Email campaigns are an easy way to talk about your video content, but folks are still a lttle bit unsure concerning how to include video effectively. In this article I’ll share some tricks and tips to assist everybody add the special sauce and amp up their nurturing campaigns.
A number of people ask me “Ian, may i stream video playback within an email?”. The answer to this query is form of. The image below outlines which email clients support video, but as you’ll notice, you have to be careful with this particular pie chart. Because the two major email clients (Outlook and Gmail) tend not to support video playback, you need to obtain a bit creative to give readers an interactive video experience.
In spite of this, here’s my 4 tips to work around the playback challenge and incorporate video within your emails:
1. Within your email, include an image from your video and set a play button over top of it to mimic the design of an average video player:
Here you’re adding a visual indication which a video is part of your own email together with the play button. When readers are prompted using this type of play button, they’ll select the image and stay directed to a website landing page – or a branded video sharing page – together with your video embedded. By using a compelling image to link readers to video email works very well to enhance click through rates.
Also you can work with a GIF rather than a static image; however, you should choose an ideal first image for the GIF if your email client does not support GIFs (darn Outlook), and freezes at the first image.
2. Embed video on your own landing page and set up it to auto-play:
Because you’re technically redirecting folks to some website landing page along with your video embedded, you’ll want to catch their attention right away and auto-play is a surefire way to do this (furthermore, it requires less clicks from your viewers).
3. As a general guideline, your video ought to be 30-90 seconds for surface of funnel campaigns and 1-half an hour for individuals further across the funnel:
Because attention spans will be different dependant upon a prospect’s progression through the sales funnel, you’ll intend to make sure your emails, along with the videos within those email campaigns, are highly targeted.
When sending communication to top-of-funnel leads, the associated video must be short and sweet and doesn’t necessarily will need to go into product details. The full point is to attract new contacts and guide them into the sales funnel.
For prospects you’re targeting who happen to be further along in the funnel, consider including videos to answer questions you understand they may have regarding the product, detailed product demos, or personalized videos regarding how the product solves problems in their industry.
4. Place a telephone call to action during, or at the conclusion of the recording that suggests a clear next step to your audience:
If you’ve managed to obtain your readers to be viewers, you’ll definitely desire to direct your these people to more content they may like, encourage them to share the recording with social buttons, or get them submit an Eloqua form after the video.
Developing a call to action may be as simple as prompting viewers to “download our white paper” or as strategic as together with a contact page form at the conclusion of a youtube video. A form can collect even more details to push to your marketing automation or CRM contact records for future lead nurturing and segmentation.
You may send several emails as you wish, however if you aren’t tracking responses, you won’t know if your videos are effective or not. All e-mail marketing systems can tell you who’s clicked on your own email, and which links they clicked inside the email – video or otherwise. Tracking beyond this info is where things find more interesting.
For our own video campaigns, we use Vidyard to trace not only who watches the video, but just how long every individual viewer watched our video and where they dropped off or lost interest. For example, if Steve watches our home page video, but never returns to your site, it’s safe to assume he had not been as engaged with this content as Monica, who watched our Eloqua integration video, visited our blog, and watched more video content on our Space Academy.
If their friend’s contact information isn’t stored in your marketing automation or customer relationship management system, you’ll intend to make sure there’s some means for this new contact to get up their hand and request more information.
Vidyard offers email gates that can be added prior to the video plays and customizable calls-to-action that follow the video wherever it’s viewed. Optimizations like it will help you capture lead data anywhere your video goes, and it’s essential to have this kind of technique for capturing information from viewers who would like to self-identify as interested prospects.
What happens if someone likes your posts a lot that they publish it elsewhere (blog, press, social websites etc.)? Or maybe they normally use your video within re-published content? Well, the dexhpky83 functionality will apply. You still get all the data, lead generation, along with the integrated calls to action regardless of where your video ultimately ends up out on the net. This is applicable to YouTube annotations, and Vidyard’s calls-to-action.
If you’re using video in your email campaigns, how’s it working? How are you presently tracking your prosperity? What’s your average click through rate once you include videos? Tell me from the comments below – I’d love to hear about what’s working and if you realise these guidelines helpful!