We’ve all seen the incredible stats on the power of video. By adding video to email and social media in a multichannel campaign, you can boost views, conversions, and shares dramatically.
But what about print? Yes, you can take advantage of video in print, as well, by adding print-to-mobile pathways like QR Codes and augmented reality to things like direct mail, packaging, and in-store signage.
As with all things marketing, video is moving toward personalization. What is personalized video and how do you incorporate it?
As defined by Vidyard, “Personalized video brings your viewers into the story by weaving their names, company names, logos, and other unique content right into the flow of the video itself.” Vidyard claims that personalized video boosts conversions by a whopping 500%.
Data can be pulled from a spreadsheet, marketing automation platform, or CRM. Some platforms even allow you to leverage information from recipients’ Twitter and LinkedIn accounts and Facebook profiles. If you have a street address, you can insert a Google Street View image. With a website URL, you can pull in an image of a company’s homepage.
A company selling software, for example, might address the recipient by name, then incorporate their name, company logo, and shots from their company website right into the demonstration video. This way, when watching the video, the viewer appears to be looking at their own dashboard. Personalization enables them to envision themselves using the software as if they already owned it.
As the customer journey increasingly moves online, the appeal of video personalization is growing (just as it is for print and email). Data shows that up to 90% of the buying journey occurs online before anyone actually speak to someone at the company.
Just how much can personalized video boost results? Here are a few examples from Vidyard.
- Cetera Financial Group saw a 600% increase in CTR in a prospecting campaign. Its typical click-through rate on cold leads is 4-8%. With personalized video, its CTR jumped to 33%. With traditional video, 20% of Cetera’s recipients watched the entire video. With personalized video, this doubled to 40%.
- Lenovo did a test campaign in which it sent personalized video to 6,000 nonactive contacts (defined as those being nonactive for the past 6+ months) in hopes of re-engaging them. With personalized video, the company saw 4x open rate on the emails and 4.5x in CTR. A whopping 78% watched the full video compared to the typical 50% for static video.
- Act-On Software sent a campaign to high ARR customers, agency partners, and other partners. In the campaign, 82% of viewers watched the entire video (compared to 45% on average) and viewers spent 62% more time on page.
Put simply, personalized video gets more people watching your client’s videos and keeps them watching longer. Campaign dashboards can show who watched the video, how long they watched, when they bailed, and who watched the whole thing or the entire thing multiple times. This allows you to refine the campaign the same way you would any other channel.
As video becomes increasingly important in a multichannel campaign, personalization will become increasingly valuable. As with other marketing channels, the key will be monitoring and testing, using the information you gather to refine the campaign, including content, length, and audience.
