The Top 3 Ways Personalized Video Drives Customer Engagement
The modern financial consumer is caught between two competing sets of desire, wanting both a seamless self-serve digital experience as well as traditional face-to-face advice from a human they trust to boost customer engagement. Sitting at the intersection of human customer service and financial technology, financial advisors are no strangers to this paradoxical behavior. But because of their proximity to the issue, advisors also understand that neither purely human nor purely digital financial advice is the answer; polarizing these responses will, ultimately, end up helping no one. According to a survey of U.S. social media users, nearly 70% of respondents used social media for an additional 1 to 2 hours per day during the past year, with nearly 20% spending more than 3 hours per day per usual on social media.And if there’s one trend surely accelerated by the pandemic, it’s consuming video content: by 2022, online videos are expected to make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017.
Video is key
Given the central role it plays in our lives, it’s no surprise that video has become integral to marketing, even more so now. In fact, 91% of marketers feel video is more important for brands in light of the pandemic. So finding a way to stand out from what is shaping up to be an increasingly popular marketing strategy is paramount, and for good reason.When 88% of video marketers report that video gives them a positive ROI, brands need to leverage tools to create more engaging and memorable customer experiences.There is no doubt that investing in a solid video marketing strategy can be lucrative – but how do we take video to the next level? One of the most effective ways of separating yourself from the pile-on of marketers scrambling to use video is to engage customers through personalized, interactive videos.
Talk to me
The founding premise of our entire economy is that consumers will pursue goals that fulfill their individual needs. This is no less true when it comes to deciding what kind of content someone will watch and what they find engaging – simply, people will watch what they feel benefits their interests. Any marketer can make a generic video that appeals to a broad set of wants, needs, and desires, but the power of personalized content is that it specifically zooms in on each viewer’s individual interests and needs, immediately grabbing their attention. This is even more true when you add interactive elements into the mix, effectively inviting the customer to “write” their own story. Here’s a simple example: By having the viewer input information like their name, a video will be not only be personalized in real-time, but this interactivity immediately increases engagement. They are now invested in the story of their own video. Capturing a customer’s attention by directly speaking to them and using their name is just the tip of the iceberg. By integrating personalized video with your CRM database, you can also capture other rich, added-value data such as their geographic region, industry, account information, tendencies, and shopping patterns. Leveraging this information, you can create increasingly personalized experiences specific to each audience member and continually refine your CRM strategy.Put customers in the driver’s seat
When customers engage with interactive personalized content, they feel the content is made just for them. It is the story of their needs being told back to them in an engaging manner. With no extraneous or irrelevant content that isn’t related to them, they get everything they are looking for in one short video. This is an empowering feeling, imparting to customers a sense of comfort – their needs are being taken seriously – and control – the information is specifically about them, from which they can make informed decisions about their own interests. When customers are forced to sift and scroll through endless amounts of information just to find content that pertains to them, they feel at a loss as to how to satisfy their interests. At this stage of their journey, marketing efforts that leave consumers feeling disempowered will likely fail – customers will look for a competitor who can provide faster and more convenient answers and solutions to their needs. Putting them comfortably in the driver’s seat, personalized video gives them all the information they need to feel secure about their choices.On the journey, together
Let’s say your engaging, personalized video was responsible for signing up a customer. Congratulations! But now what? At this point, it’s important to maintain that level of personalization throughout the customer journey and when trying to increase customer engagement.The goal is to be able to continually respond to a customer’s evolving needs and build a lasting relationship with them.And the longer a customer is with you, the more data you will be able to leverage, the better you’re able to understand the customer at all the various points in your relationship. Because you can tailor your video based on emerging data, personalized video can be used at any stage of the journey to boost customer engagement, where you can nurture the relationship through all manner of informative interactions, be it renewals, special offers, or shifting needs. By attending to their unique circumstances and where they are in their purchasing decision, customers will feel taken care of along the way.