How to Create a Personalized Interactive Video
Today's consumers love two things: watching videos (yep, we're talking TikTok) and feeling like a VIP. The best of both worlds is personalized interactive video, as video content tailored to each viewer makes them feel appreciated and creates a deeper connection between brands and consumers. Essentially, you can use this strategy to roll out the red carpet for every single user—no matter how many thousands (or millions!) of users you have.
According to recent studies, 71% of customers want businesses to provide personalized experiences—and 76% are frustrated when they don't get them. Brands that successfully leverage personalized interactive video give customers a unique experience that encourages conversions, elevates customer touchpoints, and, crucially, boosts brand loyalty.
How does a personalized interactive video work?
A personalized interactive video dynamically adapts its content to each viewer's data and actions in real time, offering a unique, tailored experience. Unlike traditional videos, which are pre-rendered, these videos are generated on the viewer's device through edge computing or cloud-based platforms.
The video pulls live data and adjusts dynamically, ensuring the content stays relevant and engaging throughout the experience. Real-time updates—such as changes in loyalty points or account activity—allow for more personalized interaction.
CRM Integrations and PURLs
This process is facilitated through CRM integrations, which generate a personalized URL (PURL) for each user. The PURL directs the viewer to a custom video experience tailored to their specific preferences and data, delivering a seamless and responsive video that evolves with the user's current context.
Interactive Capabilities
Interactive capabilities further enhance the viewer experience by enabling actions within the video, such as making purchases, completing forms, or selecting specific topics. For example, a viewer might receive a personalized video displaying a special offer or interact with options to learn more and complete the purchase, all within the same video.
Compared to linear videos, where viewers can only press play or pause, personalized interactive videos empower viewers to control their journey, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. Allowing users to interact dynamically (such as by clicking on CTAs or filling out forms) encourages immediate actions that improve retention and conversion.
Who are personalized interactive videos for?
Industries like food and beverage, online gaming, travel and hospitality, and automotive are leveraging this technology to enhance loyalty programs, streamline onboarding, and boost customer retention. The main advantage is real-time adaptation, providing a seamless, personalized experience that drives customer engagement across multiple touchpoints.
How Personalized Interactive Videos Improve the Customer Experience
Increased Conversions
These videos enable users to engage directly with content, such as browsing products or making purchases within the video itself. Integrating elements like clickable CTAs helps guide customers through the sales funnel, encouraging immediate action and boosting conversion rates.
Longer Viewing Times
Personalized interactive videos strengthen emotional connections by creating a two-way communication experience with viewers. The interactive elements, like clickable buttons or quizzes, allow viewers to actively participate in the video, which enhances engagement.
Higher Customer Engagement
These videos meet customers' expectations of personalization by delivering tailored, relevant experiences that make users feel understood and valued. Features like clickable CTAs, surveys, or product recommendations let viewers actively engage with the content to shape their journey, increasing brand awareness and customer engagement.
3 Awesome Use Cases for a Personalized Interactive Video
1. Loyalty Programs
Personalized interactive videos can encourage your members to use the points or tokens they have accumulated. This strategy boosts engagement, makes customers feel more connected to the brand, and drives higher redemption rates.
Example:
You can send the user a personalized SMS inviting them to use their loyalty points before they expire. Then, the user can click the link in the SMS and get redirected to the video landing page. The video might display personalized elements like the user's name, previously purchased products, and number of loyalty points. You could also add a CTA that incentivizes the user to redeem the points directly through the video—for example, ‘Redeem Now.'
2. User Retention
To increase user retention for events, such as webinars or live concerts, you could create a personalized interactive video helping ticket holders stay engaged during pre-event journeys.
Example:
An entertainment company could send a video to VIP ticket holder fans with a live countdown to an upcoming concert. You could add an interactive element to boost engagement, such as a CTA that invites ticket holders to share their excitement for attending the show on social media.
3. User Onboarding
A personalized interactive video can improve the user onboarding process's success and completion rates by incentivizing users to complete actions like payment, registration, or booking a meeting. It reduces drop-off rates and ensures the onboarding process is completed successfully, leading to higher customer satisfaction and long-term retention.
