Video adds a personal, powerful dimension to marketing emails, engaging viewers by showing them benefits rather than just telling them. Industry researchers such as Marketing Sherpa have reported that video in an email can lift conversion rates by 50%. And this is no fluke: online video popularity is going nowhere but up.
How hot are videos these days? ComScore reported that the total US internet audience viewed an all-time high of 42.6 billion videos last October. 184 million US Internet users watched online video content that month for an average of 21.1 hours per viewer, according to comScore. This was equivalent to 86.2% of the total number of Internet users in the country.
Given that kind of power, you want to make sure your videos are presented in the most compelling, easily accessible way. Years ago, most email clients supported videos, but increased security and the battle against spam trashed video support. But with so much video on the web and so many software improvements, email has been battling back to find ways to use that content, or create its own videos in ways that will keep ISPs satisfied and readers engaged. And it’s been working, particularly when some key best practices are followed:
1. Why video?
Yes, they are fun and cool, but that isn’t enough—how does the video help your email become even more relevant, engaging and socially share-able? Are you trying to drive traffic, increase conversion rates, or boost order values? Video is a great way to tell your story, but make sure you remember who you are trying to please and persuade, besides yourself.
2. Best practices still apply
Even a good video, poorly presented, delivered or targeted, can still fail and sour future relationships. That unsubscribe button hasn’t disappeared just because you have a new capability. Far from it. Email marketers must still bow to the rules of relevance, and that means video emails must undergo analytical targeting based on solid customer data.
3. DIY?
It’s a risky business to slap a video or link into an email and hope for the best. There are so many design, content and delivery variables. But senders can tap in to best practices by taking advantage of email templates so that they can adapt their own videos easily, or use them to post onto a fan page or blog.
4. Explore your options
It’s the wild west out there for video email as providers blaze away at marketers with a wide array of solutions. But don’t feel like you have to be a stationary target. You can spend as much time and money as you want choosing from different techniques, production and technologies, but the fact is, things have evolved enough that you don’t have to have deep pockets to make video an ongoing part of your email marketing. Balance your aims against your budget and you can find the right partner.
5. Keep it between you and the viewer
Marketers should have the ability to engage viewers directly from the email, rather than leaving the email to follow a link where it will play. This key feature keeps communication direct with customers and aligned with the accompanying email message. By having the video play directly within the email, without sending the viewer outside of the email message to click a link and pursue the video at another location, you don’t risk them leaving your email, and relationship, behind.
6. Test and tune
When viewers watch your video within the email you send them, all of their behavior—stats on what they clicked, how often and much more—will be available and track-able, letting you fine-tune your future messages according to their likes and dislikes, building your response rates as you increase the value of your email messages to recipients. And, in general, when you test, give video emails the time they deserve to prove themselves with several campaigns so you can understand what aspect of the video is working, with whom, to sell for you. It will be worth the wait.
Dan Forootan is the president of StreamSend Email Marketing.
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