Right now we see a world where inboxes are jammed with promos, offers, and pitches.
Data from ReturnPath and Twilio are showing email open and engagement rates have been sliding as automation continues to rise.
Sales teams that simply send more emails or make more calls into the void aren’t going to end up on top.
In contrast, companies that personalize customer interaction with their brand are most likely to win in this new economy and create customer evangelism.
A report from Search Engine Journal noted, “Personalization is one of the most impactful ways to make your company stand out and accelerate conversion rates.”
One medium to authentically connect with your audience is through video. Personal video tools like Bonjoro allow sales agents to easily record a video from their phones and send it off to a prospect.
Unlike text, videos have body language, facial expressions, and tone to create a more memorable message.
In a recent study from Doxee, “The average user retains 95% of the messages in a video; when it comes to text, this percentage drops to 10%”. Stats like that make it easy to see the impact video can have in creating a high converting and memorable experience for a prospect.
A report from Epsilon research further drives the point home saying that consumers are 80% more likely to make a purchase when brands offer a personalized experience.
More importantly, because it’s not automated, these messages almost always make it to your prospects inbox versus their promotions or spam folders. As a sales rep, there is nothing more frustrating than spending time on an email just to have nobody even look at it.
With sales teams, one of the biggest hurdles we face is building customer trust.
Unfortunately, with just text-based emails, a lot is left lacking. Just like body language and tone can help make a video more memorable, they also can help make a sales rep more relatable.
There are natural biases against sales that exist in our culture and it’s easy to disconnect that electronic correspondence from the human on the other end. But when we use video, we relate to people in a way that breaks down some of those walls.
The differences in results are notable.
According to Harvard Business Review, in one study with insurance activations, personalized videos were found to double the activation rate, with 8.2% signing into their retirement accounts.
As technology gets better (like the spread of 5G), personal video becomes more and more ubiquitous. When composing an email, sellers should have the ability to either shoot out a quick text-based message or a quick video – whichever is more convenient for the situation.
Sales teams that utilize new technologies that allow them to stand out in their customer’s inboxes will rise above the rest.
It’s like the famous marketing guru Seth Godin said, in his book Purple Cow, “in order to get your product or service to stand out in the market and be immediately noticeable, you need to make it a purple cow, or wholly different and eye-catching.”
According to Venture Beat, “We found nearly one in ten consumers has over 1,000 unread emails”.
This is at the heart of why personal video is generating eye-opening results for sales teams. Simply put, it stands out and is unique.
Sales teams that employ technology that helps them build relationships, establish trust, and set themselves apart from their competitors will ultimately be the sales teams that win long-term.