Did you know that the average person spends a massive 84 minutes watching online video content every day?
That’s up 25% from last year, when it was 67 minutes per day.
And this trend is only set to continue.
People around the world love watching video. It is proven to be the most effective method of communication we have today, since our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.
The question all marketers need to be thinking about now is: What is my video marketing strategy? And is it good enough?
It’s easy to consume, and all the information we receive is paired with useful visuals that help us to remember content!
According to Forrester, a single minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.
So why aren’t more people using interactive video?
The most common response is that ‘video is expensive’, or ‘video is time consuming’. But today there are many great tools on the market to make this very quick and easy. Here are some of my favourites:
- Animoto — Lets you create quick and catchy social media videos
- Loom — Allows you to do screen capture and webcam video at the same time
- Headliner — Allows you to do both, and to create waveform video snippets for podcasts
Another huge marketing trend right now is personalization! We know that personalized calls to action convert 202% better than non-personalized ones. And that 52% of customers would switch away from brands that don’t use personalization.
Why not solve two problems with one tool?
That’s where personalized video comes in.
Imagine if you could make video content and personalization collide. And imagine if you could engage thousands or millions of customers by speaking to them directly through video. And imagine it was quick and easy! Sounds too good to be true? Well, check this out.
Today we’re going to take a look at some of the most effective ways to use personalized video in your marketing efforts. It’s time to hop on board, because personalization and video marketing are two of the hottest B2B marketing trends around right now.
The world’s biggest brands have already started using personalized video, but the ground is still very fresh and personalized video delivers a ‘wow-factor’ to customers when it’s executed well.
Are you ready to super-charge your customer engagement and click-through-rate?
Let’s get started.
1. Use Interactive Video for Lead generation
As a marketer, your main goal is getting more customers through the door, no matter whether you’re an airline, an insurance company, a SaaS business, or an SME. What if you could use a personalized or interactive video to get leads to submit their details to your CRM.
You can do that using an interactive subscription form or an interactive video – and better yet, you could personalise it. Many people abandon such forms before the end because they are boring and repetitive. If you put video in the mix, prospects have an incentive to engage because they are being entertained.
Just check out this example by Canal+. They used their own entertainment to make the subscription form an entertaining part of the customer journey. And it delivered great results for them.
What’s more, when people receive an extraordinary video experience like this, they want to share it with others meaning campaigns can easily go viral!
2. Use a Video to Thank Someone for Purchase
A small action like thanking your customer can go a long way towards building loyalty. Happy and valued customers spend more and feel closer to a brand. What’s more, loyal customers boost key KPIs such as average revenue per user (ARPU) and customer lifetime value (CLV).
And personalized service really does make people more loyal. In fact, 65% of customers interviewed by The Drum said personalization affects their customer loyalty.
Thanking your customers with personalized video helps you build a personal connection with your customer. But that act of thanking is also a great opportunity to explain to your customer the terms of services or products they have bought, when an item will be shipped, or even to cross-sell various accessories or other products.
Many businesses are using personalized video to thank their customers and seeing a huge up-tick in engagement and feelings of loyalty.
In our company, we actually use the idea of thanking a bit differently. We ran a personalized thank you campaign for a charity that went viral.
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Every person who donated online to the charity received a personalized thank you video for a celebrity. The charity used this technology to encourage more donations, and the grand total at the end of the campaign was a huge EUR 27 million.
The campaign made a big impression and many people shared their videos on social media. People who saw their friends’ videos wanted one for themselves, encouraging even more donations.
Have you ever considered thanking your customers in such a special way?
3. Deliver Special Offers with Personalised Videos
How do you currently promote special offers? If you’re like most companies, you send our direct email marketing. If you have an app, perhaps you also use some push notifications.
I imagine the open rate is pretty low on those emails, and the click through rate is even lower. But maybe this is one area where you are already using personalization?
If you’re in e-commerce, it’s likely you are already recommending products that are similar to what your customer purchased before. But are you also doing that if you’re a bank or an insurance company?
Many companies deliver special offers to customers using personalized video because:
- More people see your offer
- People remember the offer better
- The offer feels more personal
The offer can also be embedded within a video that thanks customers for their loyalty, creating a sense that the offer is exclusive to them and a reward for their loyalty.
