The document provides notes from various presentations at the 2015 WistiaFest conference. Key recommendations included focusing video strategies and content on specific platforms like YouTube first, telling authentic stories that provide value to the intended audience, and spending adequate time in pre-production planning scripts, locations, and other logistics to improve video quality and save time.

1. Notes by Natalie Fee 1 @natfeewrites
Natalie’s Notes
for
2015

2. Notes by Natalie Fee 2 @natfeewrites
Table of Contents8 Key Takeaways from WistiaFest 2015......................................................................................................................3
Natalie Fee, Notetaker Extraordinaire
Driving Creativity with Data......................................................................................................................................4
Chris Savage, CEO at Wistia
Developing a Social Video Strategy............................................................................................................................6
Phil Nottingham, Senior Consultant at Distilled
Uncovering Your Most Authentic Stories...................................................................................................................9
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
Rainy Day Q&A.........................................................................................................................................................11
Chris, Phil, and Ann
Pre-Production: Saving Your Time by Taking Your Time.......................................................................................12
Dan Mills, Wistia
Better Than Boring: Business Video in the 21st Century.........................................................................................14
Kevin Cline, Zendesk
Navigating the Treacherous Path of Concept Buy-In...............................................................................................15
Keith Frankel, CreativeMornings Boston
Building a More Human Brand................................................................................................................................16
Wil Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive
Managing Video Teams and Processes.....................................................................................................................18
Sarah Green, Senior Associate Editor, Harvard Business Review
The Hidden Talents of Email.....................................................................................................................................20
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director at Litmus
Measuring Video Effectiveness.................................................................................................................................21
Brendan Schwartz, CTO at Wistia
Lead with Your Values...............................................................................................................................................22
Mark Dicristina, Mailchimp
Strengthening Your Brand Through Partnerships...................................................................................................24
Elliott Wiley, All Star Code
Humanizing Your Brand...........................................................................................................................................26
Brenton Williamson & Matt Heder, BambooHR
Index..........................................................................................................................................................................27

3. Notes by Natalie Fee 3 @natfeewrites
8 Key Takeaways from WistiaFest 2015
Natalie Fee, Notetaker Extraordinaire
Data is important, but consider
what you are measuring.
Beauthentic,honest,andhuman.
Great content lasts longer than
one campaign.
Story and context matter. Embrace constraints & process.
Focus.
Video & branding are emotional
and empathetic.
Take creative risks. It’s OK to fail
sometimes.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

4. Notes by Natalie Fee 4 @natfeewrites
The value of creativity is rising.
There used to be a limited number of ways to do it. (Expensive, out of reach, only for big companies)
Today there are more options (wider audience, cheaper) but all of these options are saturated. There
is a constant feed to compete with. Our competition is not our “competition”
• NY Times, Facebook, Buzzfeed (no one wants to compete with Buzzfeed!)
Attention is a scarce resource
• When we get attention, we need to keep it.
• Truly original, delightful
Creativity keeps attention.
• Scaling creativity is hard.
• It’s easy to take creative risks when you are small.
• It can be scary to take risks.
Example: Behind the scenes, nothing to do with the product = 78% engagement rate
Small, easy to have chaos — I used to think creativity came from chaos, but I was wrong.
Bigger
• more process
• coordination
• can measure more — easier to measure stuff
• you’ve done it before
• more shared ownership – everyone worried about the outcomes
You need a creative approach to data.
Position where we only do things that you can track (track everything <---> never track anything)
• Example: never go for a walk unless you have Fitbit on to count those steps
Goal = feel confident that you are headed in the right direction
Driving Creativity with Data
Chris Savage, CEO at Wistia
In an era before Wistia, Chris worked in video produc-
tion, where he helped produce and bring to theaters an
Emmy Award–winning feature-length documentary.
Chris gets amped up talking about entrepreneurship,
marketing, video, company building, and behavioral
economics.
@csavage

