What is video email marketing? 7 Great ways to use videos in your emails

Email marketing is a crucial part of any business strategy. Emails are an interactive way of reaching and connecting with the right audience. When we talk about video email marketing, adding visuals and creative content in form of helps you catch your reader’s eyes.

In this particular article, we are exploring how you can add video to email marketing campaigns.

What is video email marketing?

Video email marketing is a strategy of adding embedded videos and gifs to improve subscriber engagement. This practice helps you showcase your values in a visual form so it’s effective as well as appealing to the eye.

Video email marketing is a powerful way to boost your email performance.

You need to look at video email marketing as something that adds value to your already perfect email marketing content. Videos can be included in various types of emails, such as promotional emails, newsletters, nurturing emails, and much more! 

Moreover, you can also add a video link to your blog post and then share it with your email subscribers. Another option is to use a MacBook snipping tool or any other screen recording software for Windows to create a quick video tutorial or demonstration for your email subscribers.

Benefits of video email marketing for every business

Video marketing has a great potential to improve your email performance, so let’s look at the main benefits of adding video in email.

1. Improves your email open rate

You must be wondering, the open rate is mainly reliant on the subject line, so how does video come into the picture

Well, you’d be shocked to know that just adding the word “video” in your email subject line can increase email open rates by 7% to 13%. So, whenever you’ve added a video in the email body, you can mention it in your email subject lines are as well.

Yes, the mention of video alone is interesting enough for people to click on your email.

2. Creates trust and builds credibility

Having a face to represent your brand helps you connect with your audience at a stronger level.

You can share tips and tricks videos, behind the scenes, webinar clips, etc. to catch the reader’s attention. In fact, keeping one face behind all your videos can help build brand presence. 

Moreover, humanizing your video and sending personalized video emails is highly essential as it helps you connect with your target audience.

3. Improves conversion

Videos in email marketing campaigns can also help you improve conversion and click-through rate.

A video not only increases your click-through rate by 300% but also reduces the unsubscribe rate by a whopping 75%.

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Based on these stats, it’s clear that video email marketing isn’t something that you should neglect. It needs to be the key factor of your email marketing campaign. To create an effective video email strategy, you can also use the best email marketing tools and software.

4. Increases content visibility through social media

The current generation majorly relies on social media platforms to consume any type of content. When you create videos that are engaging, the probability of getting shared on social media increases.

So, the more engaging your video is, the more likely it is to get shared by people. 

7 Best ways to include videos in email marketing campaigns

Videos are the most versatile form of content; they can be added to any type of email! Whether you’re sending a roundup email or a newsletter, you can add videos to almost every email body. 

Basically, in every video email campaign you create, you have the power to add videos as visual elements and send them to your subscribers!

1. Event announcement

One of the best ways to capture your subscriber’s attention is by sharing information about exciting events. You can add a video snippet in your email showcasing the key topics of that event or webinar.

Moreover, you can also share event recaps with your email subscribers to entice them into watching the full video.

2. Newsletters

If your target audience is Millennials or Gen Z, then you need to incorporate videos into your email newsletters as well. You can do round-up videos, add informative videos of a blog that you’ve recently shared, and much more.

By sharing videos in your newsletters, your readers will start looking forward to receiving emails from you, therefore eventually converting into customers as well.

3. Promotional emails

When you’re just building a rapport with your new subscribers and prospects, you can create and send promotional videos in your emails. These videos can showcase the real values that your company provides and focuses on.

Such value-driven promotion videos emit emotions and create a strong relationship between the company and its potential customers.

4. Behind the scenes videos

You will only be able to connect with your prospects and customers when they are able to get an insight into your company. And behind-the-scenes videos are the perfect way of showcasing your business process to the audience.

Whether it’s explaining company process, product explanation or you can also create “a day in the life of..” videos. By showing the day-to-day activities of your company in front of your users, you can create a solid brand presence and improve your email campaigns.

5. Product launch sneak peek

Product or feature launch email marketing campaigns are usually sent to past and existing email subscribers. Such emails showcase the purpose behind the launch and how it will add value to your business.

So, in this situation, you can add a sneak peek video in email which highlights the main features of your new product to increase the anticipation.

6. Tips and tricks

One of the best ways to engage with your subscribers is by sharing informational resources. For example, once a prospect signs up for a trial, you can send them emails that help them understand your product/service.

Moreover, if you’re sending emails to prospects, you can create a video that’s a combination of top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel – so it guides them as well as creates awareness about your product or service.

7. Triggered emails

Triggered emails are mainly sent upon completion of any specified action. Whether it’s a welcome email, transactional email, or cart abandonment email, you can add videos to almost every type of triggered email.

Video email marketing best practices to improve performance

Email is one of the oldest and most important forms of communication on the internet. And while it may seem like a thing of the past in our always-on, connected world, email is still very much alive and kicking.

In fact, according to recent email marketing stats, email is still the third most common method for connecting with customers (after website visits and phone calls) and has the highest ROI.

Below we’ve shared some video email marketing best practices that will help improve your performance.

So, let’s get started!

1. Include captions in your video email

When it comes to email, video is still a relatively new phenomenon. So, it’s important to make sure your video email is as user-friendly as possible.

One way to do this is by including video captions. This will ensure that the readers that are watching it with sound off can also understand the content in your video. This small effort can have a substantial impact on the user experience.

2. Use gifs and animations 

While gifs and animations can be fun and engaging, it’s important to use them sparingly in video email. Too much animation can be overwhelming for the reader and make it difficult to focus on the video itself.

Instead, use animation occasionally, and only when it genuinely adds value to the video content. Otherwise, you can stick to the original email copy. However, if you want to level up your email marketing campaigns, adding animations and gifs would certainly help you get more CTRs.

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3. Place your video strategically 

The video in your email should be placed strategically, so it’s immediately visible to the reader. 

In most cases, this means you need to embed videos above the fold (i.e. in the upper half of the email). This ensures that readers will see the video as soon as they open the email, without having to scroll down.

Moreover, you need to add at least some content before the embedded videos so that it goes with the flow. The practice of adding content & video can help the reader understand your main purpose.

4. Use the word “video” in the subject line

If you’re including a video in email marketing campaigns, make sure to use the word “video” in the subject line. This will help ensure that readers know there’s video content in the email, and they can click to play it directly from their inbox.

You can create subject lines such as –

Increase your blog traffic (How-to video)

This practice will capture more attention and help you create effective video marketing strategies.

5. Adjust the image thumbnail file size

The thumbnail image for your video is just as important as the video itself. The thumbnail image should be clear and enticing, so readers are inspired to click and watch the video. 

Make sure that the file size of your thumbnail image is small enough so that it doesn’t slow down the loading time of your email.

By following this practice, you can ensure that you avoid spam filters as well and improve the overall user experience. Lastly, don’t forget to add relevant CTAs in your emails as they can help generate leads.

Conclusion

So, there you have it! Video email marketing is a great way to improve your open rates, create trust and credibility with your customers, and increase sales. It’s an engaging medium that can be used in a variety of ways to enhance your email marketing campaigns. 

If you want to start using video in your emails, we suggest trying some of the best practices we shared above. What are you waiting for? Start creating videos today and see how they help boost your business results!