In today's fast-paced digital world, effective communication is vital for businesses to stay ahead of the competition and build meaningful relationships with their customers. With the rise of remote work and global collaboration, finding innovative ways to connect and engage with teams, prospects, and clients has become even more critical. Enter VS Messenger, a groundbreaking video messaging platform designed by VideoSmart to transform the way businesses communicate and collaborate.

What is VS Messenger?

VS Messenger is a purpose-built online video platform that allows businesses to create and send personalised, interactive, and on-brand video messages via email, link, and SMS. Every video message is tracked from end-to-end using VideoSmart’s bespoke video player, and results are available in real-time using the platform’s metrics dashboard. It’s simple and fast to use the platform, with just four steps from start to finish to send your video message:

1. Upload or record your video,

2. Add interactivity,

3. Personalise,

4. And send!

Every VS Messenger subscription includes access for a total of 5 team members (more users per platform is available to bespoke and enterprise subscriptions). You can customise your platform with your brand by uploading your logo and selecting 2 colours from your brand’s palette. These will appear across your video message landing pages and emails so that everything you send matches your brand.

Who is VideoSmart?

VideoSmart is a video technology and marketing agency based in central London. We deliver personalised, interactive, messaging, and AI video solutions to our clients. We are 7 years and millions of videos into our journey. Our clients include many globally-recognised brands such as American Express, Shell, Royal London, and Renault. Our personalised and interactive video campaigns drive results for both our clients and their customers, and as such are multi-award winning. As a business, we are always looking to improve and innovate our product offerings, which is why we chose to develop our online video messaging platform: VS Messenger. VS Messenger allows businesses of all sizes and industries to harness the power of video in their day-to-day marketing and communications.

We love seeing video become an integral part of businesses’ growth and digital transformation journeys. Video has grown into the number one form of media over the past few years, and we can't wait to see what our customers achieve with it.

The Power of Video Messaging

Video has emerged as a powerful communication tool, capable of conveying information, building connections, and leaving a lasting impact on an audience. According to recent studies, video content not only is proven to drive higher engagement rates, but people are also more likely to remember information presented in a video format compared to plain text (95% of information is retained when presented via video, versus just 10% when in text - Insivia). In a world where personal connections matter, video messaging enables businesses to add a human touch to their interactions, fostering stronger bonds with team members, clients, prospects, and partners.

Video drives significantly higher levels of engagement amongst all audiences when compared to any other media format. Due to Covid-19 and the rise of TikTok, we now as a world create and consume more video content than ever before. In 2022, people watched an average of 19 hours per week of online video content (Statista). The world loves video, and we view more than 1 billion videos each day on TikTok.

We not only consume more video content than ever before, but we also rely on video to communicate with one another more than ever in history. Our turn to video calling and video conferencing skyrocketed in 2020, increasing by 500% across both business and personal accounts as the pandemic restricted our ability to speak face-to-face. Whilst the limitations of lockdown have long since been lifted, video calling has remained a crucial tool for most businesses as the world has begun to embrace more hybrid and remote working.

It’s safe to say that the world has fully embraced the flexibility and connectivity of video across all areas of our lives. There is, however, one area of business that is yet to catch up: messaging.

The State of Business Communication - Email

Businesses have been relying on phone and email for the past 50 years, with the first email being sent in 1971, and the first cellular phone call being made in 1973. The number of emails we send every day has grown from 12 billion in the 2000s (Forbes) to 347 billion in 2023 (Statista).

Although the number of emails we send grows every year, its effectiveness in selling hasn’t followed the same trajectory. In 2021, the average conversion rate of emails was just 1.22% (Barilliance). This translates to just over one out of every 100 emails sent leading to a sale.

How can businesses use video to transform their email communications?

VS Messenger enables businesses to take advantage of the power of video within their day-to-day email communications. By adding video to marketing emails, companies see their click-through rates increase by a mega 200-300% (HubSpot). Sales emails also benefit from the addition of video, seeing 5x higher open rates and 8x higher open-to-reply rates than standard emails (SendTrumpet).

Video doesn’t just improve email open, click, and reply rates, it can also significantly improve conversion rates. In fact, 93% of surveyed sellers, marketers, and customer service reps report that video has the highest conversion rate. Furthermore, personalised video messages and marketing increase email conversions by 500%.

It is easy to incorporate video into your email communications with VS Messenger, once you have uploaded or recorded your video message, added the interactive video buttons, and added any personalisation to your video’s landing page, simply select ‘Email’ under the video send options, and input:

• The email subject line,

• The recipient’s email address,

• Their name,

• And the email body text.

Once you have added all of this information, click ‘Next Step’, this will present you with the option to ‘Preview’ and ‘Send’ your email containing a video. Email and video performance will be tracked and available in real-time via your metrics dashboard, including whether your email was delivered and opened, whether your video was played, how many times it was played, and whether your interactive in-video buttons were clicked.

The State of Business Communication – Phone Calls

Today, around 52% of businesses still consider phone calls as a primary form of communication. Cold calling is also still a common tactic for salespeople. The average sales representative makes 52 phone calls per day (Gitnux), but this number can reach into the 100s for some heavy hitters.

