How to Use Video in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

For most, email represents a formality. It’s what we turn to when we awake each morning, and it’s often where we spend a few spare minutes at the end of our day, just making sure we haven’t missed anything important. But for brands that know how to use video in their email marketing campaigns, email can be so much more than just a formality. It’s a relationship builder. It’s the start of something fresh and new. It’s an opportunity.

Learning how to use video in your email marketing to maximize your message reach, build stronger relationships with customers, and generate more leads is definitely something that goes well beyond the standard formality of email. Yet, many brands are not using video in their email marketing campaigns at all, and of those that do include the internet’s most powerful medium in their campaigns, few are maximizing such use to their own success.

Why? Perhaps it’s that brands don’t yet fully understand how to use video in their campaigns? Or maybe it’s that brands don’t have the right tools to stay consistent with their video creation?

Why are more brands not using video in their email marketing campaigns?

It must be because brands don’t know exactly how to use video in their email marketing campaigns to maximize the advantage and increase their ROI.

Why Include Video In Your Email Marketing Campaigns?

If you’re wondering why you should consider using video in your email marketing campaigns, consider the following statistics:

• 90% of online marketing professionals are using video in their marketing campaigns.
• Just using the word “video” in a subject line increases email open rates by 6%
• The use of an actual video in an email has the power to increase open rates by 19%
• Video in email can drive click rates up by 65%
• Video in email campaigns can reduce unsubscribe rates by 26%
• Video can reduce opt-outs by 75%
• Click-through rates on an initial email campaign can increase 96% if it contains video.

How to Use Video in Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Fortunately, there are a variety of ways that you can use video in your email marketing campaigns to take advantage of some of these amazing statistics surrounding video. You can include video in your email marketing campaigns through a variety of ways. For instance, you can:

• Share videos as bonus content for your email subscribers.
• Build stronger relationships with subscribers by sharing corporate culture videos.
• Share behind-the-scenes videos to help humanize your brand.
• Use video to announce new products or services.
• Incorporate videos into your email newsletters to increase engagement.
• Use videos through each stage of the customer journey.

There are actually endless opportunities to incorporate video into your email marketing campaigns. To help you get the most out of your email marketing campaigns and the use of video, let’s dive into some of the best practices that you should follow.

Video Email Marketing Best Practices

If you’re going to maximize your use of video in your email marketing campaigns, you might as well do so in a way that’s going to generate the most success for you. Before you get started, make sure you’re following these best practices:

• Include the word “video” in your email subject line.
• Make sure you place your video below the copy of your email. An email with video only will look like spam!
• Say “NO” to sound, but you can enable autoplay.
• Make sure to caption your videos so that your audience can “hear” without turning the sound on.
• Use a small thumbnail file size but make sure you’ve created a captivating image.
• Film your video to fit the output display. Pay attention to the device and screen size that you expect your audience to watch from.
• Consider using the “embed” feature to incorporate video to your email signature.

As you navigate the email marketing process and incorporate video into your campaigns more frequently, you should also be testing out different tactics and techniques and measuring your results accordingly. Consider A/B testing different subject lines, emails with and without video, the use of static thumbnail images and animated thumbnails, as well as various other elements.

Keeping track of what works best for your use of video in your email marketing and what doesn’t seem to impact your output is key to generating more success with your campaigns over time.

Additional Ways to use Video In Your Email Marketing

Want some more ideas on how you can incorporate video into your email marketing campaigns? Consider the following potential ideas:

• Use video in your email opt-ins to personalize the process and build rapport with your audience.
• Answer common questions by video and share the videos in your email newsletter.
• Create videos of past events and share in your email campaigns for future event signups or marketing.
• Create annual review videos and share them at the start of each new year in your email campaigns.
• Create personalized holiday greeting videos to share in your email campaigns during special seasons.
• Create tutorial videos that you can share in email campaigns that are sent to new customers.

Think about all the ways you can maximize your customer’s satisfaction with video and incorporate those videos into your email marketing campaigns. As you learn how to use video in your email marketing campaigns, you’re going to find that success comes right along with the process.