5. Notes by Natalie Fee
DRIVING CREATIVITY WITH DATA
5 @natfeewrites
Did you know if the creative risk paid off?
• Proactively track the right things
• What things give you insight?
• Look at different data points to get confident
• If you’re trying to use something risky
• Creatively measuring creative success
Example: DreamingWithJeff.com by Squarespace
Example: Pistol Lake – hipster clothes for surfers
• Only 9-12 items for sale
• Marketing future items – posted to men’s fashion advice subreddit, then posted update tag-
ging individual contributors that provided feedback
• Measure strength of brand (not just revenue)
• R&D section on website (kind of weird for clothing)
• Qualitative feedback from comments – builds up trust
Question what you are measuring.
Champion & expect creativity, foster and hire for creativity.
• Don’t rely only on interviews; practice project-based hiring.
Make “headroom” for experimentation.
If you aren’t failing from time to time, you probably aren’t taking enough risks.
• lowers the stakes a little
• permission to get weird
Example: Wistia Office Show & Tell
• 30 minute all-hands meeting
• Show off things in progress, things that failed
• If it’s risky, get qualitative feedback
Embrace measurement.
Don’t obsess over success or failure of individual projects.
The only way to fail is to never fail.

6. Notes by Natalie Fee 6 @natfeewrites
Top 5 Questions
1. Why has my campaign failed?
• come up with entertaining idea
• produce it
• upload it
• judge success based on views and shares
Content was dramatically inconsistent, didn’t make sense to the target audience
Dramaturgy
• contextually broad = retains value, recommendation-driven, passive (social)
• contextually specific = requires prior knowledge, demand-driven, active (on-site)
Does a video make sense when viewed in isolation?
• The most effective social videos are compelling irrespective of context.
Youtube is not a unique demographic.
Social video is not TV – unique identities and unique approaches
• Being Played ≠ Being Watched
• Varied context of user / device
• Not limited to 30 seconds
• “Skip Ad” button
• Interactive elements
2. Should I upload my Wistia hosted videos to YouTube & Vimeo, etc.?
Syndication splits viewcounts & shares and cannibalizes search.
• Canonicalise, don’t syndicate.
Don’t start with a content idea, start with the platform to make better, more focused content.
Platform First Approach
Developing a Social Video Strategy
Phil Nottingham, Senior Consultant at Distilled
Phil is the in-house video marketing expert and chief
meme generator at Distilled. Coming from an eclectic
background in theatre dramaturgy, broadcast technol-
ogy, video design, stage-combat, and social media, Phil
now combines marketing prognostication with ranting
both in the written and spoken forms.
@philnottingham

7. Notes by Natalie Fee
DEVELOPING A SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY
7 @natfeewrites
• Work out where your target market is active.
• Choose platforms to focus on.
• Create content for the platform.
• Cross-promote on other platforms by linking, not republishing.
3. Which social platforms should I care about and why?
Everyone should be on Youtube and Facebook.
Don’t bother with: Vimeo, Daily Motion, etc.
• One exception – production house – Vimeo = creative network
• Youtube is designed for finding things, but also conversation and collaboration.
• Entertainment and education
Consider interactive elements in pre-production
• Annotations (Example: Travel Europe)
• Cards
• Playlists
Youtube is self-canonicalising.
• Original is on YouTube – can’t share non-YouTube on YouTube
• Think of it as building promo for YouTube, not your site
Everyone: Maybe:
YouTube
Self-Canonicalising
Instagram
content restrictions
simple, short, visually
compelling
hyperlapse
Vine
heir to the gif
Snapchat
Walled garden for tem-
porary content
Ensure you’re highly
confident you’re hitting
your audience
Facebook
Mobile video
Cross-promoting
Portrait – don’t feel encum-
bered by 16x9
Must be compelling when
silent
Composite CC
Look at silent films for
storytelling cues
Twitter
Currently pictures more
shareable than videos
Meerkat
first mover opportuni-
ties
integrate and canonical-
ize to Twitter
Periscope
first mover opportuni-
ties
integrate and canonical-
ize to Twitter

