Emails always have this bad reputation of being dead! But to surprise you, email is not dead! At least not now. And not for another ten years. And given that video is a powerful medium, embedding videos in your emails is the best thing you can do your business. And that is video email marketing for you!
We might consider emails to be downright old-school, now that most people don’t prefer reading plain texts. But strange as it may sound, it is still your email account that is the most potent marketing tool. People check their emails every single day. They even do that on-the-go.
And recent studies opine that email marketing is one of the three most impactful tools to drive more website traffic, generate leads and boost sales. You cannot just do away with it. And all across social media channels these days, we can see tips and tricks for smart email marketing.
And that’s just because the digital marketing gurus have realized emails to be the leading ROI drivers. And there’s no lie about the fact that email marketing increases ROI, because surveys and studies sing in the same tune.
However, emails these days do not need to be boring and bland. They can be sassy and peppy; they can be anything your clients look for. You may make them as dynamic and engaging you want, just by adding your creativity and a bit of coding. Without a pinch of innovation and creativity, it’s difficult to generate hype and get the desired open rates.
If you get the right technology in place and embellish each of your emailers with something new, you can get close to a successful, long-term business liaison with your clients and leads.
Marketing through weekly or monthly emailers has its separate fan-base all around. Because that kind of marketing helps us create a balanced and nuanced personalized customer journey. And this has a greater impact on your overall revenue. So folks, email marketing is not dead. It is very much alive and kicking in the current time. As well as, in the years to come!
Enter, Videos!
Videos are hot! Undoubtedly so. Their entertainment quotient grabs several eyeballs and drives incredible results. YouTube has over 1 Billion monthly users and happens to be the second largest search engine just after Google. So how come these whopping stats are coming true? Because, there’s a massive demand for videos nowadays. There’s a bigger diaspora out there, who rely upon videos than any other media tool.
Cisco has already projected that more than 80% of all web traffic will be driven through videos. And of course, metrics and stats aside, videos are hands-down the most unique and effective way to cut through the noise. Well-crafted videos capture the attention of the onlookers in a way that plain and simple texts can’t. That’s where the potentiality of videos lie.
Businesses have already adopted video contents in their marketing strategy and there’s no looking back to it. Video marketing has proved to nearly triple the ROI for a business, when compared with other marketing tools. And that’s the reason, more than 87% of online marketers rely on video for increased customer engagement. Businesses when embed videos in emailers they send, carry a far-reaching effect on their prospects, than just a regular weekly emailer.
Now, did you know that videos when included in emails, increases the chance of email opens to 19%? Not only videos are the best thing to spice up your text-based emailers, but also they can enhance your marketing result. Emails that contain any form of videos in them receive a 300 percent higher click-through rate than those without. Just by using the word ‘video’, you can increase the open and click-through rates by 65%! Video thumbnails increase click by 50%.
Such is the magic of videos. Thus, utilizing videos in your email marketing campaigns makes a lot of sense.
What is Video Email Marketing?
It is nothing but a marketing strategy that includes HTML5 videos, static images with a play button linked with a video, or GIF images, that drive more engagement. No other medium can possibly communicate as effectively as videos do. Whether it is about explaining a product, promote a new service, increase conversions, or educate the customers. Marketing through emails has a separate fan base owing to the impact this genre of marketing creates.
What are the Benefits of including Videos in your Emailers?
The benefits are many. Videos are remarkably engaging and get people hooked to them. Apart from drawing a great deal of attention and reducing the unsubscribe rate by 26%, video contents increase forwarding. If your email manages to grab the eyeball and attention of your leads, the chances are high that those will be forwarded. And more the forwards, higher are the traffic and leads.
When a video catches our emotions, we tend to share that with our friends and families and share that feeling within us. This way, the brand awareness gets enhanced.
Moreover, videos help your brand message get across easily. Compared to plain email texts, your subscribers will find more fun in video effective video content. Thus, more impact gets created. Also, the time-saving factor can’t be denied. Just by watching a mere 30 seconds video, a person can get an idea of a marketing pitch.
Complex ideas can be easily conveyed through videos, as it will take less time to disperse the concept. And lastly of course, the SEO factor. Videos are immensely searched in the present time that has made them quite a winner in the big SEO game. Videos improve search rankings on Google owing to all the shares on the social media channels.
This clearly shows to what extent people love videos. And this is what Google implements in its algorithms. If a brand has a video, it is likely the crawlers will crawl the content instead of any other marketing material the brand has on the web.
With more and more people getting hooked to engaging videos, why not leverage their prowess in your email marketing campaigns? But yes, there’s always a right way and a wrong way of doing a thing. Let’s discuss all those right ways you can bring a difference to your marketing campaigns. We are here to answer all your queries regarding how to use videos in emails.
