The Engagement Enigma: Reaching Customers Who Ditch Your Emails With Video And Personalization

Today’s marketing and customer experience (CX) landscape is a battlefield. You craft compelling campaigns, personalize emails, and target the right contact list.

Yet, a nagging question persists: why aren’t customers visiting your site engaging with your messages? You know when they engage simply because they take the action or step that aligns with your business goals.

But, again, this is not happening.

Why?

There are many reasons.

One important factor is the digital channels businesses use to communicate with their audience.

Email is the primary method for businesses to communicate with customers. However, most emails are ignored and only 1% are clicked when opened.

The culprit?

Our inboxes are overflowing with irrelevant content. Emails get buried, unread, and forgotten.

But this doesn’t affect every contact. And many customers directly visit your website even if they didn’t open an email campaign.

Your customers still aren’t taking the action you want them to. Whether it’s, for example, activating a specific product feature or renewing an insurance policy.

This disconnect between your marketing efforts and customers taking the desired action can lead to missed opportunities, customer frustration, and ultimately, lost revenue.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Video Can Enhance Your Landing Pages But It’s Not Enough

How can you effectively connect with customers who visit your website but show no interest in engaging with your emails? What if you could not only capture their attention, but also inspire them to take action?

Yes, you should focus on improving your email subject lines and email content. Also, it’s important to engage your audience before sending important messages.

This is, hopefully, a given. But, there is more.

Adding video to a landing page can increase conversions by up to 86%. Why? Video content is more appealing and easier to understand than written content.

Also, videos create an emotional connection with audiences, leading to increased attention compared to text. CX professionals prefer using video because it enables them to effectively explain complex information by engaging more senses.

Check out this video for insights on strategically creating videos for better CX:

However, just adding a video to a customer-gated page or even to a landing page is not enough to improve the conversion rate.

One of the reasons for using video in landing pages is to improve the overall experience for visitors, and video, as a content type, is just one part of that.

As I often remind our Clients at Pirsonal:

Context is key, and there is no better context than that which comes from every contact.

And, if you noticed, I’m not talking about “web visitors” but about contacts. People who are already in your CRM, marketing automation software, email tool, or even spreadsheets.

As they are customers, you already have some details to personalize their experience, even with video. This is what personalized videos help you do.

What’s a Personalized Video?

Personalized videos are not just slapping someone’s name on a generic video, which is a good first step.

For us at Pirsonal, variable data videos are powerful marketing and CX tools that dynamically adapt their content based on the individual viewer’s context.

Here is an example of a variable data video, making a pension statement easier to understand:

This context usually comes from CRM data, creativity, and the viewer’s persona.

With Pirsonal’s personalized video software, this personalization goes beyond simply adding a name. It allows you to automatically create videos where every element, from images, video clips, audio narration, and text overlays, can be tailored for each recipient.

Personalized Video Template Content

Imagine a motion graphics video, a popular format for businesses. This video style uses animation and visual effects to convey information compellingly.

With Pirsonal, you can make dynamic animated videos that explain your product or service based on the context of a specific customer—no more generic content.

For example, watch the following animated video that explains a mortgage forbearance process through personalization:

And this is not just text overlays or voice-over personalization.

  • Images: Showcase product images specific to the viewer’s browsing history or purchase behavior.
  • Video Clips: Incorporate personalized video testimonials from customers with similar demographics to the viewer.
  • Audio Narration: The voiceover script could dynamically adjust based on the viewer’s location, industry or desired next step, ensuring the message is relevant and resonates.
  • Text Overlays: Highlight key features or benefits that align with the viewer’s specific needs.

This level of personalization creates a truly unique and engaging experience.

Pirsonal allows you to automate the creation of these personalized videos in bulk or based on events (also called triggers) from your CRM data, spreadsheets, or any marketing automation workflow, including webforms so that you can increase customer engagement.

Why Customers Love Video and Personalization

Learning from videos is easier than from texts because multimedia environments make it easier to process information. Even when comparing personalized text with personalized videos, it has been found that data-driven videos are more effective at engaging with viewers as shown in the following graph.

