Personalized video, also called dynamic video, has been making waves for some time. It’s that rare development that’s exciting for marketers, developers, and audiences. It’s exciting enough that it deserves an introduction. Reader, meet personalized video.

What is personalized video, and how does it compare to regular video?

With regular video, nothing can change after the video has been exported – it’ll always do the same thing. Personalized video is video that can respond to programming commands – you can change text, change images, change audio, skip sections, reorder sections, and much more. These changes can be done while you’re even watching the video – you could make a “choose your own adventure” movie if you wanted to!

This means, among other things, that you can:

• put viewers’ real names into a video – either using an input screen, or by grabbing their data from a backend (like SalesForce, for example)
• load data (like interest or tax rates from a file), so your video is always up to date
• draw real, dynamic graphs based on whatever data you want
• play different videos depending on the user’s location, device type, and more
• get fine-grained detail on video viewing with your analytics and tracking software
• play video without having to store a video file
• make videos as dynamic as interactive tools that work immediately on mobile

Personalized videos aren’t any larger than regular videos – in fact, they’re often smaller in file size. They can be programmed just like regular interactive websites, and don’t require any special licensing or proprietary technology. They’re also mobile-friendly, viewable on all devices. Think of them as the next step in video technology – or the next step in interactive tool technology.

What uses for personalized videos are there?

Personalized video is a relatively new technology whose many uses and benefits are only beginning to be discovered. That said, it combines the interactivity of tools and quizzes with the shareability and educational ability of video. Unsurprisingly, it’s already begun to shine in a number of roles:

Custom explainers

Have a lot of things to say, and don’t want to bog your viewer down with unnecessary details? With personalized video, you can make a video that contains only the portions you want to show. Say you make a personalized video to tell the viewer what they need to know about investing. Have them fill out a small questionnaire to customize their video – if they don’t plan on having children, skip the section on RESPs!

Personalized product promos

Personalized videos can let you offer video promos of only the products you think the viewer may be interested in. You can even show them the best fits first, to grab their attention before it drifts.

Personalized case studies – calculator explainers

You’ve heard it before: the hypothetical. “Let’s say you invest $1,000…”, and so on. With personalized video, the hypothetical is a thing of the past – you can use real data and watch it dance. A viewer can enter how much they’re saving and how long, and see that information used to explain the benefits of, say, a particular bank account. These are great when paired with a calculator or questionnaire. You can offer specific video explanations of a user’s actual results – no hypotheticals needed. Your video explainers can explain even more when they include the user’s inputs, data feeds, and other helpful external info.

Evergreen ads

Personalized videos work with online ad platforms too! If you want to promote a product but don’t want to update a whole video each time the price changes, or if you want to tailor one video to multiple markets or demographics, one personalized video can do the work of countless static videos.

Onboarding and training

If you have video training and onboarding materials, a dynamic video can let you easily custom-tailor all your onboarding videos so every different user gets only the parts of the training required. That means only one “master” training video to maintain, that you can add or remove pieces from whenever you like.

These are just the tip of the iceberg – personalized video’s many uses and benefits are still being discovered and developed. You could be sitting on the next big personalized video idea right now. And, as personalized video fans, we have the experience and the know-how to help bring your vision to life.