The role of personal video in marketing and sales

The role of personal video in marketing and sales

6 min read

Right now, in 2020, we see a world where inboxes are jammed with promos, offers and pitches. Data from ReturnPath and Twilio are showing email open and engagement rates have been sliding as automation continues to rise.

According to Venture Beat, “We found nearly one in ten consumers has over 1,000 unread emails”. So as attention erodes, it becomes increasingly imperative for brands to differentiate themselves. As Seth Godin notes, “in order to get your product or service to stand out in the market and be immediately noticeable, you need to make it a purple cow, or wholly different and eye-catching.” This is where new technologies like personal video are crashing on to the scene with impressive results.

According to Harvard Business Review, in one study with insurance activation, the results were as follows, “In the control group, which didn’t receive any digital contact, 1.3% of people activated their account. In the email condition, that number increased to 4.3%. However, the personalized videos doubled the activation rate, with 8.2% signing into their retirement accounts.” Doubling your conversion rate with email is a holy grail for marketing and sales teams. So how exactly is personalized video email producing these types of results?

Why is video is revolutionizing business communications

#1 Video is memorable. In a recent study from Doxee, “The average user retains 95% of the messages in a video; when it comes to text, this percentage drops to 10%”. Why is that? Well, the human brain is all about context and connections. When you see a video you have facial expression, tone and thousands of other subtle variables that a simple text email can’t provide and thus, your brain builds more context around it and you are more likely to remember the message.

A famous TED talk on memory uses this example; he tells one audience to remember the name Baker and another to remember someone whose profession is a baker. The second audience has a substantially higher rate of recalling the factoid. This is because the name is just a random fact with no context while the profession bring up tons of memories of times we have been to a bakers, the smell of bread, the tall white hats they might wear etc.

The other component behind being video being more memorable is it stands out. If 99.9% of your inbox is text emails if you get a message with the subject line, “Hey John, I recorded a personal video for you!”, it stands out and is far more likely to elicit an action. 

Here is an example of a personal video that a SaaS company, ConvertKit, used to reduce their churn rates by 17%:

As you can see the filmer takes the time to really look at the customer’s website and provides targeted and specific advice. Then the CTA button makes it easy to get started.

#2 Video builds trust.  Humans make judgements as to the trustworthiness of a vendor very quickly. With standard emails it can be exceptionally hard to get your personality across. With a short personal video you have facial expression and tone that can help humanize your company and build a genuine connection. And that is also the beauty of personal video vs. even video in general. For production grade video every small factor from lighting to make-up is accounted for. For personal video it is all about being relatable, so there is no need to be hyper polished. In fact, having your co-worker wave to you in the halls or tripping while you are attempting to record your video makes you that much more “human” to the customer. 

According to Harvard Business Review, trust is one of the biggest levers for brands to drive more growth, both in regards to sales and customer retention. So utilizing tools that enable that trust with customers is increasingly vital. It is through strategies like this that companies are able to turn that trust into customer success.

Harvard Business Review goes on to say, “Operational skill used to confer long-term advantage. If you had leaner manufacturing, made higher-quality products, or had superior distribution, you could outrun competitors. But today those capabilities are table stakes. The new source of competitive advantage is customer-centricity: deeply understanding your customers’ needs and fulfilling them better than anyone else.”

I think this paradigm shift towards customer centricity is one of the reasons tools like personal video are so impactful in the 21st century. 

#3 Personal video is unique. As long as you are using automation there is always going to be bounds to how specific and tailored your messaging can be. You can segment based on data provided, but you will never be able to really get to 1:1 personalization. With personalized video, you can completely change that up. For instance, let’s take a recent charity that signs up for a trial. I checked out the clients website and then recorded them a video saying, 

“Hey [customer x], we are so glad to have you on board with us. We work with a lot of charities. Actually, just a few days ago I got back the results from a test we were running with a big non-profit and it showed that moving your CTA bottom on your website to after the customer had read your pitch increased donations by 20%. I see your donation button is all the way at the top. That might be something we could test. Also, I see a lot of businesses using personal video initially for existing donors to get a higher percentage of repeat donations. What were you envisioning?”

Having that level of specificity that is tailored to the customers specific website and use case is something that will lead to a notable lift in results. 

Check out, for instance, our own analytics dashboard for our messages sent through personal video:

For anyone in the marketing or sales worlds, getting 70%+ open rates and 40%+ CTR with thousands of sends per month is pretty unheard of. But that is the beauty of personal video: It’s unique, it’s different and it’s customer-centric, so it works. 

What are some of the specific applications for personal video emails? Is this mostly a marketing, sales or customer support tool?

One of the beauties of personal video is its versatility. On the marketing side, here are a few applications:

  • Use a pre-recorded video as part of a newsletter
  • Use 1:1 videos to reach out to a journalist or podcast/webinar opportunity. 
  • Use 1:1 videos to reach out to other blogs for content collaborations

On the sales side you could:

  • Use a 1:1 video to respond to an online inquiry
  • Use a 1:1 video to confirm a demonstration and set expectations 
  • Use a 1:1 video to follow-up on a proposal

On the customer success side you could:

  • Use a 1:1 video to welcome new customers and encourage them to book with your onboarding team
  • Use a pre-recorded video to show an issue inside their account and how they can fix it
  • Use a 1:1 video to celebrate certain milestones with them

Again the options are endless when it comes to personal video. We built a repository of templates on exactly how teams are leveraging personal video here: https://www.bonjoro.com/videofunnelplaybook

On that note, here’s an interesting podcast episode where Matt Barnet talks to the hosts of the ABM Conversations Podcast on using videos for growth.

Where is personal video and email headed? 

In the early 2000’s email exploded onto the scene and was the wild west. It was novel, and thus open and engagement rates were great and businesses were suddenly able to hit scale with their communications like never before.

Then spammers got a hold of it, and inboxes (ISPs) gradually imposed more and more restrictions (Spam folder, promotions folders etc.). Businesses responded and adapted by building automation and segmentation that would help lower their time commitment in the sending process and increase the chances of reaching the inbox.

But unfortunately, the number of businesses corresponding via email has grown so large that most consumers are simply overwhelmed. It’s much like the thousands of ad impressions people get on social media. They have started to become white noise.

Personalized video email, on the other hand, heralds in a new generation of business communication that is human, authentic and stands out from the pack. With new technologies like 5G rolling out globally, personal video platforms are primed to make a huge impact and become a new ubiquitous form of communication.

Companies that embrace new emergent technology that facilitates authentic and unique connections with their consumers are those most likely to develop differentiated brand recognition.

With more than a decade of experience working with brands, from mom and pop stores to BMW and L’Oreal, Casey has seen what is keeping brands relevant and competitive in the 21st century. He is currently the Head of Growth at Bonjoro.

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