Email used to be a very simple form of communication. Once featuring nothing more than text, a few haphazardly placed images and the odd link or two, email marketing campaigns can now be content rich works of art that inspire and encourage people to act.
If you come from an era where
Take video, which can now be embedded directly within emails and used in all manner of creative ways. It has become a powerful addition.
With that in mind, we thought it would be useful to look at a few inventive ways video can be integrated into email marketing.
1. Customer Case Studies
Why should customer case studies and testimonials be reserved solely for business websites?
Real customer stories can breathe life into email campaigns, and rather than simply inserting a paragraph or two of random text, why not instead embed a ‘to-camera’ testimonial? They may be the best way to make a great first impression.
2. Teaser Trailers
Here’s a technique we can all learn from Hollywood. How do you drum up excitement about a forthcoming film? You release a short, snappy teaser trailer that shows just enough to get people excited, but doesn’t reveal the whole end product in it’s entirety.
You can do the same in business with email marketing. Record a short video that teases a new product release and send it out to all your subscribers for instant engagement.
3. Add Verve To Special Messages
If you regularly send out Happy Birthday messages to your customers via email, you can now replace that static image of a birthday cake with a short video that features a sparkling candle atop a real cake. The should certainly raise engagement (and happiness) levels.
4. Feature Demonstration
Work in the software business? If you develop an app that receives regular updates and iterations, one of the best ways to show off your latest work is to record a mini screencast of the new feature and distribute it via email.
Recipients may never need to click through to your website if they see the new feature there and then, but if there’s also a strong call to action (i.e. “Email us now” or a prominent sales telephone number), the video may just prompt them to act.
5. Product Videos
Beyond product updates, full product videos can be great additions to email campaigns.
Record a product video and, rather than adding it solely to a page on your website, create an email campaign based around it that features a chain of emails with embedded clips to build engagement and gradually reveal more of the product itself.
6. A Personal Message For Cold Emails
Cold emailing is still a much practiced marketing technique, but has long experienced rather uninspiring conversion rates.
Video might just be the answer to this conundrum, because if you can replace rudimentary text introductions with personal video messages from someone within the company, people are more likely to listen to what you have to say and may convert quicker than they would otherwise.
Conclusion
Like anything in marketing, you have to be creative in order to make the most of best practices and proven techniques. Just adding a video to an email won’t boost open rates, but try one of the inventive tips above, and see what works for you best.