How to Boost your Sales through Video Email Marketing

96% of consumers say that their video consumption has increased since the pandemic, according to HubSpot. 9 out of 10 people are even wanting to see videos from more brands and businesses, says reports from the same research. There is no greater time to invest in video marketing than now. Use videos in your email marketing to get its full benefits.  

Video email marketing is a combination of strategies which uses static images with a play button, GIFs, HTML5 videos, animated videos, etc., to increase the subscriber base engagement with the help of emails. 

People are bound to pay more attention to videos than just images. Videos are the perfect addition to your marketing emails. It can not only increase your click-through rates but also put you in a position where your brand can go viral. 

Videos are your best option to directly affect your audience in a good way. When used rightly, videos can be your most profitable content channel consistently. Video marketing could be the most powerful arsenal in your content marketing strategy. Before you proceed to go ahead with a video marketing strategy, it is important to know about the do’s and don'ts of video marketing as well as you must be fully aware of the kind of returns that you will get from video email marketing.

Let us look at some of the benefits of using videos in email marketing. 

#1 Increases email open rates: 

Videos can increase your open rates by 19% and clickthrough rates by 65%. It implies that people go out of their way to watch videos on emails rather than just read plain text. Their interest is piqued and they want to know what’s there in the video. Email marketing with videos, when done right, can make a lot of difference. 

#2 Increases conversion and CTR: 

Video content in emails is said to increase click-through rates by up to 300%. Emails that include videos are even known to have a 96% higher clickthrough rate than those without it. We truly believe that videos have been underused all these years. 

#3 Increase in time spent on the email:

Cisco says that by 2022, more than 82% of the content consumed on the internet will be videos. That’s mainly because video content is engaging and it also has a high stickiness factor. People are more likely to watch a video they love more than once than read an article, isn’t it? When people spend more time on your email because of the engaging video content, it is also likely to increase your conversions. 

#4 Higher social sharing rates:

Even if you have an email marketing campaign running, it is great to leverage social media as it can bring in a lot of new people to your brand. When you embed videos in your email marketing campaign, you will find that there will be a lot of shares of it, which will be mainly on social media. A new audience will witness your video content. 

When there is a lot of interest for your videos on social media, it boosts your brand value in the search engines as well. Social shares increase visibility of your brand and when more people view your content, the number of shares are going to increase. There are chances of a snowball effect happening, and that’s how you go viral. 

#5 Saves time:

Videos save a lot of time for your audience. If not for videos, your audience might be forced to sit through a long-form article to understand the same message. The best thing about videos is that you can consume a lot of information in little time. They are much more engaging than text and it has a bigger impact on the readers. 

#6 Better ranking on Google SERP:

A quarter of all Google searches have video content in it. Make sure your video is optimized for email marketing. The attention span of human beings has reduced to eight seconds now, and you cannot hope to keep your audience engaged with your video if it is going to last for a lot of time. In fact, unless otherwise necessary, you should stick to creating videos that last less than a minute. 

Image source: VJ SEO

#7 Makes you come across as transparent:

If you use videos correctly, you can come across as transparent and interesting. Videos let your customers see you from close quarters. It is difficult to put on a facade when you regularly post behind-the-scenes videos. Customers will slowly feel attracted to your brand and will trust you even more than how much they do now. 

Make sure that you use the same person to present the videos consistently. It will help your audience create a personal connection with the brand and they will begin to trust you more. You can also build trust with your audience by sharing a lot of free informational video content where the objective is to only educate the audience. 

#8 Brings prospects closer to your brand: 

Email marketing is not only for your loyal customers, but it is also a great tool to nurture leads. With the help of workflows in your CRM, you can automate videos to help bring prospects closer to your brand. Research by Campaign Monitor says that by adding video content to your emails, you can reduce opt-outs by 75%. With each video that they consume as a part of your email newsletter, they will grow closer to your brand. They will deem you trustworthy and are more likely to check out your products or services. 

 #9 Helps create a great impression of your brand:

These days, you do not need a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars to create videos for your brand. Thanks to a myriad of tools that are available for everything from video hosting to editing, the production process isn’t as difficult as it used to be earlier. 

You can create brilliant videos with little, even if you are a startup that doesn’t have a lot of capital to rely on. With the right set of animation, copy, storyline, CTA, etc., you will be able to create a great impression of your brand in the eyes of your target market. 

#10 Helps simplify complex topics:

Videos have the ability to simplify the things that you want to say. It is easily the most effective content type out there. You can take difficult topics about your business, product or industry and use a series of videos to explain each of them. Without a doubt your users are going to find this much easier to consume and more importantly, they will be able to easily understand what you are trying to say. 

A marketer’s job is to make sure that your brand’s emails stand out. Adding videos to your emails increases your conversions, brand awareness, CTR, open rates, and so on. Videos can be as sophisticated and as simple as you want. All of it depends on how you use videos in email marketing. Let us look at how to do it effectively. 

1. Make your sales team use the videos

Your sales team can also greatly benefit from videos in your email marketing. Video is the number 1 form of media that is usually used for content marketing, and overtakes blogs, infographics, and others by miles. Sales teams that use videos in their emails get a 16% higher open rate and a 26% increase in replies, according to SalesLoft. 

2. Make sure your video fits the channel:

When you film the video, you are aware of how it is going to be used and who are going to be its recipients. Since you have this information, you should be able to decide the kind of technical changes that you need to make so that your final videos fit the channel. You need to account not only for large screens but also for small screens. You need to keep in mind the different kinds of devices using which the video will be consumed. 

3. Optimize your videos for email:

If you want to embed an HTML5 video in your email, there are a lot of things that you can do to optimize your videos for email. Reduce the size of the video, add videos only if necessary, and other alternatives such as animated GIFs, static images with a play button, animated play buttons, cinemagraphs, and so on. 

4. Add GIFs to your video marketing emails:

As we mentioned earlier, if you do not want to add heavy videos, you can use an animated GIF instead. While these are lightweight and easy to create, the best thing is that GIFs are supported by all email clients. 

GIFs can also be considered a little casual, if you are a serious business and want your customers to perceive you that way, then you can avoid GIFs in your marketing emails. Otherwise, they are a great addition to your email marketing campaigns. 

5. Appeal to your audience’s emotional side

Videos are a great tool to evoke various emotions in the minds of your prospective customers. While words can move people to take action, imagine the kind of effect that videos can have since it appeals to most of your senses. With the help of videos, you can become a household name, maybe with even a single video. You can tap into the emotions of your audience to like you as a brand and make yourself look attractive in their eyes. 

If you blindly add videos to every email you send to your subscribers, then it is obviously not going to look good for you. Your video email marketing strategy has to be well-thought-out and each action that you take has to be relevant. Do remember that the main objective that you need to be focusing on is the customer. Your video email marketing strategy will find the right resources if every step is done with the customer in mind. 

Let us look at how you can create a video email marketing strategy. 

1. Understand your audience:

If you want a successful video email marketing campaign, the first thing is to know who your audience is. When the idea of who your audience is crystal clear, it becomes easy to target them, you will know what kind of copy to write, the kind of features they are looking for, and so on. 

You might want to create a few personas for your brand. A persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customers based on various characteristics. Each brand can have anywhere from three to seven customer personas. It will help you develop a much deeper understanding of your present and prospective customers. You will end up having a greater understanding of your audience’s likes, dislikes, behaviours, motivations, buying behaviour, and so on. 

2. Plan your campaign:

You need to know what are the goals that you hope to achieve with your video email marketing campaign. No matter what kind of goal you have, it is imperative that you be aware of what it is and build the campaign effectively. You need to have a pretty well-defined plan of action to ensure that your campaign is a success. 

3. Ensure your messaging stays on brand:

If there is one mistake that many brands are accused of making when it comes to videos is the fact that they do not have consistent messaging across different channels. Apart from that, most brands forget to use the various brand identity elements as well in their video. When your messaging strays from what people usually expect from your brand, it can be confusing for most of them. 

4. Create a series of videos:

If you cannot provide a lot of information about your brand to your viewers in a single video, then you can create a series of them. You can create how-to, tutorial videos, FAQ videos, understanding the basics, and so on. Your objective is to keep the viewers engaged while passing them adequate information about your offering. A video drip email marketing campaign will be extremely effective. 

5. Market your event with video emails:

If you have an event in the offing, videos in your emails are a great way to direct attention to it. Not only can you use it to pass information about the event, but you can also educate them about it and even persuade them to participate in it. 

6. Add personalized video emails to your sales:

Do you want to stand apart from your competitors, here’s a simple tip. Create personalized videos for your brand. If you are into Account-Based Marketing, we cannot insist more on the importance of sending personalized videos. 

Image source: GetResponse

Let’s say that an account your salesperson is talking to wants some clarification about the various services that they have, here’s what to do. Instead of just sending them an email with the details, you can create a video where you explain it to them with the help of visual aid. It will also make you look more trustworthy as your prospects will see you in the video. 

When you send a personalized video email, it also tells the prospective customers that you actually care. They are more likely to be open to discussing more with you. 

7. Send videos testimonials to your leads:

Research says that 88% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. If you can get your satisfied video customers to vouch for you, it will be great for your brand as your target audience will get an opportunity to see the success of someone similar to them. It validates their purchasing decision and it might even act as the final push that they were looking for. 

Image source: Tenor

8. Announce product lines or new launches with videos:

Videos are a great medium to launch new products or product lines. You can create ample interest in your new product by making videos that talk about the product. Once you have created curiosity in the minds of your target audience, you can even have a live video event that can be shared on your email. 

9. Send videos along with newsletters: 

It is a standard practice to send emails to your newsletter subscribers with information about your offerings and news about the industry that you are in. Along with the nuggets of information that you share, you can also add videos to the mix. They will have a much better success ratio than just sharing your videos somewhere random as the ones in your newsletter already know about your brand and have given explicit permission for you to send emails. 

Image source: Freshmail

10. Keep measuring the success of the campaign:

Videos in your emails are a great addition to strengthen your campaigns. You need to do A/B tests to ensure that the videos you choose are the best, according to your audience. Does text-only work better? Does your audience love static images? Or do they prefer animated thumbnails? Whatever it is, ensure that you keep measuring the success of these different types of campaigns to finalize and utilize the best-performing ones. 

There are a variety of emails that you can use your videos with. There are certain videos which are only shared for specific circumstances, and that depends on the kind of emails that are being sent to your audience. Let us look at the different kinds of emails in which you can put your videos in. 

1. Triggered emails

Also called behavioural emails or transactional emails, these types of emails are those which are sent automatically through certain behaviours and actions. For example, when a customer completes the onboarding process, you can send them video emails of how they can use the product to its maximum capabilities. Marketers love them as they can send automated messages to the user and they are extremely successful because they are timely and highly relevant. 

Image source: Email Vendor Selection

2. Nurture emails:

It is a series of emails that are sent to the leads based on where they are in the sales cycle. The objective of nurturing emails is to guide the lead through each of the stages in the buying process so that they become a paying customer. In this, the prospect receives a series of informational emails about your product. With each piece of content (both email and videos) that they consume, they will go deeper into the sales funnel. A nurtured lead is more likely to buy from you than someone who has just downloaded a lead magnet or someone who is on your website for the first time. 

3. Newsletters:

A newsletter contains information or news surrounding the activities of an organization. Newsletters give you direct access to your prospective customers. It provides you with the permission to share interesting and engaging content which will help drive sales and conversions. 

Image source: Venngage

4. The event invites and follow-ups:

You can send event invites in videos in your email. Want people to know about your invite without even having to click on a CTA button? Add videos to your emails. In the same space itself, you can share information about the event so that your target audience is interested in attending it. 

5. Email blasts:

Also known as an email broadcast, email blasts are emails that you send to a group of prospects at once. The objective of email blasts is to engage the audience, keep them inspired and take action that you want them to. Make sure that your videos are placed in the right position, and that the design is clear and focused. 

6. Targeted emails:

A targeted email is usually a personalized message that is sent to a particular segment of your mailing list. These emails are heavily customized so that you can get the messaging right for that particular recipient. By adopting targeted email marketing, you will be able to increase your ROI, conversions, and profits.

