B2B is still P2P

Taking a quick break from filmmaking for a moment, I wanted to talk about something else that really interests me: Marketing. For a while, I worked in a B2B IT firm here in Connecticut, and the term B2B always sort of bothered me. Sure, I understand the concept; the products or services of one company are sold to another. The Vendor-Customer relationship is pretty cut and dry, right? Well, maybe not so much anymore. Now that we live in an age where personal communication is easier than ever, why not add a personal touch to those business communications? Because after all, Business-to-Business is still Person-to-Person.

Here's a real-life example: You or your company sell a service or product, and you have an email service that you use to communicate with your leads and customers. The current best practice is to set up an automated workflow to keep your lead in the loop, and guide them through the marketing funnel. That's fine, and it's been known to work extremely well, and for good reason. However, it's always important to remember that the recipient of those emails is a real person, and sometimes an extra personalized touch can be the difference between just another marketing email that they receive, and them really having a feel for who you are, and a connection to your company. And by personal, I don't just mean, "Dear |FIRSTNAME| ".

So what can you do to add that extra bit of personalization to those leads? Why not a personalized video? To be clear, I'm not saying that it has to be highly produced, or something that you'd need to outsource to a design firm, but something that you can easily create with your webcam or a DSLR. Here's an example of how such a video may play out:

"Hey John! My name is Phil from philwesson.com. I saw that you recently downloaded a VFX preset, from my site, and I wanted you to know that if you have any questions about it or any other content available, I'd love to speak with you. Feel free to email me using the link below this video, and we can set up a time to chat. Thanks again!"

Creating something like this is so easy, and can have more impact than another email in your lead's inbox. Now of course, if one person is to do this for hundreds of leads, it may become overwhelming. As such, it's a good idea to segment your leads by who you think such a message will make the largest impact. Perhaps those that visit your site often, follow you on twitter, have downloaded assets in the past, attended a webinar or some combination of the aforementioned criteria. Also, having members of your sales team sending a personalized video, is a great first point of contact, and puts a face to the company name. 

I remember doing a training with one of the employees at Hubspot. Normally, we'd just have a conference call, we'd log in to a gotomeeting session, and learn what we'd learn. However, the difference this time was that the employee used his webcam, and actually spoke to us. This tiny move made this particular training session the most memorable I've had with Hubspot, and I'm still in contact with that employee even to this day. The point is, making the extra effort to show your B2B customers that they're more than just a sales lead with a little face time can help keep your memorable, and increase the quality of your business relationship. 

So, the next time you have a new customer, rather than just sending them an automated email, try sending a personalized video as well, and see for yourself what a difference a little P2P can make. 

Pro tip: There's an tool on Wistia about sending video messages like this via email. Check it out here.