Building the hype doesn't end once you've launched. We've got some advice for keeping your audience engaged all the way until the next episode. Watch, learn, iterate, and do it again. You've started building brand affinity, so keep it going. You've got this! 

Colin Rosenblum & Samir Chaudry

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Co-Creators

Jenny Coppola

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Director of Content and Creative

Phil Nottingham

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Brand Marketing Strategist

Sydney Rutman

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Development Producer

Dan Mills

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Head of Wistia Studios

Chris Lavigne

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Head of Production

Brendan Schwartz

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Co-Founder

Rand Fishkin

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CEO & Co-Founder

BAM-Playbook

The Brand Affinity Marketing Playbook

Post Launch


NARRATOR: Well, it's time to celebrate. Your show is out in the world, but this is no time to rest on your laurels. You've teased your show, built the hype, and launched your series. And if you want to build brand affinity, you need to have a solid post launch plan.

DAN MILLS: This content will be engaging for audiences for a long time. You got to wring it out like a towel.

The point of your episodes is not only to entertain and educate but also to make sure you're bringing in more audience with each episode.

SYDNEY RUTMAN: Your mantra should be, watch, learn, iterate, and do it again.

ADAM DAY: Your work, my friend, has just begun.

(SINGING) The circle of content.

SAMIR CHAUDRY: Building the hype doesn't stop when the episode releases. You actually want to create content that keeps people engaged all the way up until the next episode.

NARRATOR: It's your old pals and YouTube creators Colin and Samir.

SAMIR CHAUDRY: That's us.

COLIN ROSENBLUM: I think that's us.

SAMIR CHAUDRY: Did they say our name?

The most important thing is that your show creates conversation. This is not television where it's a lean back experience and I'm just there to watch whatever you're giving me. On the internet it's a two-way street. So when you put out something to the world it's a conversation. You can acknowledge the audience. You can take an idea that they had in your last episode and put it into the next episode. You can shout them out. You can do Q&A's. It's a total two-way communication when you're making a show and that makes it way more fun than watching TV.

JENNY COPPOLA: After you launch your show, the post-launch phase is kind of like the launch continues.

NARRATOR: Nobody knows post launch activities better than Jenny Coppola.

JENNY COPPOLA: If you and your team are only focused on driving results from the launch itself, then you're missing out on building an audience. Making shows isn't an awareness campaign. It's an affinity campaign. So after your series goes live, you need to continue to think about how you're going to support it. How can you repackage and re-promote some of the existing content so that you can get the most out of the series that you've invested so much time and energy in?

NARRATOR: After your launch, your super fans will be hungry for more. So, follow up your releases with supporting content, related blog articles, and bit-sized cuts of your episodes that you can promote just like your actual episode. Remember that this content should be designed to meet your audience where they are. It should be delightful and easy to share. And when you get responses from your fans, repost that user-generated content along with any co-marketing from interviewee's or special guests to keep amplifying your episode.

PHIL NOTTINGHAM: Also, keep in mind that if your show is on a weekly release schedule, you'll always be promoting your next episode while you're in the post-launch phase of your most recent one. With a video series or podcast, you can create a ton of new touch points for your brand that would attract new fans long after you release your episode. And the best part? This content can live on as long as you want on your website.

NARRATOR: That's right. This isn't an ad campaign. Ad campaigns stop when you stop paying for them. But shows are the gifts that keep on giving. Here's Sydney Rutman on how to think about the impact of your show.

SYDNEY RUTMAN: Once you've started releasing episodes you can start to measure the impact of the show. You can gather information and then work that feedback into future shows. So start measuring how much time your audience is spending with your brand and whether your series is creating conversations. The best part about launching a series is that you get to see how it's performing over time.

DAN MILLS: Don't just sit back and measure how your launch went. Now is the time to find things you can fix and improve.

NARRATOR: Back again, it's Dan Mills, head of Wistia Studios.

DAN MILLS: If you're already trying to measure ROI, you're really only measuring the ROI of a launch campaign and that's not the right way to think about it. What you want to do is look at all the places that people are interacting. Are the promo assets on Instagram bringing people to your website? If someone did watch episode 1, are they engaged? Did they make it to episode 2? Now's the time to make changes. You're sitting on tons of footage and tons of opportunities to re-edit, and as you improve things, make sure you document it because that's going to impact how you make future shows.

