Let's get personal.
The rise in personalised marketing and video content. Why and how you should integrate it within your business.
Have you noticed the rise in personalisation when it comes to marketing? Take a look through your email inbox, and you will see that the emails there are now more tailored than ever before. 90% of consumers aged 18–64 said they find personalisation appealing, and calls to action that have been personalised convert 202% better than non-personalised ones. If the emails aren’t tailored or personalised, those are the ones that you have most likely deleted.
This trend towards personalised marketing isn’t new; the trend has been on the horizon for quite some time as we have all got fed up with the copy and paste send-to-all approach. An article in McKinsey.com in 2019 (pre-pandemic) highlights how more prominent brands are trying to personalise their offering because 80% of consumers are more inclined to do business with a company if it offers a personalised experience. It’s a tall order for larger companies as they now need to try and re-connect with consumers and understand what attracts them to their brand; they are also likely to find that what motivated consumers in a pre-pandemic world is very different to their motivation in a post-pandemic world.
It is at this granular level of understanding consumers needs and expectations that small businesses excel. Some companies offering personal services, such as opticians, cite the main comments received in customer satisfaction surveys as the “personal touch”. Patients feel more confident in their optometrist knowing they are not just a name or a number. Their individual sight needs are met. Whether that is improved vision for precision work or prescription goggles for skiing, personal knowledge of your client base helps. As a business owner, understand how best to meet those needs by offering solutions or developing other solutions. There is optimism for the future from the CEO of the British Independent Retailers Association. In an interview with Business Live, he said small businesses are using their digital presence not to replace their physical stores but to compliment them. Small retailers are responding to customers needs and circumstances and providing a blended virtual and real-life experience.
Retail expert Kate Hardcastle MBE is an advocate of independent businesses. She recognises that consumers are now placing more value on experiences than material goods since the pandemic struck. Retailers will need to improve their services to meet those demands, and councils will need to support the high street to survive and thrive. The Government have supported this, and Burnley is just one of the towns that received funding to help promote the high street and bring customers back to the town centre safely and, they chose video to help with this.
This is all well and good for retailers. Still, businesses operating in a B2B environment also need to improve their offering. The good news is that this can positively affect their bottom line as 93% of companies experience increased conversion rates from personalisation.
Using personalised marketing and personalised video within your marketing mix can be a great way to add personalisation. Since the onset of the pandemic, more of us have become familiar with video conferencing. The barriers to entry have never been lower when it comes to initiating a video communications strategy as many of us have webcams built into our computers, phones or tablet devices. Video emails and video messages can be used in a variety of ways.
Driving Sales
Imagine opening your email to see a personal greeting from the salesperson you’re dealing with thanking you for your enquiry and letting you know what solution they propose or what the next steps would be with a link to a detailed product or service offering and quote for you to consider. It’s much warmer and more welcoming than a text-based email and quote.
Customer Service
How many times have you had to respond to a customer query or received a response to a question with a wordy email? Often, it takes much longer to write an email than to explain in words, so record a video response to your client’s query. This can be particularly useful if you are describing a technical process.
Aftercare
Once your client has bought a product or service from you, how do you check their satisfaction and, to borrow some sales terminology, feed them back into the top of your sales funnel for a repeat sale in the future? Reaching out with a quick video thanking them for their business and inviting feedback can be an excellent way to show you care about their custom and make them feel valued.
These aren’t the only ways you can use video, but implementing one or all of these will undoubtedly help your clients feel more appreciated.
Video has traditionally been viewed as something for the big brands, not for SME’s with limited budgets, but video doesn’t need to be expensive. There is a wide range of tools out there that all offer different things depending on your priorities. Bellyflop Video is just one of those tools designed to help users create content quickly, easily and cost-effectively.
Video content to definitely consider is video testimonials. They are highly effective at driving sales. When it comes to personalisation, what better than for your clients to see a video of another satisfied customer who faced a similar problem to them that was fixed with your product or service. This reinforces the customers buying decision that people like me buy this product or service, so I am making a sound decision. Over 90% of people look for testimonials before committing to purchase. Research found the likelihood of someone buying a product with five reviews is 270% greater than a product with no reviews, and there is no more an authentic review than having your client front and centre saying how great their experience has been?
Tutorials that help your clients make the best use of their new purchase can be invaluable in improving the client’s perception of the product or service. 72% of customers will share a positive experience with six or more people. These are your referrals. They are great news for your business because 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. The great thing about tutorials is that you can create them once and re-use them repeatedly; personalisation comes in when you curate the tutorial list for your client. We’ve all had instruction manuals in dozens of languages where we’ve struggled to find the bit in our language relevant to our specific needs. Make it easier for your clients to fall in love with what you have to offer.
Don’t think of your explainer videos as something that is only helpful post-purchase. A great explainer video can be used as part of your sales process to reassure your customers that they will be able to confidently and competently use the product or service you offer. Explain what makes your offering better than that of your competitors. If you are a clothing manufacturer, this could be the ethically sourced materials, or you may want to highlight the garment’s durability. If you are a restauranteur, you could explain the provenance of your ingredients and what makes your menu so delicious. If you make personalised items, you can show the behind the scenes process of fulfilling the order. Whatever way you use them, remember explainer videos are evergreen content that you can use on your social channels many times.
Take a look at your FAQ’s; what questions do your customers ask, and could you answer those with a quick video? have a real person explain the returns process for unsuitable goods and reassure your clients that you take their concerns seriously and you want to be there to help. You are providing your customers with the confidence to complete that purchase. You can also use your FAQ videos across your social channels to raise awareness of your brand and what you stand for.
Whatever type of video you opt for, make sure you measure your return on investment (ROI). You can calculate your ROI in many ways; impressions, play rate, and engagement are pretty easy to do, and most platforms facilitate those sorts of analytics. You can also measure leads and call to action (CTA) clicks. Depending on the type of video content you create, you may also calculate time savings (which translate to financial savings). For example, creating explainer videos to demonstrate how your client should connect your peripheral device to their PC can help reduce the number of calls received by your support team. This will save them time to deal with more complex queries (and saving the business money). It takes a little more work to measure an increase in brand awareness or business trust, but those too can help drive sales and contribute toward ROI. The critical thing to remember is to consider how long your video may be valid. If your video stays accurate, valuable and relevant to your current offering for two years, then you can measure ROI across that whole period. When you look at video this way, what seemed like a hefty outlay at the outset suddenly pales into insignificance against the true ROI of the video across its lifetime.
If you are considering video but are unsure where to start, reading articles like this is a perfect place to start, also visiting YouTube and searching for “how-to” content. Youtube is the worlds second most popular search engine and the second most visited website next to Google, so you’re bound to find a vast amount of helpful content. If you want to go down the route of getting a professional team to shoot content for you, then the team at Bellyflop would be delighted to have a no-obligation conversation with you to see whether your goals and their offering is a good match.
