Enough! Stop Trying to Shortcut Customer Relationships

Matt Barnett

The main pushback we get to Bonjoro is simply, “I just don’t have time.”

People will tell us that they are “looking for ways to reduce their workflow, not add to it”. Shortly after this, they always ask the inevitable... “Can I just record one Bonjoro and send it to everyone?”. Or even worse... “You should let me save Bonjoros by name, so If I do a video for one Matt, I can automatically send it to every other Matt I have sign up!”

Stop this. Seriously.

YES you can do one “Bonjoro” and send it to everyone. See here to learn how to embed a video from Vimeo, Wistia or Youtube in your Mailchimp campaign, or here to learn how to add videos to email using Convertkit. Marketing automation with video isn’t new, it takes 5 minutes and you’re good to go. But this IS NOT Bonjoro.

We are not a video platform, we are a delight platform. Sending a Bonjoro is simply the best way to show a customer you are willing to spend time on them - that you care about them. Bonjoros have to be unexpected, personal, and genuine. They should take time and thought, like relationships.

Think about the things that marketers have ruined in the past. Do you remember a time before your email inbox was wall-to-wall spam and drip campaigns? How about a time before Facebook was a never-ending cycle of meaningless #content?

Those platforms started on the road to their current states when people started looking for shortcuts: churning out (or stealing) forgettable videos and memes to chase clicks and shares in the short term; building up mailing lists and bombarding them with emails to get opens and clicks; almost anything to do with growth hacking.

Don’t even get me started on the sketchy morals of recording one video for everyone with one name (what we call the "FNAME" approach).

Stop with the psychological tricks. It’s not about playing customers to get more click throughs, it’s about actually giving a shit. If you don’t, do you deserve that customer?

The thing that really hammers this home is that great individuals like Pat Flynn, Russ Perry, James Schramko, Gary Vaynerchuck - people far, far more busy than any of us - take the time to thank and connect with people in their communities in person, all the time.

Its not about reducing workflow and going for cheap, non-sustainable wins, its about an efficient workflow where your time is spent on the few things that actually have impact on your business. I can guarantee for most of us, customer, supplier or partner relationships are one of those.

This isn’t about whether you use Bonjoro or not. It’s about resisting the urge to shortcut and hack customer relationships. We’d rather you didn’t use Bonjoro and found time to give attention and care to your customers than get a subscription with us and not delight your customers.

Hats off to the brave, the carers, the busy people who make the time. We salute you.

Rant over. If you agree (or disagree), drop us a note on our Twitter, @Bonjoroapp, and tell us whether we should keep Bonjoro personal or if we should sell out for $$$.

Category
Growth tips
About the author
Matt Barnett
Papa Bear of Bonjoro
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