8. Notes by Natalie Fee
DEVELOPING A SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY
8 @natfeewrites
4. What should I be trying to achieve?
Brand = make impression
• You want the right kind of attention
“The essence of strategy is sacrifice.” –David Ogilvy
You have to focus
5. How can I measure success?
• Engaged Action Rates: (Shares + Visits + Comments + Subscriptions) / Views
Unruly Analytics = tools
Metrics often based on viewcounts, but easy to fake – shares beget shares
Small budgets can get great returns.
Unruly Shareback – predict if it will work, but expensive
Run your own social motivation survey
• Shared Passion
• Social IRL
• Social Utility
• Good Cause
• Zeitgeist
• Kudos
• Self-Expression
• Opinion Seeking
Strategy isn’t sniping:
• Ready
• Fire
• Aim
• Retarget
Think of existing videos as tracer bullets.
You’re not going to get it right the first time.
People’s don’t remember failed social campaigns.
The opposite of success in social is not failure, but apathy.
The only route to failure is inaction.
MARKET BRAND
Challenger Established
Dynamic
Differentiation
You’re different
Awareness
Your stuff is awesome.
Stable
Disruption
Everyone else sucks
Mindshare
Cool story, bro

9. Notes by Natalie Fee 9 @natfeewrites
Bats turned upside down, dancing – kind of sassy, aren’t they?
• Get inspired to think about it a little differently
Statistics on Content Marketing
• 86% of B2B organizations are using content marketing
• 55% plan to up content spend
• 70% creating more than a year ago — awesome, but kind of awful = so much noise
• 38% know their content is effective
Top challenge for last 5 years: creating engaging content
We need to tell better stories.
Articles can be the bedrock of your program, but think more broadly.
Focus on empathy, experiences, relevant, inspired, useful
• useful x empathy x inspired = great content
4 Fun Facts to guide your efforts
Fact 1: The most effective organizations have a documented content strategy.
• Find your bigger story.
• Disjointed, “bolted on” or seamless
• Example: NY Public Library does this well
• Who are we trying to reach and why?
• Only we ___ for those we want to reach
• Examples: Florida Hospital, PFLAG Canada
• What if we went away?
Takeaway 1: Be strategic, find your rallying cry
Fact 2: The most effective organizations are relentlessly audience focused.
• Set your goal – guiding bonfire on the beachhead
UncoveringYourMostAuthenticStories
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
Ann Handley is a Wall Street Journal best-selling au-
thor, keynote speaker, and the world’s first Chief Con-
tent Officer. Ann speaks and writes about how you can
rethink your business’s marketing strategy. She is the
Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training
and education company with the largest community of
marketers in its category.
@annhandley

10. Notes by Natalie Fee
UNCOVERING YOUR MOST AUTHENTIC STORIES
10 @natfeewrites
• Content GPS (where’s home)
• So what? Because ____.
• Until you’re asking questions best left to licensed philosophers
• What’s in it for me (WiiFM?)
• Empathy hack—you’ve worked your viewer into the story
Takeaway 2: Customer-centric trumps corporate-centric.
Fact 3: The most effective organizations are useful.
• What will people thank you for?
• Even just to make a decision
• 1. Info they need, want, desperately seeking
• 2. FUQs – frequently unasked questions (may not know enough to ask)
• Examples: Ask a Mortician, Rex Express (Urgent vs Emergency Care FUQ and Video)
Takeaway 3: Be irresistibly useful.
Fact 4: Use content as a filter, not just a magnet.
• If you covered up your logo, would you recognize you?
• Content can attract the likeminded & repel the timid.
• Examples: M+R, Levenfeld Pearlstein
• What does your data tell you?
Takeaway 4: Build audience, not just “leads.”
Bonus Fact: The most effective organizations are investing in becoming better writers and telling
better stories.
• Good writers make great marketers.
Bonus Takeaway: Tell true stories well. Words are your ambassadors; don’t squander them.
Cat Hats: “So What?”
I want to drive awareness of and interest in our new
hat patterns for cats, bceause we want to sell more
hat patterns for cats to cat-hat knitters.
“So what?”
Because our new patterns make it stupid-easy in
three specific ways for novice knitters to quickly
produce awesome cat hats, which makes for happi-
er, less frustrated knitters and warmer cat-noggins.
“So what?”
Because inefficiency and complexity are a pain to
deal with, and they cause frustration and suffering
for novice knitters.
“So what?”
Because pain... it hurts. And suffering is... Umm...
bad.
Possible video: Deconstructing the Stylish Hat that
Catapulted Mr. Fox to Feline Today’s Best-Dressed
List

