Personalized Video Marketing: How to Improve Your E-Commerce Business with Video Personalization
Have you ever wondered why some e-commerce businesses thrive while others struggle to engage customers?
Consumers today crave more than just being a number on your profit chart. They want to be valued as unique individuals and will explore other options if they feel you’re neglecting them.
A study by Harvard Business Review found that customers with the best experiences spend 140% more than those with the worst experiences.
One effective method to deliver an exceptional customer experience is personalization.
Since video is currently the most popular form of content marketing, a smart thing to do is to integrate it into your personalization strategies.
Keep reading to understand personalized video marketing, its significance, and how to incorporate personalized videos into your marketing strategy.
What is Personalized Video?
A personalized video is tailored specifically for a specific individual, often resembling a pre-recorded conversation designed just for them.
True personalization goes beyond just inserting the person’s name at the start of the video or on the video thumbnail. While using someone’s name is a basic form of personalization, it’s not enough.
A genuinely personalized video should address the unique interests and needs of the viewer directly.
For a video to be truly personalized, it must be clear that the content is exclusively intended for the recipient. It isn’t truly personalized if you can copy and paste the video for another client.
What is Personalized Video Marketing?
Personalized video marketing uses customer data to create tailored video content that speaks directly to a consumer’s specific interests, behaviors, or preferences.
This strategy involves either customizing videos for different audience segments or fully personalizing content for individual consumers, providing a unique message for each person.
These personalized experiences can include using the consumer’s name, referencing past purchases, recommending products, acknowledging membership status, or incorporating any other relevant variable related to the consumer’s relationship with the brand.
This approach builds stronger connections with consumers, thereby encouraging continued engagement and purchases from your brand.
Why is Personalization Important for Customer Experience?
E-commerce is booming, with immediacy and convenience taking precedence over elaborate product displays or in-store experiences.
Approximately 50% of Gen Z and millennials, who are collectively responsible for around $350 billion in spending power in the U.S. alone, prefer online shopping because it makes it easy to compare prices and brands.
While this trend benefits consumers, it presents new challenges for brands, which must become more inventive in capturing customer attention and earning trust.
This is where personalization can provide a competitive advantage.
Sales and marketing revolve around psychology, and a fundamental aspect of human psychology is our love for being the center of attention. We enjoy talking about ourselves and hearing about things that pertain to us.
Personalization allows you to leverage this by engaging your customers with content that is specifically tailored to them. A personalized customer experience is a powerful strategy for building a loyal customer base, and here’s why:
- 91% of customers prefer to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide personalized and relevant offers and recommendations.
- 81% of consumers are willing to share some personal information in exchange for a personalized experience, with 28% of them being “extremely willing” to do so.
- 80% of customers are more likely to buy when offered a personalized experience.
- More than 50% of consumers and 65% of business buyers are ready to switch brands if they don’t receive personalized attention.
These preferences for personalization highlight its significant impact on the customer journey. Personalization can positively influence all stages, from reducing customer acquisition costs by 50% to increasing brand loyalty and boosting revenue by 5% to 15%.
Examples of Personalized Video Marketing Strategies
Here are some examples of videos you can use for your personalized video marketing campaign:
Upsells and Crossells
Upselling is a sales strategy where a seller encourages customers to buy higher-priced items, upgrades, or additional add-ons to increase the overall sale value.
One effective method is using personalized videos to suggest similar products and services that enhance the customer’s experience.
For example, a personalized video can mention the customer’s name and their recent purchase, followed by an introduction to a second product they might find interesting.
A link is included in the video, allowing the customer to easily view and buy the product—often with the incentive of free shipping within a certain time frame.
Explainer Videos
Explainer videos offer customers an easy way to learn about your products, services, and brand.
These videos offer a visual, step-by-step guide, demonstrating how to use your products correctly and highlighting the benefits of your products.
Consider implementing a personalized explainer video popup that greets users by name and guides them through each new feature as they explore the product.
Abandoned Cart Reminders
Cart abandonment occurs when customers place items in their online shopping cart but leave the website without completing the purchase.
