday Guy
• I Love You New York, Chats with Cladwell
• Take the Time with Cladwell

With all of these shows and more on the horizon, it’s clear that video is one of Cladwell’s primary marketing vehicles for building brand affinity with new and returning members of their audience. So, how do they come up with all of their ideas for the content they create? Well, Erin has a pulse on her niche audience’s interests because she is actually Cladwell’s ideal customer. Brainstorming creative ideas may seem like one of the biggest roadblocks to getting started with show creation, but if you’re like Erin, relating to and understanding what makes your customer tick is one of the best places to start.

Understanding the content creation process

Are you interested in creating episodic content just like Cladwell? After watching some of their videos, you may be inspired to pick up a camera and get going yourself (which is great!). But don’t forget, chances are you’ll still encounter some challenges along the way if you’re new to the world of video production. Erin wasn’t afraid to share with us that producing these videos without a game-plan would have been pretty tricky. She explained how it takes time, effort, and resources to create quality content you’re truly proud to share, so make the right investment up front and put your best foot forward.

And while the production process can be a taxing endeavor, that’s not where all of the hard work ends! Erin noted that once production is wrapped up, she still needs to think through how she wants to distribute all of that awesome content — which is just as important as creating it, and equally as challenging. In today’s marketing landscape, learning how to market your content like a media company is the key to social media success across multiple channels when the goal is audience acquisition for your brand with episodic content.

Don’t be afraid to take risks and be an innovator

As a parting piece of advice for businesses ambivalent about getting started, Erin said you should believe in the story you have to tell and forget about producing your videos to perfection. For those of you who are thinking about embarking on a video series of your own or repurposing your content, look to Cladwell as an example. Despite having limited resources for production, their video strategy is super impressive and just goes to show how episodic content paired with the right creative strategy can really help your brand stand out.