Video in Email: The Secret To More Engagement?

Email marketing is a favorite strategy with small businesses, big brands, and social media networks like Facebook and Linkedin. But it’s easy to fail at it. If you want your email marketing campaign to be successful, you need to make it as engaging as possible.

You get more clicks and conversions when you can capture attention and make your emails more relevant to your target audience. Plus, build your brand reputation and maximize subscriber retention simultaneously.

How do you do it? One answer is to embed an automatically-played video in the body of your email. This business blog article covers what you need to know about creating engaging videos and how to embed them, so they automatically play in your emails.

Video in Email: The Basics

Did you know video in emails increases open and click rates while reducing unsubscribe rates? According to CampaignMonitor, the largest percentage gain (65%) is with click-throughs. This is the metric all marketers watch closely and delight in any small increases.

Without further delay, let’s start with the basics of video and email. Using a tool like Viewed, it’s easier than ever to embed a video in the body of your marketing email.

No longer do you need to be a software developer. With SaaS video production and hosting, the coding has been taken care of, so marketers only need to simple steps:

• Upload a video to your video host
• Copy a snippet of code
• Paste that code into the back end of your email marketing tool

If done correctly, the video should now be embedded in the middle of your email and play when the recipient opens the video. This action immediately pulls the email recipient’s attention and focus to its content. Plus, success doesn’t stop here. You can also personalize the video content by adding their name or other customer data or personalizing sections with specific unique wording.

With some email providers, videos have failed to automatically play in emails. Video technology has caught up to email requirements; it’s a game-changer.  Email marketing is now back as a top-rated marketing and promotional strategy for everyone.

You can do whatever you want with the rest of the email message. Customizing a relevant subject line, including other forms of media, writing other content, and including a call to action (CTA).

Why Video in Email Is So Engaging

You probably have your own views on why video in email is so engaging and effective, however, have you considered these reasons?

Visual attraction

Human beings rely on sight as their primary sense, so it makes sense that we’re much better at processing visual information than written information. Conveying an idea over the course of three paragraphs is inherently less effective and less engaging than conveying that same information in the course of a one-minute video. People generally prefer visual information, and providing a video is a way of taking advantage of that.

Attention-grabbing

When you open an email, you don’t usually expect to see a video automatically playing. When you do, your attention is instantly grabbed. The movement and the novelty of the embedded video instantly sees your attention, so you’re inclined to pay attention to what’s going on in this embedded media. It’s almost impossible to generate the same effect through writing alone.

Uniqueness

There is a distinct competitive advantage in using embedded videos in emails. People receive hundreds of emails daily, many of which are marketing emails. If your marketing emails look like everyone else’s, you will not stand out or capture much engagement. By contrast, embedding videos in your email competitively differentiates you, giving you an easy way to stand out from the crowd.

Stickiness

Incentives to continue engaging. Videos are naturally rewarding. If you start watching the video and your attention is hooked, you’ll be inclined to watch the entire thing. Meanwhile, when people notice excessive amounts of text, they usually just skim it and move on.

Extra Tips for Video In Email Success

If you’re ready to start embedding more videos in your marketing emails, follow these extra tips for even more success.

1. Polish your subject line

Embedded videos in your emails will do an excellent job of keeping your viewers engaged and maximizing their chances of converting – but that’s dependent on your subscribers actually opening your emails. Accordingly, you need to spend time polishing your subject line to maximize its effectiveness in securing opens.

2. Segment your email lists

Segment your email lists using the subscriber data so you can deliver highly relevant content to target audiences. Your videos will be much more effective if they’re specifically aimed at the people receiving them. However, producing general videos for a wide audience can work too, but it will not help you reach your full potential. When starting your email marketing, send out general content and create segments from the measurement.

For example, you may send out a video on tennis, and then you can add a segment to your list for tennis and add the subscribers who clicked your video. Your next campaign may be on a training session to improve your tennis game. You’d send this email to your tennis list, and the metrics will let you know who plays tennis.

3. Personalize your video content

Personalize the videos you include in your marketing emails, making them even more relevant to the person receiving them. Simple changes, like addressing a person by name, can significantly affect how your video is received.

4. Analyze your efforts and adapt

Finally, pay close attention to your email marketing analytics.

• Are people watching your video in full?
• Do your emails with embedded videos tend to perform better than others?

Use this information to critique your strategy and come up with even better approaches in the future.

Final Words

Using video in the body of your marketing emails is still a relatively new strategy. If you want a competitive advantage and to distinguish yourself from the competition, now is the time to start. Fortunately, you don’t need to be exceptionally skilled in coding, video production, or even email marketing to try this strategy – so there’s no reason not to make an effort.