INBOUND 2018 gathered thousands of creative minds and marketers in Boston for HubSpot’s annual conference. Historically, this event is a platform for HubSpot to reveal their new and upcoming projects and other software integrations, and this year’s big announcement was HubSpot Video.
HubSpot.com
HubSpot Video is a new feature accessible in the HubSpot CRM that enables users to easily integrate videos in landing pages, blogs, and sales emails — all with the goal to personalize and increase the quantity of video content for your company and clients.
The software that allows HubSpot users to integrate video is powered by Vidyard, a video hosting company for businesses. The HubSpot Video + Vidyard partnership provided HubSpot with the technology Vidyard has available, and in return, Vidyard will see an increase in the number of clients that sign up for their video hosting software.
Stay with me here because things are about to get a little more complicated.
While HubSpot Video is free for Pro and Enterprise users and lets users manage video files within the HubSpot CRM tool, it does not mean you don’t need a subscription to a video hosting software. HubSpot Video is a very well-designed and easy-to-use video management integration, but it is NOT a video hosting tool. And that is key.
With HubSpot Video, you can track individual metrics of the videos posted on landing pages or blogs. However, it doesn’t let you create an organized, manageable archive of all the videos you have produced.
For example, if you produce one video that can be repurposed for multiple blogs, HubSpot Video will only track the engagement of this video on each page posted. This means that for you to actually understand the ROI of your video, you will have to collect the data of all the blog posts in which this video is included. And, if you have more than one person posting blogs, things can get messy quick.
On the other hand, with a video hosting tool, like Vidyard or Wistia, you can track analytics of all of your videos whether they were posted on one landing page or 10 blogs. While this may not be the most crucial factor for many clients or businesses, when you start investing time and resources in creating videos, you want to make sure these resources are accounted for, hence why you need video hosting software.
Phew… Now that you understand why video hosting software is vital to your business, in addition to the awesome tools offered by HubSpot Video, the question remains: Which video hosting software is best?
And this is a question I’ve been trying to answer even before the announcement of HubSpot Video!
There are more than a dozen companies that offer video hosting software — ones that can integrate into HubSpot. For a full list of HubSpot Video Integrations, click here.
Because it will be incredibly boring and time-consuming to compare all of these video integrations, I am going to examine Wistia and Vidyard, which are the two video hosting companies I am most familiar with.
** Disclaimer: I am NOT choosing one company over the other, but rather, I'll do my best to remain as unbiased as possible. The purpose of this blog is meant to be an educational piece only about the benefits and features of video hosting software.**
Wistia vs. Vidyard
HubSpot Integration
Both softwares integrate with HubSpot, in both the CRM and Sales Software, which are meant for HubSpot Pro and Enterprise users.
Read more about using Wistia's integration with HubSpot and Vidyard's integration with HubSpot.
Both of these platforms are easy to integrate and allow you to manage the data collected within the HubSpot tools.
One big differentiator is that if you already have a Vidyard subscription and have enabled HubSpot Video on your CRM, the integration lets you manage all of your Vidyard assets (files) within HubSpot without ever needing to leave the platform.
Because of these integrations, Wistia and Vidyard let you track viewers’ actions in your videos, video engagement, and log it into HubSpot’s contact records.
This translates into a more comprehensive log of your leads, which is the goal at the end of the day.
Analytics
To provide an accurate ROI on your videos, it’s important to understand and compare the sales value generated from these videos to the number of resources invested in generating said video. And to do that, you need data.
Wistia and Vidyard give let you track the number of views, clicks, and the percentage of actions taken when a clickable CTA or links are applied to your video. Both Vidyard and Wistia offer heatmap tracking capabilities, so you can see exactly when and how users engaged with your videos.
Customization
While HubSpot Video can customize CTAs for your videos, the level of customization is limited. You can only add a CTA and change the player color. To add turnstiles, interactive CTAs, and forms to your video, you need video hosting software.
Here’s the cool part about all of this. Video hosting software like Vidyard and Wistia let you add interactive CTAs to your videos, include clickable links in the middle of the video as turnstiles, and even embed a form within the video — all while having the capability to customize the color, branding, and the overall look of your video.
This is why VIDEO SOFTWARE IS SO AWESOME! And with platforms like Vidyard and Wistia, you get to be more personable, engaging, and professional with your video marketing strategy.
Email Marketing and Sales
If you are not using video in your emails, you should, and if you are not using them in your sales strategy, you are already behind.
Another great feature of these softwares is the ability to send personalized videos through email. Both Vidyard and Wistia allow you to add your videos to your emails. You can track when leads open your emails, whether or not they watched your video and even how much of that video they watched.
By understanding how your leads interact with your content through video engagement data, you can improve your lead scoring, set up workflows, or enroll your leads in sequences. All of this helps you better sell your products or services.
If you want to learn more about embedding your videos on your email and/or sales sequences with Wistia or Vidyard, click on the links below:
Email Marketing with Wistia | Email Marketing with Vidyard
Soapbox vs. GoVideo
Speaking of email and sales, both Wistia and Vidyard have created Soapbox and GoVideo, respectively. These are free, easy-to-use, tools where you record both your screen and yourself in a video with your laptop.
You can learn more about Soapbox here, and GoVideo here.
With the free versions of each, you can record, share, and include CTAs in your videos. The added value for GoVideo is being able to track metrics for free on these videos.
However, Soapbox has Pro and Team paid plans available where you can customize your videos even further, track metrics, and download your videos.
Pricing
Last, but not least, if there are no major differentiating factors between one software platform and the other, it all comes down to price.
During my research for this blog, I have had multiple conversations with individuals at both Wistia and Vidyard. They were all extremely helpful and very accessible, offering me free resources, educational material, and new connections so I could answer some of the questions I already had.
Between Soapbox and GoVideo, my personal preference is Soapbox (sorry Vidyard, I still love you), simply because of the extended customization, video downloads, and branding for paid accounts. However, GoVideo is an excellent free option to get started with video for email marketing and sales.
Overall, Wistia’s software is slightly more cost-effective than Vidyard. That being said, an investment with Vidyard is worth your money since you are also paying to manage your assets through the HubSpot Video integration.
Vidyard has also recently rolled out a sales strategy where you pay only for the number of seats used in your team, which can make Vidyard a more viable option for your business if you don’t have a large number of employees.
At the end of the day, it’s a matter of preference. Whether it’s Wistia, Vidyard or another video hosting platform, the important thing is to get your video strategy up and running.
Thank you for reading! Comment below or reach me out at carlos@roionline.com if you want to give me feedback or ideas on what to write next.