11. Notes by Natalie Fee 11 @natfeewrites
Most people love to see people take risks; they are rooting for success. —Chris Savage
Whatever you do with integrity, there’s really no risk. —Phil Nottingham
If it bombs on one platform, it very rarely will make magic on another. —Phil
Take risks internally that won’t be public-facing. Show it doesn’t have to be very scary. —Chris
Creativity doesn’t have to be edgy, just different. Pitch it as “different” — language matters when you
are pitching. —Ann Handley
You are the advocate for the audience. Ask great follow-up questions. (Can you explain that in a more
concrete way? etc.) —Ann
Be crisp in defining responsibilites and give that person more latitude in taking risks. —Chris
If they don’t know you well, make it shorter and show you can provide value in a short amount of
time. —Chris
Rainy Day Q&A
Chris, Phil, and Ann
Impromptu post-keynote Q&A: Chris, Phil, and Ann take the stage again
to field questions while attendees go in groups to the lunch trucks.
Photo by @LMHill.
Meanwhile, the Wistia Umbrella Brigade came to the rescue, leading at-
tendees to the lunch trucks under an improvised canopy of umbrellas.
Photo by @eugevon.

12. Notes by Natalie Fee 12 @natfeewrites
Pre-production is the process of writing the recipe for your video.
• Leave room for creativity, etc. but be SUPER prepared.
• You’re not procrastinating!
• Get faster at every level
Brainstorming & Concepting
• Embrace limitations = key beginning step of brainstorming & concepting
• time
• who will be in the video?
• budget
• Get the bad ideas out of your system.
• “Get Loose” moment
• Don’t be afraid to bring something up
• Doubt shows up in every shoot
• Mock it up.
• Pull out iPhones and quickly shoot what it might look like
• Communicate great idea or find out it looks good on paper but terrible in video
Scripting
• Know your audience
• Questionnaire
• Where is it going to live? How will they receive it?
• Take advantage of context.
• Keep it conversational – write the way you normally talk.
Pre-Production: Saving Your Time by Taking Your Time
Dan Mills, Wistia
@danmillsmusic

13. Notes by Natalie Fee
PRE-PRODUCTION: SAVING YOUR TIME BY TAKING YOUR TIME
13 @natfeewrites
Table Read
• Get collective energy
• Read it out loud
• Adjust language to fit talent’s voice
• Be super critical
Misc Shoot Prep
• Schedules – minimum amount of time as possible, meal times, daylight/location
• Props (example: “Ben-definition Ben” needs to bring suit to work)
• Shot locations
• Make shot list
• After effects
Ongoing experience of playing with your brand
Think about why it’s getting hard
There’s no reason you should ever be married to an idea, there’s a million of them out there.
Envision your edit.
Really think through why you think it’s a bad idea, plead your case (language may be vague)
What are your expectations for people coming in to brainstorm?
• “Great. . . I should have just done it myself.”
This is a forever learning curve.
Picking music
• Mute video and cycle through tracks on music licensing site (Marmoset, Tunefruit)
• If you can’t get licensing, why do you like it? Tempo, mood, etc.