1. Create a Landing Page with an Engaging Video and an Enticing CTA
It’s always recommended to create a landing page with a captivating video and then linking it with your emails. Landing pages with enticing videos are an integral component in video email marketing tactics. Because after all, you won’t want your leads to stay within the restriction of their emails, without taking action once the video ends.
As a video takes up the whole screen, your audience is not being able to see the CTA, which is erroneous. Especially when your sole motive is to coerce your audience to take up an action. Moreover, there are restraints by some email providers regarding in-email videos. So, the solution? Simply embed video thumbnails into your emailers that link to the landing page that hosts the video. This will guide them through the sales funnel.
2. Harness the Magic of GIF Images
GIFs are cute enough and yield an engaging experience. These are great in the sense one doesn’t need to click on a play button, GIFs play automatically. Compared to static visuals, these bits of moving images if incorporated in your emailers, will be kind of a short animation creating fun. GIFs are gradually considered as video-like contents since there’s animation in them.
Though GIF images are not actually videos, but the moving frames give them enough motion to appear engaging and fun. Animated GIFs must not be more than six or seven frames; three or four frames are rather ideal. There are a plethora of online tools to create GIF images that enables anyone to create unique animated graphics.
They make a holiday even brighter and more entertaining. So if you are sending any emailer with a holiday offer, try using GIFs. And it is really great that almost all the email providers support them. However, Outlook 2007, 2010, 2014, and Windows 7 phones only show the first frame of your GIF, but other majority allows the whole image.
3. Your Video Content must come after your Email Draft
Include a few self-explanatory texts for your video and include them just after the email draft, because you need to explain the video to your email recipients. Frame the email draft in a way that conveys the actual message of the video. That will intrigue your viewers to click on the play button.
There’s another reason to incorporate texts first. Because an email without some kind of a text appears to be spam. And no one wants to open anything remotely similar to spams! And in case the video doesn’t show up in someone’s email (this mainly happens when the auto-download image functionality is turned off), at least the text will help him to understand what the video is all about.
4. Spread the Word about your Events through Video Emails
Every now and then, companies host their events, either on a large, global scale, or just a local event. Including videos to spread awareness about those events is a great idea. Spread the word through an engaging video and urge your target audience to be a part of the event. Things like these enhance brand outreach, as well as boost brand awareness.
Promotions through video content are outstandingly effective as they directly reach the recipient’s mailbox. It is like poking them politely to see something. Whether it is about all the behind the scenes of the event, or a short clip of last year’s program, video emails are the most powerful tool to push your target audience to take a specific action.
Glimpses of past events motivate new people and give them an idea as to what can happen. You may personalize the emailers with the recipient’s name, include more than one CTAs, incorporate a captivating thumbnail. Keep on experimenting!
5. Cinemagraphs are Love! Utilize them in your Emailers
Just like GIFs create an entertaining experience for any onlooker, Cinemagraphs can spice up your email campaigns all the more. These visuals with motion are chic and urban in approach and look fabulous in emailers while promoting a product.
Cinemagraphs are mainly an amalgamation of video and photography, created by Kevin Burg (a renowned professional photographer) and Jamie Beck (a motion graphics designer). It is a new way to mix video clips with still photos that ooze out top-notch quality. Cinemagraphs are not actual videos per se, but they have enough capability to convey a brand message.
These are nothing but a slight variant of GIFs, having the look and feel of a looping video. But, the interesting thing is, only a part of the image moves. The rest of the piece is a still picture. Whether you are rolling out with a new car model, or a Smartphone, or maybe the winter collection of your clothing line, these moving pictures are ideal.
Using them is similar to adopting video marketing for businesses and experiencing the difference. To know the right way of creating these kinds of art forms is quite challenging, but once you get to know the drill, life is easier.
6. The Word that Creates a Difference – Video!
That’s the word your target audience would fix their eyes upon. Anything moving, motion and video engages us and piques our curiosity to explore more. Incorporate the word “video” in your subject line, and see the number of clicks and the open rate gets a striking impetus. Once you get the audience engaged and goad them to open your email, you’ve won half of the battle.
Studies say the magic word alone boost email open rates by 19% and CTRs by 65%. And why these extra boost ups? Just because your audience feels you are giving them something extra, unlike other marketing pitch they usually receive. Since your emailers will contain a video, you have to let your target audience know that from the very beginning.
7. A Striking Thumbnail is all you need!
Just as mentioned above, thumbnails are the pivotal element for any video to be clicked and viewed. That is the first thing a viewer sees and which encourages them to play on. That said, the thumbnail image must ideally be striking and captivating, which immediately grabs the attention of your recipients.
Dramatic thumbnails might look a bit over the top, but at the end of the day, people love drama! Anything out of the ordinary, novel and peppy, grabs us right away. Do the same with your video email marketing. Leverage the prowess of thumbnails onto your emails and make your subscribers click on it and watch.
If you ask what exactly your thumbnail must contain to be striking, it can just be a screenshot of your video, maybe of an interesting part. Or you can take professional help to create a custom thumbnail graphic.