Our team made this show called Brandwagon, and Brandwagon sort of was this late night TV show vibe that had two identities, right? So one of it was that late night funny segment where we showed off our personality and injected a ton of humor into the show. The other side was our CEO Chris Savage having these really pointed interviews with marketing and business leaders all about brand.

And so when we started looking at the viewer data, we saw a few different ways that viewers were behaving. There were certain viewers who loved only the funny segments and could care less about these interviews. And there were other viewers who loved the interviews and were skipping over all the funny segments. And then, of course, there was this third group who loved all of it. As a result of all this data, our current slate really reflects our learnings. We have shows that are geared just towards entertaining our audience. We also have shows that get to the point and are geared towards just educating our audience about marketing.

CHRIS LAVIGNE: And news flash, like we talked about earlier, your show could bomb.

NARRATOR: OK. Head of Production Chris Lavigne with the wet blanket vibes.

CHRIS LAVIGNE: Let me ask you a question. Have you ever heard of a little movie called The Sugarland Express? No? Of course you haven't. Nobody has. It's because it wasn't anything special. But it was Steven Spielberg's 1974 directorial debut. Now, if Steven Spielberg had just thrown in the towel there we would have never had Jaws a year later. We wouldn't have had ET after that. We wouldn't have had Jurassic Park.

Indulge me for a moment here. No Jurassic Park, you don't have Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World. No Jurassic Park 2, that means you don't have Jurassic Park 3, which, I guess, is actually saving the world a bit of heartache. But no Jurassic Park lunchboxes, no Jurassic Park backpacks. You don't have the Jurassic Park pinball game. Hello. Big comeback for Jurassic World. No Chris Pratt. He's a nobody. You don't have Jurassic World 2. You don't have the forthcoming Jurassic World 3.

[LAUGHTER]

My point is, we all have our own The Sugarland Express. But don't let your The Sugarland Express keep you from making your Jurassic Park.

NARRATOR: When it comes to understanding your audience, Wistia channel analytics can give you some sweet insights about your newfound fans. Find out how many viewers are consuming your shows, how many are subscribing, and how much time are they spending with your brand.

BRENDAN SCHWARTZ: Channel stats don't just show you the performance of individual episodes. It gives you a sense of how your entire show is performing so you can really understand the long-term impact of your content. You can see what episodes are most popular and drill down into those series's trends. And, of course, it's going to influence what your next episode should be, what your next season should be, and what is the next show that you should be making. Brand affinity is about creating repeat listeners and viewers. So really dig into the data and listen to your audience's feedback, just like you would for a product launch. You're creating a community here, so give the people what they want and keep them coming back for more.

NARRATOR: And remember that this is just the beginning.

RAND FISHKIN: Tell me when you're ready.

NARRATOR: We're ready.

RAND FISHKIN: As you build this network of people who care about what you're doing, you may not be converting them right away. But you are building a group of people who care about you, who know you, like you, and trust you, and are therefore going to be more likely to buy from you in the future, to spread the word about your brand, and to be ambassadors for your company.

NARRATOR: Yep. Making episodic shows is the best way to build your brand and make deep connections with your audience. And post-launch is the perfect time to start planning for your next episode, your next season, or your next series.

MYKIM DANG: What are you waiting for? You've got this.

ELENA BESSER: We believe in you.

BROOKE VAN POPPELEN: You got this.

CHRIS SAVAGE: Give it a run. I think you could do it.

DAVE MIZZONI: I get it. You'll be fine.

RAND FISHKIN: My friends, your job is about to get a lot more interesting.

JEFF AYERS: Hey, we got you covered.

LIZ COHEN: Believe in your idea.

KIBI ANDERSON: Good luck. We know you're going to make something great.

CLAUDE ZEINS: You can do it.

DAVE MIZZONI: This is Show Business, baby.

JENNY COPPOLA: Welcome to Show Business.

MICHELLE KHOURI: This is Show Business.

SYDNEY RUTMAN: Welcome to Show Business.

SAMIR CHAUDRY: Welcome to Show Business.

COLIN ROSENBLUM: Welcome to show business.

DAN MILLS: Knock knock. Who's there? Show Business.

KRISTEN BRYANT: There's no business-- no.

NARRATOR: Welcome to Show Business. 

OFF SCREEN: Wow, that's a wrap. Sweet!

ADAM DAY: Welcome to Show Business. We're going to talk with our hands. We're not. I don't know. Maybe if I'm holding something I'll be more-- that'll feel more comfortable. Does that feel right? Does that feel normal? Let me get-- yeah, give me another one. Yeah, that feels natural. Welcome to Show Business.
