It is estimated that in 2021, the average person watches more than 100 minutes of online video every day.(1) The vast bulk of this video consumption, says Maury Rogow, CMO of TheVideoBot and the CEO of Hollywood’s Rip Media Group, is marketing content. Big-budget marketers are trying to out-shout each other, Rogow says, which does not work. It particularly fails to work, he notes, in the business-to-business sector, where the marketing targets are professionals already being bombarded by cold calls.

Rather than ramping up the volume, Rogow suggests that ROI-conscious B2B marketers combine microtargeting with personalized video. “The object,” he says, “is to reach a given person with a given message. A personalized video message is currently the best and most cost-effective way to do that.”

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Users of this new technology, says Rogow, report that it is significantly more effective than conventional email campaigns. According to Rogow, a recent user in the apparel industry, for example, sent personalized messages to an aging and unproductive prospect email list and had a 400% response increase and four new sales. A B2B company in the service industry reported a more than 300% increase in both reply rates and actionable leads. A nonprofit female empowerment group that sent out 20,000 personalized videos reported a 400% increase in engagement. “These results,” says Rogow, “make it clear that personalized video can turn cold data into hot new prospects.”

According to Rogow, the key to a video’s effectiveness is its specificity. One can choose the outgoing message according to the recipient’s stats (job function, area of specialization, etc.) and positions the messaging to set up the next contact level: order placement, a scheduled appointment, a website demo page, whatever the desired action might be. The platform personalizes content in the same way for each recipient on the merchant’s prospect email list. “It’s sending the right video at the right time to the right customer,” he adds.

“Any opportunity to turn your cold data list into a hot lead list is something every marketer, whether B2B or B2C, should jump at. Taking top-of-funnel leads all the way to a closed deal with the use of personalized video also goes a long way to establish loyalty amongst your base and beyond,” says Rogow. “Not to mention, it allows SMBs and SMEs to do the same thing the larger companies are doing—and with the same results—for a fraction of the price.”

Using a personalized video solution, he adds, is both reasonably inexpensive—current subscription rates run about $40 per month, or $300 per year—and it’s very easy to operate. “It doesn’t require significant training,” he says, “and it takes about 20 seconds. Just insert text, customer logo, name, and you’re done.”

By combining microtargeting—aiming a very audience-specific message at a preselected recipient—a personalized video message enables smaller firms to realize a highly significant return on a low investment. “Particularly in the B2B space,” says Rogow, “companies struggle to get bigger without going broke in the process.”

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