From a confectionery brand like Cadbury to gaming giant Ubisoft, countless brands have been leveraging the power of Personalized Video. The combination of personalization and video means your message is perfectly tailored to each individual while maximizing visual engagement.
But no matter how amazing a dynamic video is, it’s only effective when it reaches its intended audience. To get eyes and clicks on a video — and achieve a positive ROI — brands need to know exactly where to share it to get great results.
So we’ve broken it down for you. Here are the top 6 places to share Personalized Videos.
1. You Can’t Go Wrong With Email
In a world where new tech innovations seem to pop up daily, the long-lasting relevance of email is proof of how effective it is as a communication tool. About half a century after its invention, there are a whopping 4 billion email users worldwide, with nearly 320 million emails sent and received each day.
Put simply, people overwhelmingly still use email. According to an Adobe study, U.S. consumers spent a staggering 352 minutes (nearly 6 hours) checking work and personal email each weekday.
So it’s no surprise that sending Personalized Videos via email has been the top distribution channel among our clients. Here’s one we love from one of the insurance companies we work with, distributed via email to policyholders.
Video email marketing allows brands to reach their customers through one of their preferred modes of communication while helping them stand out in a cluttered inbox. Among hundreds of text and static images, a video catches customers’ attention — especially when it’s customized just for them.
Tip: Embed a Personalized Video in email by using a clickable thumbnail with the customer’s name on it! The personalized detail is eye-catching and makes the viewer more likely to click to watch.
Read our guide for more tips about how to embed video in email.
2. There’s An App For That
Another great place to share Personalized Videos is in app.
Sometimes it seems like every brand has an app, from your local store to your bank. Most of these branded apps aim to offer customers mobile-optimized, personalized experiences. Sometimes the data collected is as simple as a user’s name and birthday. Other times it can include location, activity history or even wellness data, as in the case of health and fitness apps.
If your own brand has an app for your customers, you can upgrade the experience by adding video. The insights you already have on your users can enrich the video, making it much more relevant and shareable than a text pop-up. From sending year-in-review recaps to exclusive offers, the possibilities are endless.
Tip: Just because you distribute your video via app, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t promote it on other channels. In the example Personalized Video above from Playtika, they promoted their video via email and push notifications.
3. Upgrade Your Website With Evergreen Video
Adding video to websites has long been an effective strategy to keep visitors engaged and drive them towards the desired action. Traditionally, because of limited capabilities, these videos were big investments that could quickly become out of date. To increase their longevity, they tended to focus on brand awareness or more general topics.
Today, new technology has allowed us to leave those restraints behind. Say goodbye to generic, static videos and hello to videos that update in real time. Called Living Video, this revolutionary video format evolves and updates based on context and user input — so one video can have infinite variations.
Living Video can draw from live data, which includes first- and third-party data feeds like product inventory or even local weather. This means that a single video on your site can instantly reflect changing data.
For example, a dynamic product reel can update based on what products are in stock or a promotional deal can change depending on the time of day. And you can make the videos interactive and customizable, allowing users to input their own data or click to convert.
The video can sit worry-free on your site while changing dynamically based on how your visitors interact with it. Like the car payment calculator below, these features can provide customized information to your visitors and encourage them to take action.
What other kinds of personalized content should you include on your website? Quizzes, cost estimators, promotions, help content and product offerings are just a few ideas.
4. Share Video Through SMS and MMS
Did you know that in the United States alone, 2.2 trillion SMS or MMS messages are sent by mobile users each year? If you want to reach your customers where they are — on their mobile devices — sending messages is an effective way to do it.
Since SMS is limited to text, you should share your video as a link to a video landing page. With MMS, you can include the Personalized Video as part of a 1:1 conversation with your customer.
As an example, a university could send acceptance messages to admitted students to reach a Gen Z audience, along with resources on the next steps for starting their college career.
Why integrate Personalized Video with messaging? It allows you to start the relationship off the right way: personal and welcoming right from the very beginning.
5. Use Social Media To Promote Your Video
According to HubSpot’s latest report, video is the top content marketing strategy while social media is the top marketing channel. And 73% of people want to see more entertaining videos on social media. Consumers are spending hours a day watching online videos, so it’s smart for brands to get in on the action.
You can promote your data-driven video on social media in two main ways:
- Tell your customers they’ll be receiving a special video just for them.
- Encourage your customers to share their video on social media.
Take Zynga’s Words With Friends campaign, for instance. These Personalized Videos identified each player’s word style based on their gameplay. The videos were sent out with the goal of reconnecting with disengaged players.
Check it out below
With fun titles like “Rockstar”, “Word Nerd” and “Social Butterfly”, the videos successfully reengaged players while also encouraging them to share their results with friends on social media.
You think you can beat me? GAME ON! 😎 | Check out my @wordswfriends #WordStyle! https://t.co/BnSYgFnWu7
— Michelle McGonagle (@micheliente) March 16, 2020
Plus, the players genuinely appreciated the personalized gift and expressed a greater appreciation for the game. Including a hashtag made it easier for Zynga to track mentions online.
Thanks for compiling my personalized #WordStyle https://t.co/6WgtWFThZx
— Martha Gray-Heffner (@MightyMartha7x) March 9, 2020
We’ve seen success with similar personalized year-in-review videos across industries, from telecommunications to travel and even utilities.
Another option is to leverage Living Video and add in-player customization. By giving customers the option to customize a video for themselves, the resulting UGC (user-generated content) could be posted and lead to even more social sharing.
6. Dynamic Ads
Finally, dynamic videos tailored to a range of customer demographics can be a powerful advertising tool.
Where do you share these? Anywhere you can do video ads. Facebook and Instagram offer a direct integration with Dynamic Video Ads so you can leverage their storehouse of data to create thousands of variations of your video, one for each segment. But you can also take these videos and use them elsewhere — on YouTube where people watch more than a billion hours a day or as part of your display advertising strategy.
But wait, are these videos personalized?
You’re right to ask. Dynamic ads aren’t personalized. They’re hyper-targeted to prospective customers, but they won’t address those individuals by name. (That would be creepy.) Instead, the video varies based on the viewers’ demographic and behavioral data as provided by the social platform, in this case, Facebook and Instagram.
See an example from trivago below.
The Ultimate Way To Share Videos? Omnichannel and On Demand
It’s critical to meet your customers where they are. They’re omnichannel, moving from device to device, from social media to email and more, within the same day, in the same hour. They won’t necessarily see your video when you send it. They might get that notification the next day or the next week. By making sure your videos update in real time and always have the latest data, you’ll make the most of your personalization efforts.
No matter where you’re looking to share your video, Idomoo has the tools you need to make it happen. Our Next Generation Video Platform is purpose-built to take brands from creation to distribution for millions of Personalized Videos.
Want to learn more? Schedule a call to discover how we can help you create and share engaging, data-driven videos by clicking the button below.
