Gaming

Your 2019 Guide to Using Video in Email Marketing

It’s no surprise that video is at the forefront of marketing these days.

From creating videos for your website to hosting Facebook live sessions, this marketing tool has morphed from a nice tool to a must-have if you want to effectively engage with your audience and build loyal followers who will be more willing. to buy. of you.

Video-based marketing is a great way to stand out from the multiple messages people receive in their inboxes every day, not to mention how effective it is on social media.

This article focuses on using video in your email marketing. Read on for the technical parts of using video in your email marketing and the creative side for inspiration.

I’ve talked about using video many times in the past, but in case you’re still not convinced or haven’t thought about using video in your email marketing efforts, it’s time to pay close attention. According to a study by SuperOffice, including video in emails led to open rate increases of six percent (the average open rate across all industries is about 25 percent).

Some other benefits of video marketing:

Save timme. You can create short, engaging video pieces much faster than it would take to write an 800-word blog. It also provides information to your viewer in an easy to understand way.

It can help SEO. Your Google search ranking can improve if your footage is seen and shared by enough people.

It is profitable. You don’t need CGI effects or animation to do something great. A video can be much more affordable to produce than a blog or ad.

Draws attention. Especially when added to your newsletter, a video grabs your audience’s attention and forces them to want to watch.

First, the technical part of video email marketing

Before you start thinking about ways to use video in email, you need to know how it plays in different email clients.

There are more than 30 major email clients, including Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, and Yahoo Mail, and some of them are not eligible for video email.

Traditionally, marketers used HTML5 (hypertext markup language) to encode HTML videos directly into email, but recipients with certain email clients cannot play it back. Many popular email providers will only display an alternate image and your marketing message will be lost in the crowd.

Fortunately, some of the popular services like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and AWeber make it easy to share across all providers by using a screenshot image of your video and linking it to your original content on your blog, YouTube, Vimeo, or similar sites.

This gives the appearance that there is actually a video in your email and avoids technical problems with your email provider.

Instead of having to learn HTML5, there are also third-party services that can create a video snippet for you to include directly in the body of your newsletter. In fact, I did this in our recent newsletter!

Take a look at Playable to embed a short video in your next newsletter. Playable will replace the video with an image of your choice if the email service provider does not support video technology.

>> Find out more about the features of our favorite email providers.

Regardless of the email newsletter tool you use, it is essential to test your campaign before sending it out. You will need to have accounts on all popular email platforms so you can see how your footage performs on each of them.

Sounds like a lot of work? Trust a professional marketing company that has been helping clients create successful email newsletter campaigns since 2003.

Then make sure you are mobile

According to Hubspot, mobile opens accounted for 46 percent of all email opens. That means you need to make sure you keep smartphones in mind when doing video email marketing.

Fortunately, email newsletter providers like MailChimp and Constant Contact allow you to test and see what your messages will look like before sending them.

It’s still important to keep the file size as low as possible so the video doesn’t need to be buffered to start playing. Mobile devices don’t have the fastest download speed.

A good tip is to take a 10-second snippet of your video to use in your newsletter. That snippet can be linked to the full feature on your blog.

Also, always make sure that autoplay is turned off, especially on mobile devices. Most people don’t like something to start playing (often loud) while sitting in the office or on the bus; they prefer to click Play themselves.

Now, let’s move on to the creative part

With technical things out of the way, let’s see how you can really create content that engages your viewers and drives more visitors to your website.

You need a plan with clear goals or you are simply submitting content to the world in the hope that it will be seen and loved.

Why are you creating this campaign? Generate leads, brand awareness, followers …?

Once you have identified your objectives and goals, you can start thinking about the actual email and the content you want to produce.

As mentioned, host the entire video on a blog post, landing page, or even on social media, and then plan to incorporate a “sneak peek” of that video into your email marketing campaign, linking to the full version.

Here are six tips and inspiration to get you started:

1. Use the word “video” in your subject line to make your message stand out.

two. Promote an event. Let’s use a law firm as an example. We created a short video using Wave.Video for one of our clients, A Family Law Firm, to promote an upcoming seminar they were organizing.

3. Offer advice. When it comes to video email marketing, users want short, digestible clips. A “Top 5” or “4 ways to improve” will attract more attention than a 2 minute creation in which you try to explain a product.

Four. Create a series. This is a great way to keep people engaged in your experience, as long as what you provide is valuable to them. Stay away for a five-part series on your latest offering. Instead, solve a problem.

Using the law firm video marketing again as an example, you could set up a list building campaign and make a four-part video series on ways to prepare for a separation or divorce:

• Part 1: DIY or hire a lawyer?

• Part 2: Submit the necessary documentation

• Part 3: Division of assets

• Part 4: Supporting your children

5. Take tutorials. Your product or service solves a problem, so how can you show this to your customers? Educate your viewers with a short explanation on how your product or service will improve their lives, using real-world examples.

6. Think outside the box. Now, not all of us have the inexpensive outdoor activities company that Patagonia has; however, take a look at how they have integrated amazing images into their email campaigns. It is not focused on your surf gear, but it is relevant to your clients.

Whether you’re a life coach filming some footage while on vacation or a wellness provider giving viewers a glimpse into the dinner-making process, get creative and start filming!

Video email marketing can be incredibly powerful, substantially increasing your open rates, engagement, leads, and sales.

However, not all emails need to contain one. If you start using this marketing tactic every time you send out an email newsletter to your subscribers, they will stop paying attention. Think of it as a way to stand out from the crowd, but don’t neglect your other tactics.

Creating an email newsletter campaign with video (or without it), choosing the right email provider, testing and monitoring open rates and engagement is hard work. And it must be done right or else you will end up alienating yourself and losing subscribers.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *