If you’ve been attending Zoom meetings since last year, you’ve probably received the email below. The “Welcome to Zoom” email is not just a great introduction to what is now a must-have app for everyone who works remotely. It’s also a great marketing tool, primarily because of its video content.
Emailing has always been one of the most popular and effective modes of marketing. Email marketing boasts an incredible 4400% ROI, but unfortunately, not everyone knows how to get the most out of their email strategy.
Adding videos will help you get your brand in your audience’s mind – and keep it there. If you’re using video email marketing for the first time or have already tried it without much success, it’s time to go back to the medium basics and learn what works and why.
Keep reading to jump-start your video email marketing strategy the right way.
Why video email marketing?
Compared to other forms of content, email marketing videos are a lot more effective in achieving their sender’s goals. According to HubSpot, 80% of businesses use video in their marketing, and it’s becoming even more popular every year.
While there are other mediums marketers can use to promote their businesses, the combination of video and email marketing is simply unmatched in its effectiveness.
Here are some reasons you should get into video email marketing:
It captures viewer attention
When it comes to capturing maximum viewers’ attention via email marketing, videos can be a great addition to your toolbox. Viewers find videos far more interesting than plain text and images.
According to Wistia, the human mind takes around 13 milliseconds to understand a video, and visual content activates 50% of the brain. This means that a well-made video can latch on to the viewer’s consciousness and make it think faster.
How does this apply to marketing? Because your marketing emails are competing with hundreds or even thousands of other emails, yours has to stand out if you want it to be noticed and read. If you want to make your email newsletters more engaging, creating high-quality, informative videos will help you get there.
It saves time
People are so busy these days that everyone wants quick information. With a video email, you can save both your and receivers’ time by providing details about your products and services in a couple of seconds and minutes. It always helps you to make people understand complicated subjects easily.
Video boosts your marketing.
Adding videos to your emails boosts your marketing efforts and helps your brand stand out in the crowded marketplace. You can spread the brand message and relevant information instantly and attractively to viewers through it. When viewers enjoy your content, they are likely to take a positive action that benefits your business.
Video content improves your search engine ranking.
If your embedded email marketing video is interesting enough and has a catchy call to action, it leads to higher click-through rates. This results in more traffic for your site, an essential factor in determining SEO performance, along with bounce rate. Increasing traffic and captivating the visitors with relevant content has a significant impact on SEO domain visibility growth. A good marketing video will translate equally well to email and on-site, resulting in quality backlinks from high-authority websites.
8 points to keep in mind before starting your video email campaign
With videos, you can showcase your brand via marketing emails and increase your click-through rate (CTR). More clicks mean more chances of converting, whether your target is to make a sale, drive up your subscriptions, or generate interest in a product.
Here are a few things that you need to consider before initiating your video email campaign:
1. Educate with how-to videos and product demos
People prefer video content from reputable brands the most. When you educate your customers about your products and services, you earn their trust. Sharing advice, information, and valuable tips will reinforce that trust and result in customer loyalty.
Make a tutorial clip to teach them how to solve their issues related to your products or other relevant things. This tactic always works in video email marketing. You can also include product demo videos showing your products used in real life. Highlighting the features and benefits of your product will generate sales.
Let’s say you run a makeup company. You can email your subscribers a video showing your customers trying your new products to see which shades go with their skin tone the best. This kind of video will help drive demand for your product and give your customers valuable hints for their next purchase. Make sure you also avoid these video marketing mistakes.
2. Personalize your message
Add a personal touch to your email videos to impress and influence maximum receivers. It’s not necessary to talk only about your brand and its products through a video. Try to engage them emotionally! Something as simple as using their name in the subject line and first sentence of your email will catch their attention right away.
You might find that many users didn’t watch the full video on your website during web data analysis. Send it in personalized emails to them. This gesture makes your customers feel special. Thus, they are likely to click and view that video!
Building a buyer persona will help you come up with campaigns that speak to different market segments. A buyer persona will include your target audience’s common characteristics, including their age, gender, location, interests, preferences, role, industry, and needs. You can create different versions of your marketing video to appeal to different personas.
3. Align your video strategy with the broader campaigns
A video marketing email doesn’t exist in a bubble. It has to align with your brand’s business objectives and KPIs, such as website traffic, conversion rates, and daily/weekly/monthly sales.
For instance, if your business aims to grow sales by a certain percentage in the coming three months, your content should be designed to drive sales. This may take the form of humorous video content with the potential to go viral or a promotion for a sale, or extended discounts.
Formulating a video marketing plan that considers your end goals will help ensure that you achieve your specified time frame targets.
