Oli Bridge shares real stories where personal video on Bonjoro+HubSpot, combined with careful timing and personalisation, enabled businesses to quickly build trust-based customer relationships online.
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Oli is the CMO at Bonjoro. He has worked in SaaS for the last 12 years, first in customer success and sales roles, including at media startup, Gorkana, which sold for £25m during his time there. Then as the founder of his own cold-pressed juice venture based in London’s Silicon Roundabout. He joined Bonjoro in 2016 and launched it from zero revenue into one of Australia’s most loved and fastest-growing startups. His guiding ethos is that true growth only ever comes from more human contact, and credits 99% of Bonjoro’s rapid growth to this belief.
https://www.bonjoro.com/videofunnelplaybook
https://www.bonjoro.com/testimonial-playbook
Bonjoro on the HubDo Marketplace
Direct Transcription of Podcast
Pete
Hi everyone. Uh, very well welcome back to another edition of the HubDo Podcast, where we talk with software vendors, subject matter specialists and end users who share real stories of how to do more on HubSpot. I'm your host, Pete Nicholls. I'm in Copenhagen in Denmark, and I'm joined today by Oli Bridge at software vendor Bonjoro which integrates with HubSpot Oli, very good day to you. Where are you joining us from?
Oli
Good day, Pete. Yeah. I'm joining you from Bedford England. So about an hour north of, uh, London. It's nice and hot here today.
Pete
You're in for a real baker today aren't you? Mid thirties, I think
Oli
for the next week, mid thirties.. Yeah, mid thirties. But we're getting used to it, I think everybody is.
Pete
Yeah. And for the international audience, that's centigrade like it's real, real money. Um, Oli is the, uh, chief marketing at Bonjoro and Oli, you joined there in 2016, so about, uh, eight years and you launched it from zero revenue into now over 50,000 customers on the platform and I know there's over 500 installed Bonjoro with HubSpot and you have quite a background in SaaS. So just for our listeners, Oli was first in SaaS, 12 years ago at a media startup Gorkana which sold for 25 million pounds, during your time there. And then you also founded a cold-pressed juice venture based in London, Silicon roundabout.
Tell us a little bit about that Oli.
Oli
So that was coming out of, so Gorkana sold and, you know, the company that became wasn't quite the same culture as the original Gorkana, we were a sort of small team of about 70 people and we sold to a company that was much, much bigger, you know, thousands plus. And coming out of that, I wanted to get back or sort of recapture some of that startup feeling of sort of building something from an early stage.
Um, so I wanted to start a business, but I think like a lot of people, I didn't have a lot of tech skills at the time I was pretty young. So I was like, how can I start a business in London in sort of east? I wanted to be part of that east London vibe. You know, I was my young mid-twenties at the time. Um, so I thought, what can I do?
And I sort of looked across the pond at the USA, and what was trending and what was doing well. And you know, I'm into food, I'm also into tech, so I wanted to try and bridge that. Between sort of food and tech and have the sort of lifestyle I wanted, you know, that east London sort of vibe at the time. So I decided to start a cold press juice business, um, which was, was interesting.
And it went pretty well, but I think, um, you know, a lesson I learned from that is to really try and picture the day to day of what you're actually gonna be doing for the first year, two years of a, of a business. And the day to day, buying lots of vegetables, reducing lots of vegetables, you know until I could get to that scale. So, yeah. Um, I decided it wasn't really for me after a few years.
Pete
Very different to the SaaS world, but it sounds like Bonjoro is a great fit. I know you are guiding ethos is that growth, true growth really comes from more human contact and that's a big part of Bono's rapid growth. So we're gonna unpack that on this episode, we're also delighted to include Bonjoro on the HubDo Marketplace because that's where we help people do more on HubSpot.
So the topic today is "How to use personalized video to win trust and convert more leads, with Bonjoro and HubSpot". So the first question Oli is what types of customers are an ideal fit for Bonjoro and maybe who isn't a fit?
Oli
Well. So, you know, I think any customer where you've got yeah, anytime who sort of inbound sort of lead flow coming in and you want to sort of bridge and, and, and you can't be with your customer. But you wanna try and sort of bridge that gap and sort of build a relationship with that person as quickly as possible. And we see video as a great way of doing that. But for us, it's not just about sending video, it's about sending video at the right time to engage that person and also to make it really, really personal.