Graph showing the results of research that compared personalized text with personalized videos and found personalized videos to be more effective at engaging with viewers

Personalized text Vs. Personalized Video

Yes, this sounds academic.

But the point is, video is a better way to communicate critical information with your customers.

It’s critical because your organization needs more engaged customers and because your customers demand a better experience.

And with most customers distracted by everyday noise, they are looking for easier ways to explore, learn, and engage.

This is why videos are such a powerful marketing tool. They capture attention, improve information retention, and create a stronger emotional connection with viewers.

But personalization takes video engagement to a whole new level.

Customers feel valued and find it easier to understand complex information when they watch a video that directly addresses their needs and interests.

This fosters trust, creates a sense of connection, and ultimately drives action.

Beyond Email: How Personalized Videos Can Boost Website Conversions

But wait. Most businesses contact customers by email. Therefore, most personalized videos are sent to customers by email. How can you adjust your email approach to reach customers who don’t open emails?

To gain a comprehensive insight into this subject, I invite you to watch this on-demand webinar in which I explore a range of alternative channels for delivering personalized videos to customers to increase engagement.

As mentioned, many customers do not interact with commercial emails as much as businesses hope. However, there are various ways that your organization can engage with customers beyond email, without neglecting email altogether.

Normally, viewers play their personalized videos from the attention-driven video landing pages our tool Pirsonal Pages automatically creates.

These are also personalized landing pages to boost viewer engagement and prompt them to play the video.

Take, for instance, the following year-in-review personalized video for an energy utility company:

Instead of uploading the dynamic video to one-to-many video platforms like YouTube and distracting customers, most of our Clients use the personalized landing pages our video personalization software creates.

Here is a screenshot showing a landing page with a data-driven video made for “Tom”:

Screenshot of a personalized landing page automatically made with Pirsonal Pages

Personalized landing page and video made with Pirsonal’s software

Businesses add the links to the video landing pages to their emails in different forms, including hyperlinks and buttons.

These landing pages embed Pirsonal Player, our interactive video player for personalization. The links to these landing pages are often sent to customers by email.

But, if “Tom” can’t open the email with the personalized year-in-review video, he can still see it in his utility company’s customer dashboard where he can access his invoice and other important information.

Here is an example, although in this case, I’m displaying the video on our very own site:

Screenshot of personalized videos with Pirsonal Widget

Screenshot of Personalized Video on a Website

Want to give it a try? Imagine you are “Tom” for a moment and request a while you’re there.

Or you can embed Pirsonal Player to show the personalized interactive video on your site. Here is an example:

This is possible thanks to the flexibility Pirsonal provides.

As you can see, there are different ways you can share personalized videos with customers.

What matters is making sure you boost engagement by improving their experience, no matter how they interact with you.

For example, if you communicate with customers through WhatsApp, you could consider sending the video file (MP4, WebM, OGG, etc.) as an attachment because Pirsonal renders real video files at scale.

Here is a screenshot with the same video shared above:

Video attachment in WhatsApp

Video attachment in WhatsApp

You can even send a message with the link and enriched metadata, which you can also personalize with Pirsonal. Here is a screenshot:

Screenshot of a WhatsApp message with a personalized video link by Pirsonal

Screenshot of a WhatsApp message with a personalized video link by Pirsonal

This powerful combination unlocks a world of benefits beyond email, fostering deeper connections and driving action, no matter how you engage your audience.

Conclusion: Engaging the Future of Customer Communication

The digital landscape is evolving. Customers are increasingly tech-savvy and demand personalized experiences. Pirsonal equips you with the tools to meet those demands, no matter how you interact with customers.

76% of people get frustrated at brands that don't deliver personalized interactions

The majority of people dislike one-to-many marketing

By harnessing the power of personalized video with Pirsonal’s personalized video software, you can transform your website into an interactive hub, fostering deeper connections with customers, driving engagement, and ultimately, achieving your business goals.

Ready to unlock the potential of personalized video for better customer experience? Request a free demo of Pirsonal today and discover a new era of customer engagement!

Screenshot of year-in-review personalized videoPersonalization in internal comms