How to Make Your Holiday Video Greetings Shine

During Covid-19 lockdowns, people saw the efficiency of video for long-distance communication with a personal touch. Of course, video-calling is not a practical solution if you want to connect to a large list of people in a short amount of time. Asynchronous videos are a great solution to the problem of creating video greetings quickly for a lot of people and without tiring yourself out.

You should always personalize your video greetings

The social networking grapevine – the network of messaging apps people use today – are tools of the trade to send greetings for festivals, holidays, and special occasions. And they are saturated with these greeting messages!

People know it takes no effort to forward a message you just received.

Even for gorgeous graphics created with Canva, only a few people can tell the difference between the one you created and the one they received from a common acquaintance.

Without personalization, your efforts are not visible.

An asynchronous video message, however, sounds and feels like a personal video call. The receiver does know that it is not a real-time video call, but the personalization appeals to the need for social connection that is innate in prospects, clients, colleagues alike. It builds trust (almost) instantly!

The recipient feels special that you recorded a video just for them. They are a massively powerful tool to leverage. 

Having said that, you must keep them from being overly sales-y. If you go into the “sale” mode on a video where the purpose is not to sell, you will turn your potential and current customers off and deplete the trust in the relationship.

Start by creating Video Greetings for these holidays

If you are okay with appearing on video, use video holiday greetings to get started on your journey to asynchronous video. All you need is your phone or a decent webcam. HippoVideo has launched a theme for each of these holidays. You can stitch these themes to your recorded video and make them impactful.

Memorial Day Video Greetings

On the last Monday in May, US citizens of the country remember those brave souls who lost their lives while serving in the US Armed Forces. Many people visit cemeteries of these fallen heroes and the various memorial monuments erected around the country in their honor.

How can you do this for your clients and prospects who live thousands of miles away from you? By making a personalized video greeting message, of course!

So here are some ideas for the same:

• Read aloud the 1915 poem by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Expeditionary Force: In Flanders Fields
• Find the Proclamation by your favorite President from the Compilation of Presidential Documents website

Here are some famous Memorial Day quotes to use during your video:

• “Our nation owes a debt to its fallen heroes that we can never fully repay.” – Barack Obama
• “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “No arsenal, or no weapons in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.” – Ronald Reagan

Easter and Good Friday Video Greetings

Christians worldwide celebrate Easter on a Sunday to mark the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. 

You could do a drip campaign of video greeting cards for the entire Holy Week leading up to Easter Sunday – just ensure you have sufficient background behind each day in the Holy Week. So select an appropriate message or your video might end up on someone’s Twitter feed – and their comments won’t be kind!

Here are some ideas for a greeting video on Easter:

• Recite an appropriate Easter Prayer
• Record a short 10-second video saying an appropriate Easter celebration message

St Patrick’s Day Video Greetings

St. Patrick’s Day celebrates the arrival of Saint Patrick in Ireland and the culture of the Irish in general. Although it’s the death day of Saint Patrick, it is celebrated with a feast on the 17th of March every year.

Here are some great ideas to wish someone on St. Patrick’s Day:

• Craft a message around good luck and new beginnings. If you want to wish entrepreneurs and startup founders on your list, try some messages meant for them.
• Share some Irish feast ideas, songs, or movies to watch with loved ones.
• Don’t forget to give your video greeting cards a St Patrick’s Day makeover.

Independence Day Video Greetings

The 4th of July is arguably one of the biggest Federal holidays in the US. There’s a lot of fanfare and traditions around this holiday. You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that a lot of brands create unique wishes to send to their customers and prospects. 

Here are the tips to keep your Independence Day wishes unique:

• Start with a quote related to Freedom and Liberty
• Select an Independence Day message to go with the quote

Send Video Greetings on Veterans Day

On 11th November 1918, an Armistice with Germany went into effect, ending World War. On this day, called Veterans Day in the US, citizens express their gratitude toward honorably discharged military officers who survived to tell their stories of bravery. 

It’s a day of thanking veterans and inspiring the public to acknowledge the contribution of living veterans of the military. Those who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield are celebrated on Memorial Day.

Here are some ideas to make your own Veterans Day video greeting:

• Share stories of courage from the Veterans History Project
• Thank all veterans with an inspiring message.