So you're making sure that you are creating like a really relevant, personal experience. So, you know, think about in terms of sort of, you know, company types like SaaS companies, online educators, um, you have some eCommerce users as well who, who, who send personal thank you videos to, to customers. So it's not just sort of in the sort of SaaS, online education, um, sort of services space, um, but really it's more about quite a horizontal company.
So it's more about use. So it's like, when are you gonna try and bridge that gap? When do you want to send these videos? When do you want to try and create that personal connection with your customer? So it's things like before sales demos to try and sort of, you know, spark a bit of a connection and make sure a person actually shows up to that sales demo because they know there's a human, uh, on the other side, or you get a new sign up or a new trial for your SaaS business, and you want your customer success team to, you know, just send a quick, welcome video to make sure that they know there's a sort of human face behind that brand. And they're actually gonna be, uh, well supported with your business. Um, yeah,
Pete
Sometimes, the definition for a company that maybe 50 employees at above is part of the guidance, but really the fact that you have the free entry-level version of Bonjoro, which integrates with HubSpot that, uh, a single person business right through to quite large teams. So it's not really size based, but I guess that human connection was coming through as the sort of businesses that would use this. And it's particularly those who want to grab the testimonials as well, which I know we'll get into a little more.
Oli
Yeah, that's a really good point. Like to, once we have a, we have a broad range and I think the reason is if you think about at the smaller end if you're a one or two person business, or maybe even up to 10 in those early days, you want to create as many personal connections with your customers as possible. So they're recommending you the small word of mouth. So we used by that end of the spectrum, but also once you get to bigger teams and you start forming out maybe a sales team or a customer success team, then we also play nicely with that sort of environment as well. So there's definitely that, that range.
Pete
Yep. Certainly strikes me that, uh, even those, those companies that have opted to start with HubSpot free, uh, or up to the starter levels, that this is a really good fit.
So we'll get into why that's the case. So the second question is what are the common misunderstood features about the product or about the situation, or maybe some of the key mistakes that you see people make in this area?
Oli
I think key mistakes is, well, there are a few things like one is, um, a little bit timing. Like timing really matters. If you think about any like email that you send to a customer, um, the sooner, the better, like really makes a lot of, we've done a lot of testing internally at Bonjoro. Um, and we know that if you send a video within sort of four hours, You're much, much, much more likely to get a response from that customer. It's more like three times more likely if you send within four hours, than four hours and beyond. Um, so timing is really key, but also, um, doing things that are sort of truly personal. So we're quite unique in the fact that you can actually see your HubSpot data in front of you. Your custom fields when you're recording your video.
And that's key. If you really want to build a connection with a customer or create a relationship, it's not one size fits all, it's not just like repeating the same video over and over. It's like, let's get that data in front of you when you've got your phone out, you're recording your video. So you can really speak to where that customer is in their journey with your business. You know, what have they done? What have they not done? What's their next step? Like how can you guide them? And I think that's really key. So we see, you know, our job to is to sort of empowering you to send more relevant messages to your customers to really sort of get that personalized aspect going on.
Pete
Yeah. So there's a common mistake then. And maybe people see videos too late, they let the things go cold before they send them.
Oli
They see it too late. Yeah. Too late or maybe too late and, and also probably too similar. Like each one you wanna create that spark of delight where the customer thinks, wow, this person actually knows who I am, where I am in my journey. Um, so we really try and sort of push.
Pete
Yeah, brilliant. So I guess the fact that HubSpot has a video capability, and this is an area where I do see some conversion is well, HubSpot talks about video in the sales tools and marketing tools. So how far can HubSpot go in this area before we really need to add Bonjoro to do some more?
The HubSpot hubs, you know, the marketing hub and a sales hub, there is, uh, an embedded video capability for hosting videos in HubSpot, but in marketing hub, that really only kicks in at the pro version. It's not in free, it's not in starter. And then on a sales side for a sales rep to send a personalized one-to-one video, like the type you mentioned earlier. You don't get that functionality in free or starter and HubSpot. So you need to be on HubSpot pro marketing to host videos and on pro sales hub to send one-on-one personal videos. So below pro we really need Bonjoro. Uh, but then I think as we'll get into a little more detail here around, uh, funnels and, and playbooks and so on is that you're not just giving the video tool. You're also giving a lot of guidance and templates to really help people overcome their aversion to.
