Best Practices for Video In Your Emails

On New Year’s Day, we released an episode listing our top marketing tactics for 2018 – and above everything, video was in the lead; so today we’re going to discuss how to maximize the benefits of video by integrating it with a common marketing tool that you probably already use: emails. Email marketing is commonplace nowadays – in fact, it’s finally lost its novelty in most cases. But by adding video to it, you can increase your open and conversion rates.

We even released a recent webinar with a walk-through about the power that video has in the sales process: you can click here to see the recorded webinar featuring Video In Sales!

But if you just want the mile-high view to start with, here are four ideal habits to have when sending video in your emails.

1. DON’T SEND A FILE: SEND A LINK

Most people assume that sending a video in an email actually involves sending the video as an attachment. That’s a terrible idea! Video files are really big; and the higher the quality, the larger the file. That can really slow down your email send, and it takes up mounds of valuable bandwidth.

So where is the video actually located? On your website: either on a landing page, or maybe in a blog post. No matter what platform you use to host your videos – be it YouTube or Vimeo or Wistia and beyond – that platform should and will give you embed options so that you can post a video on your own website…which is critical.

Under no circumstances should you email your audiences a link that sends them straight to YouTube or Vimeo! The last thing you want to do is send people to a site that doesn’t belong to you, where they can get distracted by videos that belong to your competitors, as well as other entirely irrelevant content!

2. USE A PICTURE WITH A PLAY BUTTON

This way, when your viewers open their emails, they think they see a video; but in reality they’re looking at a picture with a play button. That button is almost compulsive to most of us, and it tells us one thing: “If you click here, you get to watch a video!”

So when your viewer clicks on the picture, they’ll get transported to your website where –voila!– your video awaits.

And the prettier the thumbnail, the more clicks you’ll probably get. A/B test it! Try out two different colorful pictures, then measure which is more successful! Try adding the text with a catchy title; try abstract designs; try a vintage black and white look – but always, always, always have a play button!

3. INCLUDE “VIDEO” IN THE SUBJECT LINE

Just adding “video” in the subject line of your email has been shown to boost opens rates by 19% and click-throughs by 65%!

Like we said before; everyone is flooded by emails nowadays. However, video excites people. If given the choice, they’ll almost always opt to watch your video than read paragraphs of text.

4. TRY TO USE A PLATFORM WITH ANALYTICS

What we mean by this is, wherever possible, try to look into an account with video sites like Wistia and VidYard, as opposed to YouTube and Vimeo. Simple sites like YouTube can show you that you got 500 views…but they can’t tell you how much of the video is actually getting watched. A lot of people might watch for ten seconds, get bored, and click away…and you might never know.

As we often say here in the Optimum Studio, “Only counting views just doesn’t count.”

Platforms with analytics will help you learn about your audience; some can even track individuals by location, and show you heat maps of what people are re-watching or skipping in your video – sometimes in real time! It’s like all the data of a survey, without forcing your subscribers to answer questions.

These four habits can boost your email engagement and also get you into the habit of using video more in your daily marketing. And we all know…more video, as a marketer, is a very good thing.
 

Want to dive deeper into how video can integrate into your sales process? Click here to sign up and watch our tutorial featuring Video In Sales!
 

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