Adam Baetu
If you’ve mastered the basics of putting together a compelling email marketing campaign, including getting the subject line right and optimizing the content for mobile, you’re now ready to be just that bit more creative with the content you send out to subscribers.
Video can be hugely engaging, hooking viewers in and delivering your message in more direct and immediate way than other methods. It can affect recipients emotionally, making them laugh or tugging at their heart strings. It’s very ‘shareable’, and it positions your brand as an innovative creative force.
But what about the statistics – does video in email actually improve response rates? Research over the last couple of years has found that around half of marketers noticed improved click-through rates when using video in email marketing campaigns, while simply using the word ‘video’ in the subject line can improve open rates by as much as 20%.
It’s all about the CTA
If you want interest in your video email to convert to click-throughs and sales, you’ll need to pay special attention to your call to action (CTA) and where you position it. Only around 25% of recipients tend to watch until the end of the video, so if your CTA is at the end – most people won’t even see it. It’s also important, according to Smart Insights – which has some invaluable tips on improving response rates for this type of email – to reduce the number of clicks from the email to the landing page of your website, turning the video into the one link recipients will need to click.
Overcoming delivery problems
If you are going to use video in your next email campaign, you need to get it 100% right. Sending emails containing video content and ensuring that every recipient, using any device and any email client, sees what they are supposed to see can be incredibly tricky. Around 66% of all emails are opened on mobile devices, and some of the major email clients don’t support video playback.
There are some general tips to follow, to help you iron out most major delivery problems and to keep recipients happy. For example:
Use HTML5. An open standard supported by a huge number of email clients which can significantly reduce the chances of a poor user experience
Reconsider turning auto play on. You might want your recipients to have no choice but to watch your email video, but auto play can be intensely annoying for some users and could put them off your brand for life.
Redirect users to an autoplay video on your landing page. This not only reduces the size of your email, as there is no video to download, but it also gets recipients where you want them – on your landing page. Just make sure your video plays right away, as most users won’t hang around.
Call in the experts. Ironing out bugs in video email delivery can be time-consuming and tear-your-hair-out frustrating, so it might make sense to call in an expert to handle it for you.
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