4. Create a variety of video content
Customers enjoy watching different kinds of videos in the emails they receive. Sticking to only one type can bore them and drive them away from your brand. Don’t be afraid to push the envelope with your marketing. At the same time, your videos should suit your business goals and address your audiences’ interests.
Here are some of the common video types that you may use for email marketing:
Explainers
Explainer videos are versatile. These videos introduce or elaborate on an initial concept, narrate how your product works, or illustrate your product used in a real-life situation. Either of the three purposes will go a long way as far as introducing and promoting your product are concerned.
Video Ads and Promos
Use video ads and promos in different formats to talk about your brand, business, products, and services at every step of your sales funnel. Emphasize your brand values and vision at the awareness stage and your value proposition and CTA in the conversion phase.
Source: Think with Google
The table above shows us how effective video ads are at every step of the funnel. Video ads lead to a boost in consideration, favorability, and purchase intent across brands. Furthermore, the longer a person watches an ad, the more likely they are to buy a product. This proves that video ads effectively bring qualified leads closer to a purchase, wherever they are in the customer journey.* *
Sales Videos
Sales videos are a great choice when you want to clear stocks immediately or offer attractive discounts on your products. Highlighting the deal along with product visuals and a convincing call to action (such as “Shop Now” or “Offer valid until…”) will encourage your recipients to avail of your offer and drive up your revenue.
5. Include “video” in the subject line
People read the subject lines of the emails they receive before they decide to open them. Adding the word “video” to the subject line tends to get subscribers intrigued, convincing them to open the email and watch the attached video.
So, how effective is this email marketing hack? According to MediaPost, using the word “video” in the email subject line increased to 13% compared to just 6% for emails that didn’t have the word in the subject line. Telling your subscribers that there’s a video waiting for them will help you get the most out of your video marketing budget. Conducting A/B testing on the subject line will strengthen it further.
6. Use videos to announce products or events
Your subscribers want to be the first ones to know about a new product or update. Sending an email blast to announce a product or event will make them feel like valued members of your community and give them the news ahead of time.
Using a video marketing email is an effective way of announcing new products or events to your subscribers. Partnering with influencers, including the influencers creating content testing new products or inviting your subscribers to an online event, will get your customers even more interested.
Coupled with a call to action linking to a site where they can pre-register for a purchase or event invites, email marketing videos effectively get the news out and amping up the excitement.
7. Add text to the email
While video content is desirable to your subscribers, many spam filters seem to think that an email is spam if it only contains a video or an image without text. Some email marketers commit this costly mistake more than once, but they still wonder why their emails aren’t as effective as they expect. Don’t be that marketer!
When you write the body text for your email, there’s no need for you to overstuff it with keywords. Instead, keep it short, straight to the point, and descriptive. Using simple, active language will help your readers understand your video. Many video marketing tools allow you to add some sort of introductory text to your video before you send it out, so there’s no reason for you not to add text to your email.
8. Include a clear CTA
The call to action (CTA) is crucial in email video marketing. It provokes recipients into taking your desired action, whether you want them to buy an item, follow your social media accounts, or share the video with their friends. Make sure it is clear and actionable. Otherwise, it gets lost.
Source: Wistia
It’s not enough to stick a CTA at a random spot in your video. Choosing the right location will have a direct impact on your video’s ability to persuade the viewer. Placing it at the start of the video, for example, will feel too much like a hard sell, while placing it towards the end will make it seem like an afterthought. Inserting a CTA in the middle of the video is more natural and effective. CTAs in the middle of content have the highest conversion rates.
Wrapping up
Email marketing contributes a lot to your business success. However, other businesses are doing email marketing too. To stand out among your competitors, you need to step up your efforts by adding informative and immersive videos to your emails.
Video email marketing helps you to capture a lot of attention from your recipients. With enriching videos that offer actionable insight or advice, you can increase email open rates, promote customer engagement, and drive sales significantly.
To do video email marketing correctly, you need to be strategic and avoid making common email marketing mistakes. Knowing your customers will allow you to personalize your messages while creating various videos that will help you serve relevant content to the proper recipients. Paying attention to subject lines and email body content will increase your videos’ effectiveness even further.
As with all other forms of email marketing, testing and experimenting with different combinations will help you find a mix of content that works for you and your audience. Good luck with your video email marketing campaigns!
Written by our guest writer Oli Bridge, CMO at Bonjoro.com
Bonjoro is an app for sending personalized videos to convert and support your customers. He joined Bonjoro in 2016 and has helped build Bonjoro into one of Australia’s fastest-growing startups, with over 50,000 customers using the tool today.
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