A video email marketing strategy is just like any other marketing strategy. You need to plan in advance, follow the plan during execution, and monitor KPIs. However, there is something that makes it stand out from the crowd of other marketing initiatives. It is a synergy of two marketing approaches, video & email marketing.
Each one of these is unique and brings different benefits to the table. To unlock these benefits, you need to be aware of a couple of things. You will have to fine-tune your strategy right from the start. To help you out, we’ve put together a video email marketing guide. Here are some things to remember before you start your next video email marketing campaign.
Video Email Marketing: What Is It & Why Use It
Video email marketing refers to the practice of sending emails to your subscribers that contain a link to your video. Thanks to HTML5, you can now embed videos in an email. You can also use an image with a fake play button that links to your video. The primary purpose of adding videos to your emails is to increase engagement.
According to the State of Video Marketing in 2020 report by HubSpot, more than 80% of businesses use video to fuel their marketing efforts. Additionally, almost 90% of video marketers say that video marketing generates a positive ROI.
Videos can quickly draw the attention of viewers and thus make more impact on them. More importantly, you can leverage videos to address a complex subject and make it easy to understand for your recipients, be it your products or services.
Email Providers Have Restraints in Place
Before you build your entire video email marketing strategy around videos embedded in an email, you need to know about certain restraints. Many email service providers and email clients don’t support video playback in the inbox. It’s borderline spam because it’s a heavy load on their servers.
Basically, once you send your email with embedded video, the video will be on the email service provider’s server. Imagine 1,000 recipients clicking play at the approximately same time, not to mention the poor experience you’ll deliver to mobile recipients who will have to watch your video in their inbox on a smartphone.
There are only a handful of email clients that currently support video playback in the inbox. It includes Apple Mail, Outlook for Mac, Samsung Galaxy mail app, and iOS mail app (version 10 and newer). Other email clients will only show a fallback image, including the most popularly used ones, Gmail (iOS, Android, and desktop app) and Outlook for Windows.
Thumbnails and GIFs Are The Way to Go
Since embedding videos is out of the question, what are you left with? You can opt for providing a link to your video via email. No restrictions apply here. You can use text links, attractive video snapshot images, or custom images with a fake play button.
All of these options work. You can link them to a beautifully designed landing page on your site where recipients can watch a video. The best thing about it is that, if a recipient decides to take action, they can do it right there on your website, instead of having to leave their inbox and look your website up online.
You Need a Custom Video for Your Video Email Marketing Campaigns
Whether you opt to shoot a video or get an animated video for your marketing campaign, you should consider getting a custom one. The video should instantly connect to your audience and help you pass on your message efficiently.
You may be tempted to go with one of the stock videos found online. Bear in mind that these videos are generic, and it’s almost impossible to hit a sweet spot with them.
On the other hand, partnering up with a professional studio will provide you with access to an end-to-end service and a chance to create videos that will stun your target customers.
Video Should Align With Marketing Goals
As you probably know, customers go through different stages in a buying cycle, including awareness, consideration, intent, purchase, and re-purchase. Before you start strategizing your video email marketing campaign, you have to define your marketing goal. For instance, you can start by answering a simple question, “Are you going to target customers in the awareness or consideration phase?”
Why does it matter? According to Kasra Design, a leading animation company, explainer videos can help you directly talk to your audience and explain your service or product in an efficient and easy-to-understand way. This type of videos are perfect for the awareness phase. You can include them on your home page and landing pages, and you can also provide links to them via emails targeting new subscribers.
It’s Easy to Make Video Emails Stand Out
Did you know that an average person receives over 100 emails per day? According to the Radicati report, this number will continue to increase in the years to come. Why is it important to acknowledge this fact? Attractive and custom videos can help you boost your click-through rates, that’s for sure. However, you still have one statistic to improve – the email-open-rate.
There is only one thing that can help you engage recipients and get them excited to click on just another email in their inbox – a custom subject line. Don’t forget to include “Video” in your subject line. It is the only way to inform the recipients that you have a video for them.
Avoid Autoplay At All Cost
While you want all recipients to see your video, you should give them the option to decide on their own. Some of your recipients don’t like it when videos play right away. Allow them to be the ones that click that play button.
If you have used an image with a fake play button in the email copy, you can enable autoplay on the landing page. People that click it will expect the video to play, and you will avoid frustrating them by having to click “Play” once again.
Video email marketing is powerful, and it can help you reach and connect to many of your subscribers. Take into account all these tips we’ve shared with you to build a healthy foundation for your video email marketing strategy. The two most important ones are alleging the video with your marketing goals and stage of customer journey and getting a custom video that reflects your brand.