Check out this campaign with Raiffeisen bank.
A personalized video was sent out to customers just before the holiday season offering a new loan product. The amount of the loan was personalised based on the credit score of the customer. And the campaign also calls every customer by their name!
4. Use Personalised Videos in Re-targeting Campaigns
You know your customer is already interested in your product or service. You’ve seen them lingering on your site. Maybe they abandoned the cart at the last minute. Maybe they looked at upgrading their plan but failed to commit. Or perhaps they were just browsing some selected items.
Whichever way your customer has interacted with your products and services, you’ll already have a remarketing campaign in place.
If you already know your customer and they are logged in, it’s very simple to follow up in a personalized and engaging way. Some businesses are already running video remarketing and retargeting campaigns.
But no-one is really using personalized video right now. That’s a huge opportunity for businesses to take advantage of this trend and re-market in a way that customers won’t forget.
As an example, take a look at this personalized video campaign for CitiBank.
It follows the same logic as a retargeting/remarketing campaign. In this case, the video was sent to people who recently made a big purchase on their card. A special offer is extended to them to encourage them to take a loan or other finance to pay off the purchase in installments.
Now imagine the re-marketing possibilities, whether it’s following up on an abandoned flight booking, car rental reservation, or high value purchase. The re-marketing personalized video can also be used to give a small discount or a special offer, to encourage conversion.
5. Use Personalised, Interactive Videos for Year End Reviews
Have you ever received a year in review from a brand you love? Or have you loved a brand after receiving a year in review?
Every year I receive a summary of my year’s activity from Strava saying how far I’ve cycled, and #SpotifyWrapped neatly packages all my music streaming stats for the year. There’s something really nice about having everything summed up in one place. And there’s value add in being able to see your exercise or listening habits.
It’s no coincidence that such annual reviews are a growing trend. Customers love them. And they often share the results of their year. People love to share about how active they are, what they listen to, or how much they travelled. It’s all part of their self-expression.
But for brands it’s a great way to:
- Build customer loyalty and delight
- Reaffirm the value of products/services
- Improve market share
Every year Spotify delivers their ‘year wrapped’. But Spotify’s main competitor — Apple Music — delivers no such summary. It even became a running joke online. No doubt Spotify’s annual review, which pulls in personalized listener data, helps them expand their market share.
But what about personalized video? A handful of brands have experimented with personalized year in review videos. Take a look at this campaign for Delta airlines, created by Digitas:
People love travelling, and they love sharing travel stories. It’s very easy for such campaigns to go viral. Customers can share their status and travelling stats, while your brand gets free advertising!
Year in review personalized videos can be used in almost any industry. Whether you’re a telco showing how users how much data they used, a bank showing how many transactions a customer made in the year, or an airline visualising your travel habits.
6. Bonus: Offer Personalised Videos As a Consumer Product
Here’s a bonus example for you… Increasingly companies are starting to offer personalised video as a consumer product!
One company uses personalised video to send personalised christmas letters from Santa. You can even get personalised birthday or anniversary wishes from footballers like Robert Lewandowski.
The possibilities for personalised video as a consumer product are huge. People have always wanted special messages from celebrities, and now it’s finally possible using this technology.
What’s Next for Personalised Video?
Personalised video has a lot of early adopters, and the value of using it has been confirmed. With our own personalised videos we’re seeing that 80-90% of people consistently watch videos to the end, compared to just 35-45% for regular video.
That’s a huge margin and one that could have a big impact on sales.
As video becomes easier and less time consuming to make I wouldn’t be surprised if personalised video becomes a widespread B2C marketing tactic.
For the first time in history, brands are able to communicate 1-1 with their audience. And that’s something worth writing home about.
If you are able to use personalised or interactive video to build a relationship with your customer, you can be sure of better loyalty, better lifetime value, and reduced churn.
The market for personalised and interactive video is still young, but it is maturing. Video is going to be a long-term trend, and so is personalisation. So what are you waiting for?
Gareth Davies is the Technology Evangelist at Vintom — the world’s leading personalised and interactive video technology. To find out more about Vintom’s technology and get your free personalised consultation, get in touch here.
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