Video is a great addition to your email marketing strategy. It is an effective way to capture your audience’s attention and pass on your brand messages. A staggering 78% of viewers consume video content every week, while 55% of them engage with it every day.
No wonder 93% of marketers use video as part of their overall promotional strategies, including their email campaigns.
But how exactly can you leverage the power of video in your emails in the first place? In this article, you’ll learn three video email marketing tips to increase your conversions.
1. Tell Subscribers You Have a Video in Your Email Subject Lines
Your email’s subject line is crucial for success. More than 60% of recipients decide to open or delete emails based on the subject line alone. You want email subscribers to open your emails, of course, because if they don’t, you can say goodbye to those conversions.
Making your audience aware that the email they just received incorporates a video helps enormously; just look at the stats. If you simply add the word “video” into the subject line, you can boost open rates by as much as 19%.
But what if adding the word “video” would mean you’d have to exceed the subject line character limits imposed by email service providers? Then that would mean your email recipients wouldn’t be able to read your entire subject line from their inboxes, and you don’t want that. If your potential customers don’t understand what your email is about from the subject line, they’ll likely just ignore it.
So, instead of including the word “video” in the subject line, one option is to use an emoji that represents a video. Check out the emoji used in this email sent by social media influencer Kat Coroy:
Does the emoji in the subject line work just as well as the word “video” in it? Not sure if it works just as well, but it does have its own positive effect. Companies that include emojis in their email subject lines have been found to have as much as 56% higher open rates than companies that don’t.
Don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean you should rely solely on including the word “video” or a video emoji in your subject lines to boost email open rates. You should, of course, still conduct A/B testing to learn the specific subject lines that work best for your audience.
If you’re using email marketing software such as GetResponse, you can easily create variations of your subject lines and send them to some of your subscribers. Your chosen platform should tell you, based on its engagement data, which is the best-performing one. Another option is to use free email subject line testers like Omnisend. These tools score subject lines according to how well they’re likely to perform in actual email marketing campaigns.
As a final tip, if your subject line does mention you have included a video in your email, then make sure you actually have. The thing is, many email service providers like Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook don’t support embedded videos in emails. So, what’s the workaround?
Here are some ways you can incorporate your video into your email:
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- Insert static images or a video thumbnail in your email. Then link your chosen visual to your video uploaded on video hosting platforms such as YouTube. You can also incorporate a play button graphic over your chosen email visuals:
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- Select anchor text in your email copy and link it to your video hosted on a video platform.
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- Transform your hosted video into a GIF. using tools such as Giphy. Then just incorporate the final GIF into your email using the Insert Image feature.
We’ll talk about how exactly you can use videos in your emails in the next sections.
2. Introduce New Features or Product Launches with a Video
Product feature launches are a great opportunity to use video emails – one of the many email marketing best practices. Instead of using just text to describe the new feature and how it works, use a short, high-quality video with complementary copy. This will help you add energy and life to your campaign and build excitement for your release.
Let’s use Spark as an example. To promote its new email delegation feature, the company leveraged video marketing. It particularly shared videos via emails showing readers how the new feature will benefit them.
You can leverage video email marketing when launching completely new offerings as well. The video could also show what your new product is about. See this excellent example from Webflow. The video shows email recipients how they can create a blog and portfolio with the new content management system:
You could also collaborate with an influencer and show them trying out your new product in the video. See this example from cosmetics company Make Up For Ever, which partnered with American beauty influencer Nyma Tang:
Just use an effective email finder to get the contact details of your chosen influencers and send them your pitch for potential collaborations.
Believe it or not, your email video could also have no direct relationship with your new offering. See this example from Wistia below:
While the video technically has nothing to do with what’s being launched, it’s still a great addition to the email. Why? It gives the brand’s messaging a humorous spin while drumming up anticipation for the new offering, in this case, a new plan.
Whatever you choose to do with your email video, as I said, just make sure it comes with good, complementary copy. You can even use a generative AI platform to help you create this fresh and exciting new written content for your viewers.
3. Announce Events through Video Presentations
Video email marketing can help you unlock your event’s potential. It helps build hype around your events, ensuring higher click-through rates and more registrations.
If this isn’t the first time you’re holding your event, you can include short snippets from your most recent one in your email video, as in the example below:
In essence, with this strategy, your video content serves as social proof. When your email clients see how much fun previous event participants had, they will likely register for your upcoming event as well. That’s why it’s a great idea to seek professional event filming services to document all your events. You can use footage from their videos for your emails.
You could also include a teaser video for your event, like the one below, in your email message.
For this, an option could be to incorporate all the details about the event, such as the venue, time, and keynote speakers, in the video.
Or you could just zero in on one of those elements like this teaser video in this email, which focused on the speakers for the upcoming event:
The sky’s the limit when it comes to leveraging the power of video for your event promotions. The key is to know what makes your event worth going to so you can focus on that when creating your email videos. To streamline sharing event details across various platforms, you might use a digital business card, which can be easily shared via email and social media, providing attendees with all the necessary information in one convenient place.
In Closing
Video email marketing is an effective strategy for your brand. With videos in your marketing emails, you can easily engage visual learners and, ultimately, get your brand message across for increased conversion rates.
You’ve now learned three tips to follow to successfully leverage the power of video in your email marketing. Tell your audience you have an email video in the subject line from the get-go. Also, use video to introduce new products or product features. You can also use video presentations to announce your events.
As a final tip, make sure you have quality videos from the get-go, of course. For this, you can leverage the services of reputable videography companies, like Splento.
Now you’re all set to create and run an effective video email marketing campaign. Good luck!
FAQ
1. How can video in email marketing improve conversion rates? Embedding videos in emails can capture attention quickly, increase engagement, and provide a dynamic way to convey your message. This leads to higher click-through rates and improved conversions.
2. What types of videos work best in email marketing? Short, engaging videos such as product demos, customer testimonials, and personalized messages are highly effective. Ensure they are relevant to your audience and provide value.
3. Are there any technical challenges to adding videos in emails? Yes, some email clients may not support embedded videos. To overcome this, use a static image with a play button that links to the video hosted on your website or a video platform like YouTube or Vimeo.
4. How can I measure the effectiveness of video in my email campaigns? Track metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Additionally, analyze the engagement levels of the video itself, such as play rates and watch duration.
5. What are some best practices for using video in email marketing? Keep videos short and to the point, ensure they are mobile-friendly, use captivating thumbnails, and include clear calls-to-action. Test different videos to see which performs best with your audience.
Author’s Bio
Owen Baker is a content marketer for Voila Norbert, an online email verification tool. He has spent most of the last decade working online for a range of marketing companies. When he’s not busy writing, you can find him in the kitchen mastering new dishes.
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