Halloween Video Greetings

On October 31st, people around the world celebrate Halloween – also called All Hallows’ Day. It’s observed as a family feast to remember the dead, the saints, the martyrs, and departed faithful.

This holiday revolves around themes that involve pumpkins and witches, so expect to see orange and black as dominant colors for Halloween wishes across all platforms. 

So here is how to make your video greeting for Halloween unique:

• Tell a scary story or a funny anecdote/story.
• Speak about Halloween costume ideas and haunted house ideas
• Share discount codes that stay active through Black Friday/Cyber Monday and until Thanksgiving.
• End the video with a Halloween greeting.

Thanksgiving Video Greetings

Celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival marked by a joint family feast with a stuffed Turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, and other traditional delicacies of the family.

To make your Thanksgiving video message stand out from other brands, you could:

• Share Thanksgiving meal/side dish recipes.
• Information about local/national centers that offer Thanksgiving meals to the poor and homeless, so receivers can volunteer at those places.
• Express gratitude toward your customers/prospects with a Thanksgiving greeting.

Video greetings for Christmas and New Year

Christmas and New Year greetings should go simultaneously because most of your audience will be taking an off through the entire final week of the year and on the 1st of January.

If you want to run sale periods during holidays, your video greetings must be active throughout December as a drip-email campaign so people can take maximum advantage of the sale 

To customize your video greeting cards for Christmas and New Years:

• Keep it centered around a single message and express that message simply (i.e. no fancy adjectives that leave people looking for a dictionary). Personalize it to reflect the season’s vibes.
• If it is a video greeting card for your business purposes, don’t treat it like a family Holiday card.

Video Greetings for Work Anniversaries

In the context of B2B relationships, work anniversaries mark the completion of a successful year of the business partnership. Unlike other holidays, these have to be created before the year starts and sent as an automated trigger email on the anniversary of each specific account. 

Recipients can be everyone who: 

• Was involved during the purchase cycle or after contract signing
• Made a significant contribution to the partnership outside the contract

To personalize these video greetings, tell a story based on the achievements of that account. Share progress by using previous years’ stats and make it worth their while.

You could also create a general video greeting with a sweet work anniversary message.

Customer Birthday Video Wishes

Like work anniversary wishes, these messages also must be pre-fed into your marketing automation system.

A standard birthday message becomes a part of their regular birthday messages i.e. birthday spam. Your message must convey a feeling of warmth to the customer and make them feel special. 

Through personalized video messages, the Sales team can build better relationships and increase brand affinity

Many writers will use concrete numbers such as conversions and leads when explaining the advantages of personalized video messages to Sales teams. I will take you through some of the “soft” -er, more indirect advantages of using them:

Personalized video greetings help build deeper relationships

We know that audio messages are a more efficient form of communication than texts and video (synchronous or asynchronous) is even better than audio messages. 

Don’t believe me? Try talking to three important people in your life using texts, audio messages, or video messages for a week. Observe the change in each relationship. 

So, for salespeople, relationship selling is a unique soft-skill to acquire.

Videos help build relationships. Personalized videos are the key to building deeper remote relationships in the time of lockdowns and physical distancing.

Personalized video greetings help increase your brand affinity

These type of videos also make it easier for you to develop brand affinity and trust among your leads and customers. 

Note that unlike text messages, personalized video is not a saturated medium of communication. Not too many brands are doing it. So, you still stay on top of their mind after they watch a personalized video from your brand, 

If they are customers, this gives them a reason to avoid switching out to your competitor.

If they are not your customers yet, they will look for this standard of service among your competitors.

Personalized video greetings truly give you a leg up on your competitors – irrespective of the niche you operate in!

HippoVideo is your video greeting maker for fuss-free, fully-tracked, and personalized greetings

With Hippo Video, you can create free video greeting cards and personalize them with all these effects:

• Dynamic texts – no effects, simple effects, and complex effects
• Rotated, moving, and zoomed in dynamic text
• Showing user-specific performance data (for video reviews) dynamically
• Personalized images
• Website personalization
• Personalized audio
• Personalized graphs

The possibilities of personalizations are endless with these effects, they are free and don’t require signups! 

We also provide analytics of who watched these videos for how long so you can track your efforts and measure the success of your brand. To avail analytics feature, you have to sign up for the product. 

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