14. Notes by Natalie Fee 14 @natfeewrites
Creating language and defining values
We inherit traditions (marketing, news, filmmaking, education, etc.)
Sesame Street = the original explainer video
We’ve reached a point of saturation with stock photos (Example from Zendesk: “let’s make fun of this
pretend reality of people using iPads on mountains”)
You may not be able to talk about the endurance of the human spirit (like Nike) with your brand
Never fear, purveyors of boring shit: Boring is Beautiful
Stay Human – empathize
• Lofty, elusive idea
• What does it mean to be human?
• How do you stay human?
• (Discussion: draw on emotions, use plain language, be specific)
Give yourself a compass, draft it, and ask those questions
Pointed consideration of your ideas is not the same as procrastination.
Example from Zendesk: lion on desk shows some piece of the larger world, became a symbol for the
brand, breaking the fourth wall
Rhythm in monotony
Watch out for green screen, it kinda looks whack sometimes.
“Whistle handclap music”
Resources
• Tony Zhou — “Every Frame a Painting”
• Film Riot
• Indy Mogul
• NoFilmSchool.com
A video is not always the answer.
Better Than Boring: Business Video in the 21st Century
Kevin Cline, Zendesk
@thekevincline

15. Notes by Natalie Fee 15 @natfeewrites
Ultimate goal: to no longer need to pitch
Trust is the only way to get there.
5 Problems
• Multiple concepts
• Poorly articulated (muddy presentation)
• Long periods of consideration
• Excessive input
• Lack of faith in creative team
How To Fix
• Establish the role of the creative internally
• Improve the concept pitch so as to support this role.
• The problem with “and”: caused by excitement and/or fear
• Fear-induced “and” syndrome confuses people
• “Oh, he’s thought about it all already, thought about the problem”
• Pull inspiration from one video
• Think it through & break it yourself, know how to respond when others try to break it
• If you don’t like it, we’ll go back to the drawing board but it’ll be worse.
• Successfully execute on the concept
• Earn the trust to be empowered to create without excessive buy-in.
Don’t come to the table without an idea you are confident in and can defend the shit out of.
Navigating the Treacherous Path of Concept Buy-In
Keith Frankel, CreativeMornings Boston
@thekeithf
“AND” SYNDROME
1. One of the larget online stores on the plant for almost
any product you’d want to buy.
2. An ecommerce store and a maker of hardware devices
(Kindle, etc.) and also a cloud computing provider and
a marketplace where you can sell goods (digital & phys-
ical) and...

16. Notes by Natalie Fee 16 @natfeewrites
I got started with just me in my apartment in Philadelphia. I threw some videos up on YouTube with
no calls to action, no “how long are people watching so I can say ‘Buy some shit from me!’” People
called me and said, you’ve been helping me for three years but I can’t do it by myself anymore. They
felt like I was helping them when I was sleeping. You can’t do that with a written piece of content.
Find people in your company who freaking love what they do.
• Find teachers – [as a teacher] you gotta get good at presenting to people who don’t want to
hear from you.
Authenticity
• Some things just aren’t trackable.
• Companies are freakin wusses – they don’t like to say what they believe.
Tail of Two Airlines – Virgin vs United
• It’s in the execution
• Your video is consistent with the people who live it out
How to Get Buy-In from Douchey CEOs
If I want to do my geekery, I have to stop being a geek for a minute.
Ask them a question that brings out emotion. There’s a toughness and authenticity in the interview.
• Why do you do this every single day?
• Why do we exist?
Understand the problems of their customer and show how video might solve that problem.
We don’t do video to SELL (directly.)
Where do you start?
• Find what you love
• Give people a room and the right tools
Change the “why don’t they get it” to “how can I explain this better”
Building a More Human Brand
Wil Reynolds, Founder of SEER Interactive
Wil got his start in internet marketing in ‘99, when he
joined a web marketing agency and began spearhead-
ing SEO strategies for Fortune 500 clients. He is pas-
sionate about driving traffic to sites by doing what he
terms “RCS” and analyzing the impact that traffic has
on the company’s bottom line.
@wilreynolds

