If you’re a marketer, how well are you personalizing your digital experiences and attaining your video engagement goals? The question is debatable because the answer depends on one’s perspective. A brand may believe it is executing personalization effectively, but in truth, the opinion of the brand’s customers carries greater resonance.
SundaySky’s new study, the Personalization x Video Index (PVI), quantifies the personalization and video efforts of Fortune 500 companies according to customer feedback, offering key insights into the relationship between personalization, video experiences, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.
Using criteria from Forrester Research analyst Andrew Hogan’s report Pivot To Person-First Personalization — that demonstrate personalization efforts are informative, relevant and helpful, and signal customer value — and SundaySky’s own best practices for video, the PVI identifies the top 60 brands deploying personalization and video across six industry verticals (retail, travel, healthcare, telecommunications, insurance, and financial services). Over a three-month span, customers from these brands, age 18+ and residing in the United States, were asked to rate their overall experience with the brand and evaluate the brand’s attempts at personalization or video on a 0-to-10 scale.
Results from the PVI confirm the importance of branded, digital video and personalization.
The findings indicate each strategy provides value to consumers and improves customer satisfaction, while the convergence of both initiatives — in the form of personalized video — lifts consumers’ satisfaction with brand efforts. For instance, more than 70% of the brands that were ranked in the top 10 for either personalization or video by their customers, such as Bank Of America, United Healthcare, Target, and Verizon, use personalized video.
Financial services and travel industries ranked the highest, for personalization and video, respectively.
When measured by industry, the PVI reveals financial services brands scored the highest for personalization, likely due to a seamless personalization of the banking experience for customers across multiple channels. Though, there is a ripe opportunity for financial services and retail banks to add more digital video into their marketing and advertising efforts, as many firms still ignore the effectiveness of the medium. “Online video can serve digital business strategy professionals by increasing brand awareness, educating customers about products and services, and helping with lead generation, cross-selling, and upselling,” writes Nick Barber, Forrester analyst, in his April 2019 report Financial Services Firms Should Weave Online Video Into Every Customer Journey. “Specifically, video can… encourage customers to buy, … increase [their] satisfaction, [and] connect with [them] on an emotional level.”
“Online video can serve digital business strategy professionals by increasing brand awareness, educating customers about products and services, and helping with lead generation, cross-selling, and upselling,” writes Nick Barber, Forrester analyst, in his April 2019 report Financial Services Firms Should Weave Online Video Into Every Customer Journey. “Specifically, video can… encourage customers to buy, … increase [their] satisfaction, [and] connect with [them] on an emotional level.”
Meanwhile, the travel industry rated the highest for video, given the large amount of footage travel brands utilize from destinations, activities, properties and other visual content.
According to SundaySky CEO Jim Dicso, the PVI report confirms the need for brands to find innovative ways of connecting with customers on a one-to-one level. “Consumers have access to unprecedented amounts of information and options, and as new entrants compete for their attention, brands need to compete on a dimension of customer experience where each experience is personal, valuable and emotionally engaging to each person,” he said.