Video can be a very powerful email marketing tool. Statistics show that people spend about three times longer on web pages with video compared to those without, and just over 60% of users are more likely to purchase a product online after watching the video.
In email marketing, just using the word video in your subject line can increase open rates by almost 20% and your click-through rates by more than 60%. Over 50% of consumers say that they want to see more video content from the businesses and brands that they support.
How to Send Video Through Email
There are two main methods that you can use to send video through email. You can either embed the video file into the email or use the screenshot method.
If you want to incorporate video into your email marketing, then it’s important to avoid sending video files as attachments since this increases the risk of having the email marked as spam by the recipient’s email provider. Or your recipient might mark the email as spam themselves if they were not expecting it since people have quite a few good reasons not to trust emails that have attachments.
Along with that, larger video files are often too big to be sent as an attachment, meaning that you’d need to compress the video into a .zip file before sending, which is more work for both you and your recipient that could lead to your video never being watched at all.
How to Send Videos Through Email With the Embed Method
Embedding the video into the email is the easiest option as it allows recipients to watch it in their email application or inbox without the need to click through to a different page.
It is possible to embed videos into your marketing emails using HTML5, or many marketing email building tools will have the option to add a video to the template. However, embedding a video is not always the best option to go with if you want to make sure that you are offering a good user experience.
This is because embedded video might not work or look right in email mobile apps for iOS and Android and common email clients like Gmail and Outlook do not support embedded video.
There’s also a higher risk that your email will end up in the spam folder due to the more complex HTML code, and it can be more difficult to track email views as the recipient will not need to click through to another page.
How to Send Videos Using the Screenshot Method
The screenshot method is an ideal choice as it is accepted by most email clients and is also more trackable for you as the sender.
To use the screenshot method to send a video in your marketing emails, first create a thumbnail or screenshot for your video and add a play button icon to it so that it’s clear to your recipients that this is what they need to click on to watch the video. Add the screenshot to your email content and upload the video to a video hosting site like YouTube or create a landing page for it.
Then, link the screenshot to the video, complete the rest of your email and subject line, and it’s ready to send. When the recipient clicks on the thumbnail in the email, they will be taken to a new page where they can watch the video.
How to Send a Video With GIF
You can make it even more obvious that this thumbnail or screenshot is where recipients can find the video by using a GIF rather than a static image in your email.
An animated GIF can include a few frames of your video, which will help you to ensure that this part of your email stands out and gets the attention of viewers.
However, there are a few things to be aware of before creating your GIF including the fact that large image files might slow down the load time of the entire email in some clients, so make sure that your GIF is not too large before you upload it and press send. Ideally, you should try and keep any GIF that you use under 1MB.
How to Send a Large Video through Email
Video files can be quite large. So, while including a video in your marketing emails can be an ideal way to boost engagement and get the attention of your recipients, it’s important to be aware that sometimes adding a video file to your email can backfire.
There is quite a low chance that people are actually going to get around to watching the video that you send if it means that the email takes a long time to load.
Because of this, the screenshot or thumbnail method of sending an email is always the best option for sending a large video file. Since the email doesn’t actually contain the video file, rather, it is uploaded onto a separate page that is linked to in the email, this won’t affect the load speed of the email whatsoever.
How to Send a Video By Email – Best Practices
Videos can add interest to your marketing emails and get the attention of your viewers, helping to boost engagement and revenue.
If you are considering adding some videos to your marketing emails, whether you have decided to embed the video or use the more recommended screenshot method to avoid issues that can come with embedded videos, it’s important to understand the best practices around sending videos through email to give your recipients the best user experience and get the best results.
Focus on a Great Subject Line
While adding a video to your email has been shown to improve open and click-through rates, the truth is that nobody is going to be aware that there’s a video for them to watch if your subject line doesn’t even touch on it.
It might be a hard pill to swallow, but if you have a boring subject line then it doesn’t really matter how much time and effort you have put into getting things just right when sending a video in an email.
The main aim of your subject line is to convince people to open your email, but the bad news is that almost 70% of email recipients decide that an email is spammy after only looking at this one element.
One of the biggest reasons why people decide to open an email and explore it further is that the subject line makes them curious enough to click. Focus on creating a subject line that asks a question that encourages curiosity, tells an unfinished story, implies that there’s information they don’t have yet in the email or imply that there’s something in the email that they might have forgotten about.
Share the Right Video
Choosing the right videos for your email marketing campaigns is not always easy.
Ideally, the video that you choose should serve the main purpose of helping you achieve your marketing goals. To ensure that your campaign is set up for success, you should make sure that the message in your video is in line with the rest of the email content and working towards achieving the same goal.
Make sure that you include a clear call-to-action so that users are aware of what they are expected to do after they finish watching the video.
One of the main reasons to use the screenshot method of sending videos through email is that it makes it easier for you to track click-through rates and the number of visitors that complete a purchase after coming from the email with the video, which makes it possible for you to measure the impact that the video email marketing is having on your ROI.
To get the best results, keep your video short and to the point. Studies show that videos that are no more than two minutes long tend to get better engagement rates compared to lengthier clips.
Write Engaging Copy
Just putting a video in an email and leaving it at that is unlikely to get you the results that you want. Once you have chosen a great video for your email, it will need some great email text to accompany it.
Keep the copy in your email concise and simple just like the video and prioritize offering clarity to your readers. One good idea is to choose a key point from the video that is likely to resonate with your audience and demonstrate the value that they will get from watching the video.
Do some market research first to help you get a better idea of the type of copy that is likely to have the biggest impact on your readers.
Video can have a hugely positive impact on an email marketing campaign, with lots of statistics to support the effectiveness of video in marketing and improving customer engagement. If you want to start sending more videos in emails, figuring out the best method and getting familiar with some best practices is the best place to start.