17. Notes by Natalie Fee
BUILDING A MORE HUMAN BRAND
17 @natfeewrites
• Change the frame of how you talk to them
It went helpful and I’ll take that any day over viral.
Lower their risk.
• Make the case by focusing on SUX (Search User Experience)
• “We can help more people” & show social proof
• How much time do people save using your product?
Brands sort out the cesspool of the internet.
• Google’s getting smarter at understanding brands.
• Example: Wayfair is changing the way people search for their brand.
Get campaign thinking out of your mind.
• Don’t do it once and stop doing it. Keep doing it year after year.
• Great content continues to help people in perpetuity.
• Authenticity is why.
• Think of ROI in shelf life.
• Taking shortcuts will never produce authenticity.

18. Notes by Natalie Fee 18 @natfeewrites
HBR’s mission is to rid the world of bad management.
We spend more time at work than home, with coworkers than friends, talking to our boss than our
spouse.
Two-thirds of us want to be told what to do by someone else.
Lessons
1. Make your video team as small possible, not as large as possible.
• The mysteriously expanding video team
• Video is often cross-disciplinary
• Organizational politics and/or enthusiasm
• Power associated with managing large team
• Ringelmann Effect – 8 people do not pull harder than 6 people
• Other social psychologists call this “social loafing”
• The more people in the room, the less invested we all feel in the outcome
• “Protect the project” from getting too watered down
• Advisors who rotate around the project like moons
• Involvement vs. Commitment: In a breakfast plate of eggs and bacon, the chicken was in-
volved but the pig was committed.
2. Overcommunication is almost impossible.
• Alex “Sandy” Pentland, MIT: Prerequisites for peak-performing posses
• Communicate frequently, formally and informally
• Explore for ideas and info outside the group (involve)
• Talk and listen in equal measure, equally among members
• Communication is easier in small teams
• Cognitive miser
Managing Video Teams and Processes
SarahGreen,SeniorAssociateEditor,HarvardBusinessReview
Under her tenure as the host of HBR’s IdeaCast, the
podcast has twice been nominated for a National Mag-
azine Award and routinely tops lists of the most pop-
ular business and management podcasts. Sarah also
manages daily content for HBR.org, edits articles for
the website and magazine, edits books and ebooks, and
manages the video program.
@skgreen

19. Notes by Natalie Fee
MANAGING VIDEO TEAMS AND PROCESSES
19 @natfeewrites
• Repeat yourself at least twice before people understand what you want from them.
• Those who used multiple methods got stuff done much more quickly.
• People with formal authority tend to just send email and expect action.
• People without formal authority use multiple methods and are more popular.
• You CAN over-collaborate.
• Decisions always made by consensus
• Accountability unclear
• Execution is slow
• Meetings are a bit aimless with no clear agenda or follow-ups
• Meetings are plentiful and mostly held for “updates” or “discussion”
3. It costs a lot to be cheap
• Cheap is a mindset, not a budget number.
4. Embrace your constraints, but question your assumptions.
5. A process is always a work in process.
• Parallel processing
• Document how much time things really take
• Relying less on email and having fewer meetings
• Process can be liberating and prevent perfectionism
• Process makes it possible to motivate people more easily.
• Progress is motivating; “you won the day”
GOOD
BAD

