Wondering how to use video in your email marketing? Don’t worry, boosting your engagement with video is easier than you might think. Here are our tried-and-true tips for how to nail your email campaigns with video!
How to Nail Video Email Marketing—Three Best Practices
- Getting Started
- Creating a Landing Page
- Video Formatting Best Practices
Getting Started
The value of video in email marketing is clear, but following technical best practices and choosing the correct formatting for your email is crucial to successful opens and views. For example, video email marketing does not necessarily mean that your email receivers will play your video without leaving their inboxes. Marketers often use a video thumbnail in the email. That thumbnail image will link to a landing page where the viewer can play the video.
Creating a Landing Page
A video landing page is a static webpage dedicated to a marketing campaign or offer that uses a video to convert visitors. More often than not, using video in email marketing means adding an engaging thumbnail with an irresistible play button to your message. Very few email clients support actual video playback within emails for spam and security reasons, so you need to entice readers to click play with an eye-catching visual. That video should link out to your video’s landing page.
Think of your landing page as the place where your video actually lives—this is the destination you’re guiding viewers with your visuals and CTA.
Before you create a landing page for your video, ask yourself: What is the purpose of your page? The goal of your page will play an important role in the landing page design and the content you include. Think about your campaign or offer and how you’ll convince visitors to take action.
Video Formatting Best Practices for Email Marketing
Video amplifies your email’s marketing power, but there are a few technical processes to consider. Here are our tried-and-true tips for video formatting!
StagePost’s Tips for Video Formatting:
- Keep your videos short and sweet – Making your video between 30 and 60 seconds will ensure that the majority of people who click play will watch your entire video.
- Front-load your message – You only have a few seconds to grab your viewer’s attention, so be sure to hook them with a compelling CTA.
- Choose your thumbnail carefully – Play buttons pique curiosity, but an irresistible image will make viewers want to press play.
- Avoid autoplay – Viewers don’t want to be startled, and autoplay takes up bandwidth for you and your viewers. If you do autoplay, give the user the option to turn on the sound.
- Optimize the video and landing page for SEO – Be sure to add captions, transcripts, and metadata to give search engines more information about your video.
- Test everything – Test elements and approaches for your landing pages to see what works best with your audience. Don’t forget to test on mobile!
Nail Your Video Email Marketing
Collectively, marketers and brands send millions of emails every year. If you printed them out and stacked them up, they’d reach all the way to Mars (probably). Without a unique angle, your chances of reaching your audience are about as remote as the red planet.
But the good news is, video is rocket fuel for your email marketing strategy. Contact us today to get started!