Oli
Yeah, we're, we're really about, um, sort of plugging into the HubSpot ecosystem and working with, so we have a few different triggers. We have, you know, we trigger sort of video, we call 'em video tasks, so we are notifying you to record videos at the perfect moment. So we come back to that timing piece. So that's what we're about. So, you know, contact created deal, created deal, stage updated. You're gonna get notified. And as you mention, we work below that pro level. So, you know, for smaller businesses that want to get going with video and do this stuff, they can do that with Bonjoro.
Um, so yeah, we are really about sort of trying to help you do it at the right moments. So, um, you know, talking things like if you wanna reduce demo no shows, you know, sending a video before that event, maybe 24 hours before, so you've made that connection. Um, if you get a new signup or a new trial coming into your. Getting notified on the Bonjoro apps. You can quickly send a video within 10 minutes, half an hour to, you know, increase the likelihood of that person you know, taking that next step with your business. You know, don't sort of leave them, you know, on their own for, you know, a few hours trying to figure things out. So get in there and say, Hey, by the way, you know, this is the first thing you should be doing. Um, you know, I know you're sort of in our platform now, I just wanted to welcome you, you know, give you that sort of sign post so you can really get value from our product.
Pete
Yeah, I think that's key that, uh, here, where in a HubSpot context, you tend to see the one to one video is really in the sales hub or maybe in the service hub, but you need to buy all those extra licenses, uh, to, to have pro levels of that. Um, but uh, across the life cycle, you could use Bonjoro at any of those pieces. And really, I think a missing link then is the gathering of the testimonials, because I think that's, that's quite a unique about the Bonjoro tool is the way that you are getting customers to send you a video, instead of you sending them a video.
Um, maybe let's use that to go into the next question because it's about when Bonjoro and HubSpot are better together, so we get like a one plus one equals three. It's not redundant technology, it's additive technology. So, um, when, when do you see that they work best together?
Oli
So really when you're trying to create a relationship with a customer. So this comes back to, you know, you just mentioned the testimonials, so our vision for Bonjoro and, and the reason our customers use us is we're really about sort of creating relationships and sparking relationships with customers. So any moment you wanna try and spark that relationship, that's what we're for.
And this year we introduced new product, which you mentioned the testimonials product, which is to help you basically, you know, if you've built that customer love using Bonjoro and HubSpot together, you. Sent these personalized messages that are building up this affinity with your brand at certain points, then we've got this product for you where you can say actually, okay, let's take our happiest customers and let's invite them to give us a testimonial. So we can use that on our site, use that on our social media channels. Um, so we made that easy for you. So our long term vision for any customer that uses Bonjoro, that we want to really help you create better customer loyalty and actually drive up lifetime value, with your customers. So Bonjoro videos sort of the start of that, where you spark that relationship with a customer.
Um, and then testimonials is sort of like the end, like we've, bookended it. And we're gonna fill in more products in the middle to help you sort of create delight, keep creating like brand affinity with your customers.
Pete
That delights being the third phase of the HubSpot flywheel. It's really important as HubSpot has gotten that message across that, uh, that customer-led growth as opposed to product-led growth, where your fans are your marketing engine, but there is no native tool in HubSpot to collect testimonials. And I think it frightens the pants off people to think, how am I gonna get my, uh, my customer to record a video for me? Uh, here, I think is a simple way that you're enabling HubSpot to do that. Uh, there's uh, some great playbooks. And I know in the show notes, so I'm gonna share the links to your video funnels, playbook, and then your testimonial playbook, two separate documents, uh, in the video funnels playbook three main types of funnels in their conversion funnels, activation funnels, growth funnels.
And then we flip over to the testimonial side for that, uh, customer-led growth. Let's get into some real examples. I'd like to hear Oli. You've been with Bonjoro now for what? Eight years, I guess, this year. So what are some of the examples that you've seen where people really wanted to solve a problem and were able to do that with Bonjoro on HubSpot?
Oli
So one of the big pieces, like the first one I talk about is that customer onboarding for new signups and new trials. So SaaS companies wanting to increase conversion rates, you know, that's sort of the bread and butter. That's why we created uh Bonjoro um, so if you're looking to do that, you know, we'd always recommend giving Bonjoro a go, you know, we've got, um, We work with a company called CXL, who I think a lot of listeners will be familiar with. Um, and they use us to increase their trial conversions. So what they do when, so on, when they get a new, uh, sign up to CXL, they send a personalized onboarding video with a call to action next to that video to start learning. So the call to action is really trying to sort of creating that next step and sort of pushing the customer to go and sort of do that thing that's gonna eventually lead to them to convert with that business. Um, and they did a split test, I think it was early last year or the end of 2020, where they had a control audience, a variant audience, they sent Bonjoro videos to one audience, no Bonjoro videos to the other. And they increased their trial conversions by about 18%.