This can be a result of several factors, including the requirement to create an account, a complicated checkout process, or unexpected costs.
You can avoid cart abandonment by automatically sending personalized videos that remind and encourage customers to complete their orders.
Tips for Adding Personalized Videos to Your Customer Journey
Now that you know what personalized video marketing is and the role it plays in increasing your sales, let’s consider how you can incorporate it into your customer journey:
Collect Customer Data
To effectively collect customer data for personalized video marketing, use online tools to monitor how customers engage with your store and videos.
If you have access to analytics and insights software, make the most of it. Use this software to gather valuable information on customer preferences, past purchases, search history, and items left in shopping carts.
You can also ask customers to share their interests and preferences. They can do this by signing up for newsletters or creating accounts on your online store.
In addition, ask customers to complete surveys post-purchase or participate in quizzes. This will help you gain a deeper understanding of their likes and dislikes regarding your products.
Choose the Part of Your Customer Journey You Want to Personalize
Where and when you engage with your customers throughout their journey can significantly impact their purchasing decisions, whether it prompts them to make a purchase, explore further offerings, or potentially abstain from buying altogether.
Here are the different stages of the customer journey:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
- Retention
- Advocacy
- Expansion
While you have the opportunity to personalize each phase of the customer journey, it’s important to recognize that your approach to personalization will vary depending on whether a customer is in the awareness stage or the retention stage.
For instance, consider a scenario where a product explainer video appears when a customer is browsing, aimed at influencing their decision-making process. This intervention would occur during the consideration phase of the customer journey, where they are actively seeking information about your product or service.
By providing customers with insight into what your product offers and how they can benefit from it beforehand, you increase the likelihood of them making a purchase.
Create Your Personalized Video
Use a personalized video platform to record and send your personalized video messages. The software must be scalable so that you can easily send out numerous personalized videos as required.
Determine What to Personalize
Choose which variables and elements should be personalized apart from the customer’s name.
In this case, you must consider factors like age, location, date, images, purchase history, and background.
The opportunities are not limited to this list, depending on the platform you use for creating your personalized video.
Explore options to embed calls-to-action (CTAs) and links, generate personalized preview thumbnails for various channels, use white-label URLs, incorporate logos, and much more.
Share Your Personalized Videos
A common method that is used for sharing personalized videos is through email.
Incorporating videos into your emails can boost your click rates, often by 200% to 300%.
When you embed a short video within an email, customers are more likely to click and engage with your content. Use this strategy to showcase your products effectively.
In addition, consider sharing personalized video content via reputable social media platforms such as LinkedIn.
Rather than sending a conventional cold email, why not try a “cold video”? These personalized videos help build relationships with potential leads since recipients will see and hear you directly addressing them.
Take Your E-Commerce Business to the Next Level
As we’ve discussed, video personalization is a powerful tool for e-commerce businesses that want to boost sales. However, implementing this strategy comes with its challenges, especially when you need to manage and deliver high-quality video content without compromising on performance.
This is where SpeedSize’s AI media optimization technology comes in.
SpeedSize reduces video size by up to 99% while maintaining quality and loading videos by up to 10X faster.
Here’s how our platform can enhance your video personalization efforts:
Reduced Video Load Times
SpeedSize’s advanced AI algorithms compress video files without sacrificing quality. This means your personalized videos load faster, providing a smooth and engaging user experience that keeps customers on your site longer.
Improved Website Performance
By optimizing video sizes, SpeedSize helps reduce the overall load on your website. This leads to quicker page load times, which is important for higher conversion rates.
Scalability
Whether you’re personalizing videos for hundreds or millions of users, our platform scales effortlessly to meet your needs. This ensures consistent performance and quality, regardless of the volume of personalized content being delivered.
Cost Efficiency
SpeedSize helps you save on CDN costs by reducing the size of your video files. This allows you to invest more in other business areas to drive growth.
Don’t let large video files slow down your website and hinder your sales potential. Try our AI media optimization platform today and see the difference it can make in your e-commerce strategy.
Ready to optimize your videos and enhance your customer experience? Sign up for a free AI audit.