Using the right kind of videos in your emails by using the right technique can go a long way in converting your leads into paying customers. Videos can be exquisitely used to delight your subscribers. Let us look at ten video in-email best practices that you should always do without fail:

1. Embed video after the text

Do not start the email with the video, it will not only look odd, but people will assume that it is some sort of spam. Write a few words to explain what the video is all about and what the user can expect from watching it. Give them some context about the video so that they do not lose interest. In fact, the text you write should give enough information on what the video is planning to convey.

2. Let it autoplay but without audio:

People are not expecting to listen to anything when they open an email. It can be extremely annoying if your recipients are in a public place and the audio starts playing inadvertently. Here’s what you can do- let the video play, but without the sound. In this way, the user will at least watch a few seconds of the video and then decide whether to watch it fully or not. 

Image source: Bluebillywig

3. Use subtitles for the video:

If you assume that your users are going to listen to the video only with the audio on, then you couldn’t be more wrong. Most of your users are going to watch your video on the go and might not want to put on their earphones or listen to the audio at all. This is why it is imperative that you add subtitles to the video so that they get to experience the video without having to turn on the sound. Do not believe us? 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without any audio. 

Image source: Techsmith

4. Animated thumbnail:

Adding a video thumbnail can improve subscriber engagement by more than 41% when it is included in an email, says Campaign Monitor. While not every email client supports animated thumbnails, it does have the ability to attract more attention than just plain images. 

Image source: Scratch.mit.edu

5. Keep the file size low:

Sending a large file may go undelivered, or worse, get directed to the spam folder. Make sure that you do not add attachments over 10 MB. If it is anything more than that, then make sure that you adjust the size or compress the file with a tool. If you are using a video hosting platform, then you can do this directly. 

6. Static image with play button:

Do you want to link to the video content that you made on a video hosting platform like Animaker? Simple. Use a static image and place a play button on top of it. This is a great solution as it is lightweight. You can also see how many people have viewed the video from the email as it allows you to track your clicks. 

Image source: Fbutube

7. Use ‘video’ in the subject line:

Did you know that just by putting the word ‘video’ in your email subject line you can increase the open rates by 6%? Adding the word ‘video’ in the subject line will pique the curiosity of your audience who will want to see it. Here is an example of how you can do it.

[Video] Want to know how to use our tool in the best possible way?

Image source: Dubb

Better to use special characters for the word video so that people view it in the first few seconds. 

8. Test the performance of the videos on email:

More often than not, videos might not work on a few devices or platforms. Have you made provisions for your videos so that they are compatible on all platforms and devices? Otherwise, the entire experience will be ruined for your customers and you might even lose them forever. You should test the performance of the videos in the email. 

Here’s one more thing that you can do to test your video emails. You can send two versions of the same email, one with a static image and the other with an embedded video. By using a split test, you will be able to find out which is the better performing one. 

9. Use responsive design:

Internet users spend more than 155 minutes per day on their mobile devices. Therefore, it is imperative that you build mobile-responsive designs so that they enjoy a great experience when browsing on their smartphones. Here’s another statistic that will tell you the importance of mobile-responsive designs- 74% of digital users are likely to return to a website that has a mobile-ready design. 

Image source: SSV

10. Provide a short summary of the video:

It is imperative that you provide a short summary of the video before you expect your viewers to click on it. Do not expect your viewers to watch the video if they have no idea what it is about. It is not only disrespectful to send a plain video with no text describing it, but an email like that with just a link to a video might even be sent to the spam. 

Conclusion:

There is no doubt about the effectiveness of videos in your email marketing. We have shared a number of statistics that will help you understand it. The benefits that they offer are innumerable and the buzz about video email marketing is here to stay. Videos allow you to be engaging and entertaining at the same time, and more importantly, provide a lot of reasons for your prospective target market to grow closer to your brand. Choose the right video email marketing software that helps you achieve your goals and all the marketing benefits.

If you have not used videos in your email marketing as of yet, it is high time that you do. The benefits are endless and you cannot ignore something as powerful as this.