So it's really, really great case study for us but, but it's something that every SaaS company could be. It's really easy. And those sort of, you know, that sort of lift like an 18% lift in your trial conversions is, you know, not to be, uh, you know, sniffed out. It's a really big lift. So yeah, that's, that's the main one, another one that we really see working well for, you know, any business where you are trying to drive customers or leads onto calls. So you can show them a demo of your product. What we say is send a video either 24 hours before the demo or, or even just after the person's books from one of your, you know, sales, uh, executives. Who's gonna run that demo just to say, Hey, I'm gonna be running this demo with you. You know, this is what we're gonna go through just to create more transparency in that process, but also to put a face to that demo. I think people, people drop out of demos because they're anxious about the thing and they're probably think you're gonna turn up and suddenly, like, you know, sales is like all over them, but if you can like send a video and just sort of produce that anxiety level and they know you're gonna be there and what you're gonna be covering, you know, you're really gonna increase the likelihood that that person doesn't drop out. So we have a bunch of different companies use users for us for one of them Design Pickle, who I know are a HubSpot customer. They reduce their demo ratios about like 22% by doing this. So once you've done that, you just keep on doing it because obviously, you know, it's just a, you know, it's another result that impacts the bottom line of your company.
Pete
They're very relationship, uh, led and that, that personal human connection led type of company Design Pickle, there was one that caught my attention as well, because I'm based here in Denmark that there's a men's fashion 'Monk store' is one that is, uh, is being taken to number one on Trustpilot. And I believe that's around the leave a review side of it. Could you explain a bit more, uh, because this, this is an area that I know scares people, even if they ask for review feedback from a customer it's then, well, if I get a testimonial, I'll put it on my website, but can I ask my customer to go leave me a review on Google? Like it all becomes a real gray area. So how does Bonjoro help there?
Oli
Yeah. So Bonjoro is really interesting for eCommerce companies. So 'Monk Store', they actually pioneered this so they were really early, I think. Yeah, we launched at the end of 2016, 2017 Monk Store came along. They're based in Denmark. Um, they had a bricks-and-mortar store. They were just moving online and what they wanted to do. They wanted to get a, like any eCommerce business sort of making that. They wanted to quite quickly develop trust with the marketplace and drive as many reviews as possible, so when people were assessing, who should I buy from you? Can I trust this brand?
So what they started doing was every time they got an order, they would send a personal video to, uh, the customer showing them physically showing them a product. As they were just about to send it out the door and say, this is on its way to you. Um, and then, then they would have, um, a lever review call to action next to that video.
They didn't ask for review on that video cuz they didn't wanna be pushy like, oh, give us a review because I've showed you your product and I've done this thing, but they had it there just to be sort of top of mind, but what they found they got click through and people were leaving reviews, positive reviews, mentioning these videos, but also when they had, they still had their automation firing to send the review request days later. The video, the personal video was mentioned on tons and tons and tons of those reviews coming through. It's like, I couldn't believe that they sent me a video, you know, as about to package up this product, you know, the level of customer service was amazing. Um, and they went within about six months from, you know, sort of trying to get reviews and Trustpilot to number one in the whole of Denmark in the men's fashion category for their number of reviews. And then, you know, obviously, I think it was sort of like 4.9 out of five. Yeah. Stars, something like. So really, really great use case that not a lot of people are doing and I think obviously the eco-space is big and you can really stand out with something like this.
Pete
Yeah. Reviews are scary. And, uh, but that customer-led growth that, uh, I like, there's a really good quote actually, in, in one of your, uh, playbooks, which I'll let people know how to, how to download, which is, um, there is so much fake shit on the web these days, our brains are trained to look for the truth. um, and, uh, yeah, it's, it's just the people connection. It's, uh, putting it out, um, plain. So before we leave this, uh, testimonial, um, and maybe talk a little bit more about the wall of love concept as well, if you would Oli, what else? Uh, could we share with the today?
