The incredible power of Face2Face & Face2Feed.
You don’t have to be an old-school Willy Loman-style sales person to understand the unparalleled power of the face2face meeting. Just think about it in your own life. Who are the people you most trust? Most depend on? Most recommend to others? I’m reminded of this fact by the fact that Mark Williamson is out in our backyard finishing up replacing a old deck with a new one.
Mark’s been a trusted contractor resource for my family ever since he came highly recommended to us by a trusted friend a number of years ago. After doing some work for us, too, he’s become someone we heartily recommend to others in our neighborhood without reservation. Why? Because every face2face interaction with him has been more than satisfactory—they’ve been stellar.
Doesn’t matter if his bid on a project is 27% more than the others we got, if it’s doable within our budget, it’s Mark’s to do. But let’s get back to the current deck project. Our old deck needed replacing since we got the house ten years ago, but lifestage pressures (including kids and colleges) made me (the cheap one) force the postponement of any replacement project as long as possible. It was a ‘nice to have’ not a ‘need to have,’ and so, we didn’t have it.
Over the years, however, I’d see Mark’s moving outdoor board (his well logo-ed Springer van) all over the neighborhood as I walked our dogs. This traditional advertising channel (out of home) did a pretty good job keeping Mark ‘top of mind’ with me. But the kicker came when a trip to his van for some hardware coincided with me walking our dogs Olive and Tilly. To say that Olive LOVES Mark is a gigantic understatement. In spite of COVID-19 induced social distancing, she was all over him. Not to be outdone by her older sister, Tilly fell in immediate and passionate love too. And Mark enjoyed the attention and put up with my pups with great grace. My instant thought? What a great guy.
Later that day, my wife Elizabeth and I were having a serious heart to heart about a long festering problem: that damn deck. It finally changed from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘fix it now our we’re in for a lawsuit’ due to a hole in the decking. Finally parsimonious Dad gave in and said it was ok to get some bids in for a replacement deck.
And who do you think got the job? Mark Williamson. Why? A big reason was the ‘you’re a great guy’ power of an unexpected face2face meeting.
So much of our marketing and communication efforts have shifted to social media over the years, and the emphasis has been so search-engine- and algorithmically optimized, ‘sales funnel’ formatted, and ‘untouched by human hands’ programmed that face2face is even more powerful. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be face2face as long as it’s your face in their feed.
Face2Feed, Face2Face’s ‘everywhere and often’ social sibling.
It’s long been said that video is the king of content online. But now, that sovereign of social is facing a real challenge from its ‘quicker and dirtier’ sibling, livestreaming. And another, stealthier claimant of the throne, one-to-one video via email, is leveraging its power to both raise ‘top of mind’ awareness and drive real personalized engagement. What’s the common denominator that makes these video-based techniques so powerful? A little something I call Face2Feed.
There’s this thing that video creators discover only after they’ve created their videos; that many people who view them consider them a form of two-way conversation and intimate information sharing. Proof of this phenomenon in action happens whenever you walk into a cold, ‘don’t know anybody in there’ room, and suddenly there appears a couple of people in there with a look of their faces that seems to say, “Hey, friend.” Where’d that face come from? The fact that they saw your face in their social media feeds, and your video, personality and presence made some significant and positive impact on them. You’ve never met them, but to them, you’re already a friend.
By putting yourself out there in video form, demonstrating who you are, what you do and how you do it, you’ve done the first thing necessary for any successful relationship: started a conversation. When they finally meet you, many will feel some level of pressure or desire to continue said conversation by adding to it. Your video started it all by saying “A.” They come back with “B.” And if you continue to “C,” you’ve created some form of relationship.
While Face2Feed video may not be as powerful as Face2Face communications, it still packs quite a wallop—and I can prove it with a one-to-one video via email service called Bonjoro. You can play along by heading over to bonjoro.com and signing up for a free account.
Here’s how it works: Let’s say you just received an incoming email informing you that Sarah Jones has requested information about your services via your webpage. Many funnel-optimized workflows would just automatically ping her back with a pre-designed services menu or something like that. And that’s exactly how it would feel to Sarah; optimized and automatic.
With Bonjoro, you can be notified of the same thing (Sarah’s request) and instantly send her back a completely personalized video greeting asking if she’d like to hop on a Zoom call for a quick, free 15-minute consultation. Which of the two techniques (1. Auto email PDF, 2. Personalized video via email) do you think would truly delight Sarah? My guess is the personalized video by a country mile. Ever since Dale Carnegie taught his first class to win friends and influence people, every good salesperson has known the power of knowing, and saying, a person’s name.
A Bonjoro video leverages that to the Nth degree, and employs the potency of Face2Feed video in order to secure a Face2Face (via Zoom) meeting. And how much does that ‘forever free’ Bonjoro account cost? Zero. So the cost to benefit/conversion/new client ratio is incredible. Check the service out at bonjoro.com, and you’ll see what I mean.
…and there’s much more to come.
BOOKWARD BOUND / Daily Build is just what it says: the writing I did today in order to get my book a little bit closer to its publication. Posted the next day, it is presented here exactly as written and complete with all the misspellings and grammatical errors you’d expect of a rough draft. Don’t worry, it’ll be edited later. The above was written during a livestream video of BOOKWARD BOUND that you can find on my YouTube BOOKWARD BOUND playlist any time you’d like. – DP Knudten
@2020 DP Knudten LLC – all rights reserved.
