Video email: current practices

While we were making eyes and blushing at social media, video email has quietly baked some muffins, spread a blanket and invited us to a rather promising picnic.

So it's time to follow-up the last overview and see where we are today and how organizations are using the tactic in their emails...

Previously, "video email" really meant using email to bring people to video content on a website. Many times when you see vendors talking about "video email services," this is what they actually mean.

But things have changed.

We can now broadly think about two categories of video email: click-to-view video (the reader clicks through to a website to see the video) and video in email (the video actually plays in the email itself).

Click-to-view video

Video content is obviously a big deal right now. According to comScore, US Internet users viewed 14.8 billion online videos in January, with YouTube alone scoring over 100 million unique viewers in that same period.

Do email subscribers like clicking through to videos? The answer seems to be yes.

Anna Yeaman presents some stats from emails sent out by a specialist retailer. She writes:

"When not linking to video his click through rate is between 20-27%...when linking to online video it's consistently between 51-65%"

In another example, Eric Guerin reported a 175% increase in clickthroughs when video content was included in his company's email newsletter.

And Melinda Baxter notes:

"Some of our customers have found that linking to video generates the highest clicks in their email."

The commonest method for pointing people at your video content is to:

1. Take a screenshot of the video displaying in a video player.

2. Add a prominent "play" button to the center of the image.

3. Put the screenshot in your email, linked to the page where the video is hosted (don't forget your alt attributes).



Tip: don't use a default still provided by the video host. Pick a still that's likely to provoke interest.

4. Add a call-to-action, plus one or more text links to the video content.

Do you really need the image? Anecdotal evidence suggests you do...when featuring video links in one of their newsletters, Campaign Monitor reported that:

"...the screen grab was clicked on more than 5 times as often as the text link."

In my own newsletters, a video image attracts between two and ten times the clicks that the accompanying text link gets.

Videos in email

Extensive testing by Campaign Monitor reveals that none of the traditional video playing technologies (Flash, Java etc.) work when embedded in an email. But 2009 brought us some alternatives.

Animated images

If you get away from the semantic baggage associated with the term "video" you see that animated images (typically gifs), done appropriately, actually present a video-like experience (albeit with no sound).

It was Chad White of the Retail Email Blog who really brought the email marketing world's attention to this possibility: see all his posts on the topic.

Style Campaign's Anna Yeaman then took on the baton, explaining how to use common software tools to turn video content into an "animated video" suited for use in email.

You'll find more practical insight on implementation and the pros and cons of animated video from Justin Foster at the Video Commerce Consortium and in this presentation.

Animated images/videos work just about everywhere except in Outlook 2007 (which only displays the first frame of the animation). However, like any image, they are subject to image blocking and are problematical when viewed on mobile devices.

Coming developments

For now, animated videos are the only realistic choice for getting videos to "play" in the email. But new options are on the way. For example:

1. An email certification company, Goodmail Systems, has just launched video certification. Here you pay to have your embedded videos work at Goodmail's partner ISPs. AOL is currently on board, and other ISPs are set to follow. A recent StrongMail post has some background.

2. Google just announced a new labs feature where Gmail identifies YouTube links in incoming email and allows users to view the video from within the Gmail webmail interface. No clickthrough is required.

Alex Williams has explored the potential implications for email marketers, and Justin Premick takes up the conversation here.

Both the Goodmail and Gmail examples suggest that inboxes may eventually open up to embedded video content where either the sender or the video source is clearly identifiable and trusted.

The spread of certification and authentication might see wider availability of "true" video email in the future...

How is video email used?

Whether using video in email or the click-to-view approach, "moving pictures" are subject to the same rules as any other part of an email's content: glitz does not substitute for value.

Three self-evident rules apply:

• the video must add value to the recipient's experience (what do they get out of it?)
• it must contribute to campaign objectives (what do you get out of it: more clicks? Better conversions? More pageviews?)
• it must match the surrounding content, email and brand experience (how does this fit with everything else we send?)

For some top examples of how retailers use video in general, check out this post from Linda Bustos. And Lisa Harmon has some email-specific examples here.

Some common uses in email include:

• Product displays or products "in action" where the visual experience or impression is critical to the potential purchase (clothes and fashion items, DVDs, concerts and other events)
• Product or service demonstrations
• How-to's and educational videos
• Customer reviews and testimonials
• Event footage

One important consideration when embedding videos to play in the actual email is bandwidth consumption.

From the perspective of the sender, a large multi-MB animated file playing automatically in every email you send out might demand greater investment in email delivery systems or higher ESP fees.

From the user perspective, bandwidth allowances are still restrictive and/or costly for some email recipients (think mobile surfing plans).

As time passes, we may see video content segmented by destination. So webmail users will get larger, richer videos, since they're likely viewing the email on a browser through a broadband connection.

And finally, no article on video email or any aspect of email marketing would be complete without the usual disclaimer...

If you're thinking of using video email, then digest the above, read the linked articles, decide what makes most intuitive sense for your email marketing model, then test it for yourself.

So, that's the state of play for now. What say you?

More on videos in email | Tags: video emails, animated gifs, goodmail

Tags: email, email marketing