Oli
Yeah, so, so we talk about, so in the testimonial playbook, which is slightly, you know, video photo playbook is like where to use personal video in your funnels to get better results testimonial playbook is what's really happening with customer reviews. What's happening with testimonials on websites? How is it changing? What should you be doing with your own site? So big thing that's coming through, and I think if you've been to any website in the last sort of six months, sort of online education SA space, you will see like a new trend, which is this to put, you know, a wall of customer reviews and testimonials in close proximity to one another.
Let's, you know, say it's like 15 different reviews. And what happens there is when someone, you know, lands on your site and sees those they're quickly scanning for the one that's relevant to them. And you're increasing the likelihood that they're gonna see something, it causes them to take that next step.
They're gonna build things. Okay. That's the result I want. I'm gonna go and sign up. So yeah, Bonjoro add new testimonials tool that essentially allows you to collect video-written testimonials and also create a wall of love that you can publish on your site material, a single click, um, pretty much with no code. You put a bit of code on originally, but then when you get more reviews and testimonials coming back, I love using it as a marketer. I can literally go into my Bonjoro account, add a little tag, and it's immediately on our website. I don't have to go to a developer, which is, yeah, incredible. A great feeling for any marketer, I think, to avoid, you know, that development road timeline.
Pete
And to get the wall of love up with all of the comments side by side and, uh, yeah avoid the so much shit on the web and just fill it with these testimonials from customers. I know a lot of folks struggle with that, uh, capturing their voice of the customer. So you've got a couple of great playbooks for people to download. I think it's worth mentioning the pricing on this as well because I think it can be a bit of a surprise just how much value you can get.
So even if you are on the starter, uh, or even the free HubSpot plan, that Bonjoro, which is quite unusual. Sometimes you have to go to a pro-level of software to integrate it with your CRM. Bonjoro all versions will integrate with HubSpot. And if I compare the pricing, because, uh, let's say HubSpot Sales Pro you'd have to go and spend the 500 US$ per month or 700 plus Aussie dollars per month, those sort of fees to get the one-to-one video. But you don't get all of the funnels, the paid plans of Bonjoro are from the likes of $19 USD per month to $69 USD per month. Like, it's, it's just a small add-on to HubSpot, but a lot of value.
Oli
Yeah, it's, it's a small ad on to HubSpot. We go sort of $19, $39, $79. We have a company plan, which is, you know, it's 50, 50 users. I think that that's, uh, $399 a month, so it scales up a little bit there when you add sort of many more users, but we wanna try and create like, uh. People, you know, I think most businesses haven't really done a lot of video still, you know, video. We do a lot of zoom calls and those sorts of things now, but personal video and this type of video we've talked about it's something that you need to test and get comfortable with and see the results before you sort of trust it because it's so new to the marketplace I think. So we wanted to create that ability, that ramp for anybody to try it, sort of try it sort of before they, you know, buy it. So that's why we created our pricing like that.
And we try not to limit, you know, our pricing by integration. Bonjoro is contingent on it works because of our integrations. You know, you trigger, you know, you get notified to record a video. So we really haven't been limited like that. We want everybody to be able to play with this tool.
Pete
Yep. And those playbooks are just a final mention because it will be in the show notes, the video funnel playbook, and the testimonial playbook. They're both undated. So you're not even asking people for email addresses as we'll just, uh, give the links to people to grab those I'd recommend reading them. So, nothing more than, uh, to say, well, Oli look, it's been an absolute pleasure talking with you today. So thanks for being on the show. Can I ask what's the best way if people wanna reach out to connect with you, what would you recommend?
Oli
Uh, definitely on Twitter. I spend at least an hour or two every day on Twitter. So, uh, Oli Bridge. So it's Oli underscore Bridge, and you should find me on Twitter, connect with me, and love to have a chat in the DM's over there.
Pete
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for that. You shared, uh, a lot of great stories with us today, Olie, so, um, thanks so much for your time.
Oli
Thanks, Pete. Thanks for having me on.
You can see more and purchase Bonjoro on the HubDo Marketplace
Your host Pete Nicholls is the Founder of HubDo, HubSpot Certified Trainer and Foundation Certified in Bidding and Proposals by the APMP.
Connect with Pete at:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penichol/
Email: pete@hubdo.com
Meet: www.bookachatwithpete.com
For questions about this episode, email podcast@hubdo.com