Who said that email marketing is dead?
Despite the emergence of social networks and instant messaging apps, people still use email for business or professional purposes.
By 2020, email users are predicted to touch the 3 billion mark. That’s a huge number considering that YouTube users, the second most popular website, is currently at just 1.9 billion.
However, the 2018 State Inbound study reported that 38% of salespersons felt that it’s getting harder to get a response from prospects. A number of factors can lead to this phenomenon, one of them is the fact that spam and scam emails are filling up people’s inbox.
It’s not surprising at all that 21% of prospects report email as spam, even though they know it isn’t.
With a market size that big, it’s a wasted chance if you don’t utilise email in your marketing campaign just because of its low reply rate.
In this article, we’ll get through one of the solutions to effectively enhance your email marketing campaign, which is by the use of video.
The Benefits of Using Video
So, what’s so special about videos? What difference does it bring compared to the usual text-based emails?
Let’s take a look at these benefits of using video to give you a clearer picture of how video can enhance your email marketing.
Easier for the audience to digest
Humans are naturally visual learners, which means that we understand visuals better than text.
A study found that recipients only remember 10% of the information in your usual text-based emails. However, when you include a video in your emails, the recipients are more likely to retain 95% of the information.
Effectively get your point across
In today’s fast-moving world, consumers want everything to be delivered quickly.
What do you think they prefer, reading through your email or simply watching a video?
Videos have the ability to simplify complicated matters and give information in less time. Click To TweetIncrease engagement rates
As mentioned before, one of the problems of email marketing these days is its low engagement rates. A couple of studies have shown that videos can help you solve that problem:
- Including a video in your email can increase click rates up to 300%
- After watching a video about your product, 64% of viewers become more likely to buy.
How to Add Video in Your Email
Now that you understand the importance of video, let’s take a look at the step-by-step guide on how to add one in your email.
But before we get started, let’s keep in mind that instead of directly embedding the video in your email, it’s better and easier to just upload the video on your site and then post the link for two reasons:
- Each email provider has different rules in regards to embedding video within the email, some providers don’t even allow it. Posting the link to the video ensures that all of your prospects get an equal chance to view your video.
- Linking to your website will boost your traffic. Moreover, when the audience watches the video on your site, it’s easier to track the video performance like how many people watch it, how long they watch it, and what’s the bounce rate using Google Analytics.
Here are the technical steps on how to attach video in your email:
- Take a screenshot of your video to use as a thumbnail
- Edit the screenshot using photo editing tools, add a “Play” button in the middle of the thumbnail to let people know that it’s a video
- Upload the video to your own website or to a video hosting site like Vimeo or YouTube
- Save the video URL
- Create a new email, then add the thumbnail
- Link the thumbnail to the video’s URL and you’re good to go.
Tips on Using Videos in Your Email Marketing
Try and test the following tips and see how it can enhance your email marketing performance:
Use the word “video” in the subject line
Try to include the word “video” in your subject line and see if it works because marketers reported positive results by doing that.
Adding the word “video” can increase open rates by 19%, boost click-through rates by 65%, and decrease unsubscribe rates by 26%.
Be creative with your thumbnail
After successfully attracting recipients to open your email, the next thing you want is to get them to click on the video link. How do you do that? Simply by creating engaging and interesting thumbnail that people just can’t resist.
Be creative with your thumbnail because it’s the first thing that the recipients will notice after opening the email.
Instead of using static thumbnails, you can use animated images like GIF or cinemagraphic images.
Use tools like Giphy to create your own animated thumbnail.
Include a clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
After the recipients finish watching your video, what’s next? If you leave your prospects clueless and confused, they’ll end up leaving your site without doing anything else.
That’s why it’s very important for you to include a clear Call-to-Action button in the very first paragraph of your email. You can also add the button during or at the end of your video.
Optimise for mobile use
It’s one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of email marketing. Most customers are hooked on their smartphones 24/7, which means that they’re most likely to open emails from mobile devices.
A study confirmed this notion as 61% of all emails are opened and read from mobile devices.
Do you know what will happen if you send video emails that aren’t optimised for mobile?
The recipients will delete it. In fact, 70% of them will immediately delete the email upon receiving it.
Enable autoplay, but keep it mute
Many people don’t like it when a video plays by itself without their consent. However, it’s a different ball game when it comes to email.
By clicking your thumbnail, the audience expects the video to play right away without having to click twice. So, it’s important for you to enable the autoplay but keep the sound off, because nobody likes to get a sound blast in the office.
Takeaway
In the past few years, videos have taken over as one of the most effective marketing tools out there. Whether on your website, social media platforms, or emails, videos seem to always have the charm to attract more viewers.
However, not all videos are made equal, some will do better than others. There’s no fixed formula for success in crafting good videos that sell, you just need to keep on testing to see what works best for you.
With that being said, you need good tools in order to produce high-quality videos.
No, you don’t need to browse around the web in search for the best video making tools out there, because we’ve already done it for you.
In the last few weeks, we’ve been busy compiling this complete list of video marketing tools and platforms. Click on the link to find out over 100 fine tools to help you create a proper video for your next marketing campaign.