8. Avail the Less Pricey Alternatives
You don’t need a hefty budget while creating the videos for your email campaigns. There are ample low-cost options that you can put to use, just with your Smartphone and a pinch of creativity. Let your imagination flow and capture them through the lens of your cellphone’s camera. If you are a start-up or a solopreneur, don’t bother buying expensive DSLRs or hiring a professional studio.
You can do the tricks with some great natural light, maybe a cheap reflector (reflectors don’t cost a fortune). If you want to showcase a how-to video or just the office scenes, simply get some good footages of your team and do some fun activity. Don’t make them look staged or fake, be as much natural as possible. Your target audience would love to see the real you, as well as the creative minds behind the services your brands offer.
These kinds of personalized videos, when uploaded as Insta-stories, get the most views and shares. Editing can be done by you or someone who has a basic knowledge of compilation and editing. There are millions of apps that you can use for this purpose. Once you get a nicely trimmed video with a cool background score, simply spread it to your target group. This tactic is sure to skyrocket your campaign and make you create a solid stand for itself.
9. Customer Testimonials are the best way to Promote your Brand/Product/Service and Instill Faith
People don’t like it when you being a marketer, overdo with your promotion. Too much self-praise and self-proclamation are not good for product promotions these days. One cannot instill trust and faith in someone, by blabbering and saying how good your product is. For you, your product is one of its kind. But for your target audience, the story might not be the same.
They might have had witnessed similar kinds of services and products offered by other brands. However, no matter how feasible you try to be while explaining your product and its significance, sometimes credibility issue arises. Your target audience might not feel a feeling of reliability and assurance from it. So, it’s always better to utilize a happy customer testimonial video.
Any video email marketer executing such a novel strategy is bound to smell success within a short time. Let your customers be your brand advocate and promote your products. When your prospects see a real human speaking about their experience with your brand, the trust quotient increases a lot and they tend to believe your capabilities. Directly showcase these customer testimonial videos on your prospects’ inbox and see the magic happen!
10. Resort to Preview Videos for a New Product Release, or an upcoming Event.
Basically, videos are not just for merry-making and frolic. One can employ video content for several significant purposes. Apart from explaining a product, promoting an event, you may also announce an upcoming release, a new product launch, an inauguration program, provide expert round-ups and much more.
One can even showcase a tutorial as to how a certain thing is done. Nowadays, How-to and DIY videos are all the rage and people stay glued to them for hours. Sending any such video through your email campaign is a great idea, whereby you can create engagement. As well as generate new leads.
So, what happens when you spark an interest among your target audience? Their curiosity gets piqued. And what can be better than giving them a preview of a new release? It can be anything; right from a new cuisine, to a brand new clothing line, or jewelry collection – or even a new book. Preview videos are apt for these releases.
Tingling your audience’s minds prepares them to get ready once the actual thing comes out. You may put to use this tactic in your email marketing campaigns and make your prospects know beforehand about the product/service you are gonna come up with.
Final Words:
At present, content marketing through video, has garnered a lot of appreciation from marketers and end-users together. And why wouldn’t it be! Adding a small video spruces up a content and makes it more digestible. And undoubtedly, marrying emails and video components is worth the effort.
So, if you are still in doubt whether or not video email marketing is beneficial for your business, just think about the number of video consumers the cyber world has. The more your contents or emails have videos, GIFs, cinemagraphs in them, the higher the email open rates will rise up. Email marketing trends are constantly evolving, making it essential for any marketer or blogger to be aware of the latest changes.
Including engaging videos in your email will breathe new life into your otherwise bland campaigns. And that is what your motto should be. But at the same time, trends and styles of videos are also changing. That’s the reason; one should not stick to the same old video marketing strategy. You should offer something new to your audience, every day!
Mostly this will help your salespeople who are in constant communication with your clients and who knows the market well. Marketing through video content brings substantial change in user behavior. Following that behavioral pattern, your sales folks can come up with novel strategies. Given that 64% of buyers decide by watching a video, it goes without saying that video contents do possess that special power to engage your subscribers.
Either you can create the videos by yourself, or can get some professional help. If you are absolutely a novice in this, then start off with a robust marketing plan and stick to that throughout, while making required changes along the way. See if the latest strategical change is getting aligned to your marketing plan or not. And then modify as needed.
Every business is different and has a whole lot of different customers, pain points, USPs, weaknesses. So it cannot be claimed that each of the tips listed above will work with them. However, if anyone of these is followed rigorously, then visible change is expected. Video being an incredibly potent medium of content, continue using it for best results. At Animated Video, we keep our creative wheel running to produce fabulous motion contents for each and every client requisite. All our project contents are backed by the figures derived from latest market trends that in turn are capable enough to put the associated brands at the significant position in competition. Check the bouquet of services we offer and let us know if we can fit into your marketing strategies.