20. Notes by Natalie Fee 20 @natfeewrites
#thefear = the crippling fear that can only come from sending hundreds of thousands of people an
email with a broken link or a typo in the subject line and not being able to fix it no matter how much
you Google “change email after sent.”
Emails are not tanks or weapons of mass destruction. They are not a blast or any other negative,
horrible thing.
My design can affect how a business operates. This graphics stuff does have meaning.
Emails are a unique beast, and need their own special attention.
Email is invitation to website
Six Parts – not a thing that lands in the inbox
• From Name > Subject Line > Preheader > Open > Tap/Click > Page/Site
Personal medium – it wasn’t born as spam, it was born as a way to send a message to another person
Metaphor: Credits and debits from the trust bank of your brand (you want more credits than debits)
Onboarding process for video – great way to leverage existing product video
Tell a story – enrich the experience
Example: WhatToWear.io (Boston weather)
Responsive
Never ever use “no reply” as your sender
Should you put video in your email?
• HTML5 works in some clients, but doesn’t work everywhere.
• You have to use a fallback – have a contingency plan.
• Neat tricks are for both B2B and B2C.
• Animated gif – Outlook only shows the first frame
Email really has the power to connect.
The Hidden Talents of Email
Justine Jordan, Marketing Director at Litmus
In addition to being an email critic, cat lover, and
explain-a-holic, Justine is also marketing director at
Litmus. You can find her organizing the world’s only
conference for people who make email, editing Litmus’
latest blog post, or speaking at industry events. She’s
strangely passionate about email, hates being called a
spammer, and isn’t scared to belch on camera.
@meladorri

21. Notes by Natalie Fee 21 @natfeewrites
Video is good for business.
Video is a super emotional medium.
Faith motivates, keeps you going, and allows you to pioneer.
Data proves to ourselves that video marketing is working.
Play count is a vanity metric, not really telling how people interact.
Hours watched is a better metric (engagement x plays), but there is still a big leap of faith here.
Turnstile placement
• 25% at start – 16% conversion rate
• 26% at middle – 24% conversion rate
• 49% at end – 3.4% conversion rate
Timeline actions: call to action, turnstile, annotations
More sophisticated tools and ways to analyze
Maybe you need to do some fine-tuning, not blow the whole thing up.
• Move the turnstile, tweak, etc.
• Car analogy – don’t throw out the whole thing, repair the part that gives you problems
• Better data makes it clear what actions need to be taken.
• Better data makes it so success and failure are not black boxes.
New & Returning views
• New plays over time, are they converting?
• Returning plays over time
• Core audience for the library
Measuring Video Effectiveness
Brendan Schwartz, CTO at Wistia
At Wistia, Brendan relentlessly pursues simplicity in the
product, technology, and design. He thinks a backend
service should be less like a Swiss Army knife and more
like, you know, a single knife that’s really, really good at
the one job it has to do. Talk to him about self-driving
cars, fly fishing, or bizarre hypothetical questions, and
he’ll get really riled up.
@brendan

22. Notes by Natalie Fee 22 @natfeewrites
Brand = gut feeling about product, service, or company
• Gut feeling focuses on the customer, not the company
• Gives a whole bunch of people the same feeling
• Requires coordinated effort
• Consistent experience
How can we develop a point of view that can be shared across everyone in the organization (not just
the marketing department?)
• The best way to start is define values.
Approach for MailChimp: be about something more than email
• Make work fun!
Figure out what your point of view is, what is our take on this particular industry / product / service
that makes us stand out.
Values for MailChimp
• Creativity
• Independence
• Humility
Looked to our culture for latent things we already believe and consistently come back to, don’t com-
promise on
“Listen Hard, Change Fast” – motto is distillation of our values
If my product were a ___. . . — Food, Animal, Celebrity
• Jot down adjective that describes why each is a good representation of your product
• This exercise gets people thinking about where you are and where you want to go
This Not That
• Take adjective descriptions and qualify with something that helps illuminate your ideal
Lead with Your Values
Mark Dicristina, Mailchimp
@markdicristina