Example:
To fix a leaky e-commerce sales funnel where visitors aren't completing the desired registration, you could send a video via a personalized thumbnail within an email with a subject line like "Hi James, Cool Company made this video just for you." This personalized video could redirect the user to a short form on your e-commerce website to finalize their registration process.
6 Tips for Creating a Personalized Interactive Video
1. Define Your Goals
Start by identifying your main KPI, such as increasing conversions, improving engagement, or driving leads. Once you've established the objective, structure the script and interactive elements to work toward this goal.
For example, if you aim to drive sales, focus on CTAs that guide the viewer to a purchase decision. Or, if the target is to increase customer retention, use interactive surveys within the video to gather feedback and build engagement. Defining your goals from the start ensures that every creative decision aligns with your desired outcomes, making your video purposeful and results-driven.
2. Consider Your Target Audience
Understanding your video's audience is critical. Analyze their demographics, preferences, and pain points to consider what will resonate with them, whether it's educational content, entertainment, or problem-solving. Knowing your audience helps you tailor the messaging, visuals, and interactivity.
For instance, if your audience values time-saving solutions, you can emphasize features like one-click purchasing. Personalizing content based on user data, like purchase history or location, makes the video feel customized and relevant, which increases engagement and satisfaction.
3. Plan the Interactivity
Interactivity is the core of personalized videos, and planning it effectively can elevate the viewer's experience. Consider incorporating features like clickable buttons, video forms, or decision points that allow viewers to choose their journey.
For example, you can enable users to select specific products to explore or complete forms within the video. Interactive elements keep viewers engaged and give them control, making the video feel like a custom experience. This level of interactivity can significantly enhance the viewer's connection to the content, driving conversions.
4. Use A/B Tests
A/B testing helps you fine-tune your video strategy by experimenting with different video formats, lengths, and interactive elements. Testing variables such as CTA placement or the level of personalization allows you to discover what resonates most with your audience.
Through testing, you may find that placing a CTA earlier in the video drives higher conversions. Remember, A/B testing is a continuous process that helps you optimize performance. Effective testing ensures your videos constantly evolve and adapt to audience preferences for maximum impact.
5. Measure Your Success
Tracking performance metrics is crucial to understanding how well your personalized interactive video is performing. Measure metrics like view-through rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to evaluate engagement and effectiveness.
For deeper insights, analyze where viewers drop off, which interactive elements they engage with most, and how long they stay engaged. These data points help refine future video content to make it more engaging and keep it aligned with your business goals. Regularly evaluating video performance benchmarks ensures your strategy remains impactful and data-driven.
6. Choose a Video Software Solution
Creating personalized interactive videos at scale can be complex, which is why choosing the right software solution is critical. Blings provides a powerful yet simple platform that enables hyper-personalization and interactivity through features like clickable CTAs, video forms, and live updates. It's easy to get started, too, with simple integration in five minutes.
Blings AI-driven technology personalizes videos at scale, turning one-size-fits-all marketing into a customized experience for every viewer. Additionally, Blings' innovative MP5 technology ensures that video files remain lightweight (at least 100x smaller than typical MP4 files) while providing full HD resolution on any screen size. This groundbreaking tech even creates HTML elements (such as text, SVG, and images) that search engines can read and rank.
Overall, Blings makes integrating and distributing high-quality personalized interactive videos easier for any use case.
Create Your Personalized Interactive Videos with Blings
Personalized interactive videos are a powerful tool for creating meaningful connections with your audience. Combining personalization with interactivity helps brands engage viewers, boost conversions, and improve retention across multiple touchpoints. The key to success is strategically planning your video content and then leveraging the right technology to bring it to life.
Blings comprehensive platform enables you to create videos that are personalized, interactive, and connected to real-time data. Whether you're building loyalty programs, improving onboarding processes, or driving event engagement, Blings delivers impactful, bite-sized content that enhances the customer journey.
Try Blings today to create a personalized interactive video and transform how you engage your audience.