Video in Email. A Powerful Communication Tool

Video in Email. A Powerful Communication Tool

An often under-utilized channel is email marketing. Due to the nuances of most email clients, many marketers are intimidated by the thought of effectively incorporating video in their email campaigns.

Leveraging the power of online video in email is quickly becoming an effective way to gain visibility, compel actions, and expand the influence of your brand, products and services.. The key to email vid­eo success is to keep it relevant and user friendly. No one wants to send a video that doesn’t enhance their message or relate to their respondent. Nor do recipients want a video that takes a long time to load, is low quality or can’t be accessed easily.

It’s important to utilize as many of these best practices as possible, but understand that all may not fit your business objectives. Use the following essentials as a guide to effective video use in email:

•  Always host your video and link to it through your email. There are a number of reasons to simply imbed a link to your video in your email. The most important is to ensure load time and quality is consistent for every viewer. It also allows you to introduce the viewer to other content you may have available. Lastly, it provides an easy way to create a viral campaign where viewers can share your video with others.

• Use text to describe the video. You need more than just an image to engage subscribers to watch your video. A short description of the key message in the video will confirm the sub-scriber’s interest and compel them to click-through and watch.

• List the file size, length of video and formats supported. By adding the elements of the video, you allow your recipients to decide whether or not they have the necessary function ality to support viewing the video.

• Use flash video (FLV) whenever possible to achieve higher compression rates. Flash has the highest market share of any computer video player. In addition to better usability, a higher compression rate allows for better streaming capabilities.

• Offer multiple choices to accommodate all users. Some audiences may have bandwidth challenges, so offer additional viewing options including streaming or downloading.

If you are considering video, keep the best practices mentioned above. Also, be sure to test your video in multiple browsers. Like any other marketing effort, you want to know how online video performed against your goals.

Metrics That Matter

Video is fun, creative and compelling, but it’s also a bit more difficult to measure. The good news is that there are real metrics that marketers analyze and trend to see how it impacts their overall success.

Metrics that many marketers watch with video are:

• Viewers. How many people are viewing your site? Is it gaining video-specific referalls?

• Views and time. How much traffic is your video seeing and how long are they staying? How may stayed to the half-way point? How many until the end? What channels are pushing the most traffic?

• Interaction. Are people commenting? Are they engaged with the content?

• Cost. What’s the cost of creating and supporting the videos? Do your customers see it as a value add?

You may also analyze how it adds to your brand awareness or if there is a direct sales return from video. To engage at that level though, you have to always think call to action. You may incorporate a discount at the end of a product placement video, or a up-sell promotion included with a help video. Determining how you will leverage direct call-to-actions need to be incorporated with your overall video strategy and business objectives.

To YouTube or To Not YouTube

YouTube has played an important role in many marketers video strategy, yet it does have its pitfalls. Two important advantages with YouTube is that it is free to use and drives consumer traffic daily. Overall, it’s important to keep in mind though how these free video services may impact your brand and your creativity. You’re compet­ing against videos that show dogs riding skateboards, while you are trying to engage potential consumers with your brand. In order to gain traffic, are you going to also have to incorporate a similar tactic to win the audience and does it help your brand or hurt it? Here are some important things to keep in mind when thinking about hosting your video:

• Does it reinforce your brand? Does it match your “look and feel”?

• Is the content really yours after it’s uploaded?

• Do you get meaningful analysis and reporting?

• Is quality a concern?

• Are you making money?

• Are the related videos really related and how do they impact your brand?

There’s a lot to think of when discussing incorporating video into your marketing strategy, but when done well can be a huge win for your organization.

If you would like to talk more about how to effectively use video to build your business, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or e-mail me at john@x2media.us

X2 Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it is not only seen and heard, but remembered.

Until next month….remember, “you don’t get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression”. Always make it a good one!   From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.

John E. Hornyak 

X2Media, LLC