Whilst cold calling is still commonly used, the average cold call success rate is just 2%. To add to the difficulty, it takes an average of 18 phone calls to connect with a buyer (Gitnux), and 1.5 hours of cold calling per day for 5 days to win one appointment (Gitnux). Thereafter, after reaching a prospect, salespersons need to make an average of 5 successful follow-up calls to close a deal (Marketing Wizdom).

The cold calling process generally isn’t enjoyed by salespeople either, with 63% of salespeople saying that cold calling is what they dislike most about their job (LinkedIn). Cold calling also requires salespeople to be well-informed and able to think on their feet, because of this, 42% of sales reps feel that they do not have the right or enough information before making a sales call (CSO Insights). Training sales reps to be ready for cold calling is costly, with companies spending around $2,000 per sales rep to train sales staff every year (Brevet Group).

Another area of business that heavily relies on phone calls is customer service. Customer service is a huge area of importance for businesses, but it is one that is proving tricky to handle. Poor customer service can have an insurmountable impact on customer attrition, business growth, and overall revenue. In fact, poor customer service is costing UK businesses £11.4 billion a month in lost productivity, with employees averaging one day a week dealing with problems (The Guardian). Overall, poor customer service threatens $4.7 trillion in annual revenue globally (Qualtrics).

According to Salesforce, 50% of customers believe that the customer service and support from most companies need a major overhaul.

How can businesses use video to supplement or replace the way they use phone calling?

Video messaging is a great, digital-first alternative solution to cold calling and call-based customer servicing.

Where cold calling relies on Sales Representatives:

• Knowing their product inside-out,

• Being able to think on their feet and answer any challenging and unexpected questions,

• Being able to build a connection without putting a face-to-a-name,

• Hoping that they can reach the buyer,

• And hoping that their voicemail is listened to when they can't…

VS Messenger’s video messenger platform allows sales representatives to:

• Pre-prepare their messaging,

• Record, edit and upload their video message,

• Have full control of the conversation,

• Engage their facial expressions, body language and tone of voice – keeping in mind that in traditional settings, communication is 55% nonverbal (visual, body language etc.), 38% vocal (tone, accent, etc.) and 7% words only.

• Track and measure the effectiveness of their message using the dashboard,

• Make timely and informed follow-ups, knowing whether their message was received and CTAs clicked on,

• Drive action, no matter which stage of prospecting they are currently at, using interactive CTAs,

• And add legitimacy to their cold prospecting, by delivering their message in a branded, digital format.

Customer service can also significantly benefit from integrating video messaging into the customer experience.

In July 2023 the UK received its lowest Customer Service Index score (76.6/100) since 2015. Based upon their survey, the Institute of Customer Service recommended businesses to ‘make it easier for customers to access help and expertise’. They expand on this with the following ‘key recommendations':

• ‘Map the hand-offs or transfers between channels, especially between digital channels and direct employee intervention.’ and

• ‘Ensure all channels through which customers can engage with the organisation are appropriately resourced so that customers can access help in a reasonable timeframe.’

Technology can play an important role in this: ‘At its most effective, deployment of technology in customer service generates a win-win scenario for customer and organisation: cost to serve and failure rates are reduced; customers get rapid access to key information; employees are freed up to focus on helping customers with complex or sensitive issues.’

By integrating video messaging into the customer servicing journey, reliance on call-centre interactions can potentially drop – being reserved for the most complex and sensitive of issues that require more extensive one-to-one support. With VS Messenger, marketers and customer success managers alike can build video messages into customers’ ticketing, troubleshooting and even onboarding journeys, where video messaging improves:

• The understanding and retention of information - pre-recorded video messages could be re-sent to customers requesting support on frequently asked questions. 96% of marketers agree that videos have helped increase user understanding of their product or service. (HubSpot)

• The connection a customer has with a business or brand, by adding the personal touch of having a human speak with them in a format that is similar to face-to-face. 91% of consumers want to see more online video content from brands. (Wyzowl)

• Customers’ ability to self-serve and self-teach. 83% of people surveyed by TechSmith reported that they prefer watching video to accessing information or instructional content via text or audio.

• Accessibility, video is highly engaging and allows you to convey information via audio, on-screen text, and captions.

• Seamless journeys, adding in-video interactive buttons allows viewers to take the next step in their support enquiry right there and then. Improving the overall customer experience.

Conclusion

In today's digitally connected world, video messaging has become an indispensable tool for effective business communication. With VideoSmart's VS Messenger platform, businesses can foster meaningful connections, streamline collaboration, and achieve new heights of success. Embrace the power of video messaging and elevate your business communication to a whole new level with VS Messenger.

Getting Started

Getting started with VS Messenger is quick and straightforward. Simply visit www.vs-messenger.com/signup and sign up for a 7-day free trial for yourself and up to 4 team members, to experience the power of video messaging for your business. Our team is available to assist you at every step of the way or provide a demo of the platform by contacting hello@videosmart.com.

Happy video messaging!