23. Notes by Natalie Fee
LEAD WITH YOUR VALUES
23 @natfeewrites
• Expert but not bossy, Fun but not childish, etc.
Audience
• Who is your ideal audience? Who do we really want to get this message?
• Tune the brand message to them.
• May not be demographic, may be psychographic
• Develop personas
3 Things I Learned
1. You don’t own your brand
• Any brand is successful because they figured out how to make people feel the way they want-
ed them to.
2. Consistency matters
• Over a long period of time
3. Tell the Truth
• The best way to stand out is to be honest about who you are and what you believe
• The truth goes a long way with people.
• Find a way to tell story that rings true with everyone in the organization over and over again.
Q&A: What if you want to change the culture?
• Find a sandbox you and upper management can agree is safe for experimenting.
• Find little ways to plant that thinking.

24. Notes by Natalie Fee 24 @natfeewrites
Sometimes the brand message needs to be somewhat of a disguise.
Partnership can make it more shareable / viewable.
It starts around people you know.
Activity 1: What relationships and/or partnerships have been important to your personal success?
• How have these partnerships contributed to your business success?
Activity 2: What brands would make great partners for your business?
• What do you have to offer each other?
Why Brand Partnerships Matter:
• Connect multiple brands into one story for consumer
• Give a wider group of people brand information
• Strengthen own brand’s position
• Create long-term relationship with partner brand(s)
• Realize production and promotion cost savings
• Reach customers outside of core business
• Create new content and sales distribution channels
• Establish or change brand value/price perception
Activity 3: How can you collaborate with a brand partner to make a huge impact through video?
A marketing effort or partnership is when companies join forces to use each other’s best technology
or content to benefit all brands and the final product.
• Creating content and getting it out there can be as valuable as production quality.
You can become an unofficial sponsor.
You want your brand to be the hero to the problem.
Emotional Positioning
Logo placements can be cost effective – earned media impressions
Strengthening Your Brand Through Partnerships
Elliott Wiley, All Star Code
linkedin.com/pub/elliott-wiley/27/129/813

25. Notes by Natalie Fee
STRENGTHENING YOUR BRAND THROUGH PARTNERSHIPS
25 @natfeewrites
Biggest goal: partnership or campaign that lasts longer than one campaign
How-To videos can be mutually beneficial
• What did I learn? What can I take away?
It’s the connectivity of stories – cohesive
Formula: brand creative + video production + execution
A partnership has to be mutually beneficial.
In general, transparency in business plays pretty well.

26. Notes by Natalie Fee 26 @natfeewrites
It’s easy to hate an entity, it’s hard to hate a person.
• 1. Showcasing your people
• 2. Video most accurately depicts your brand voice
• 3. Video evokes emotion
Screen for people to find natural talent.
Work around non-acting skills with writing and concepts.
Employees get used to cameras and become prepared – image release in employee contract, camera
at meetings and in hallways
Sales team has own logins to Wistia, can send demo video to prospects and see heat maps, which
chapters they watched, if they watched at all
Humanizing Your Brand
Brenton Williamson & Matt Heder, BambooHR
@bleewilliamson
@mattheder

27. Notes by Natalie Fee 27 @natfeewrites
Index
A
audience 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 21, 23
authenticity 16, 17, 23, 25
B
brand 8, 13, 17, 22, 23, 24, 26
C
concept 12, 15, 26
content 6, 10, 17, 24
context 6, 12
creativity 4, 5, 11, 12, 15, 22
D
data 4, 21
E
emotion 14, 16, 21, 22, 24
empathy 9, 10, 14
F
failure 5, 8
focus 7
H
human 14, 26
L
limitations 12, 19
P
pre-production 7, 12
process 4, 19, 20
R
risk 5, 11, 17
S
social 6, 11, 17, 24
story 9, 10, 20, 24, 25
strategy 8, 9
success 5, 8, 11, 23, 24

28. Notes by Natalie Fee 28 @natfeewrites
Thank you, Wistia!
Hope to see you next year!