Analysis: 3 Ways To Optimize Email Marketing Campaigns With Video

All that glitters is not gold. And this also applies to how organizations use videos in their email marketing campaigns.

For example, sales teams that use videos in their emails get a 16% higher open rate. Video also boosts replies by 26% (Sales Loft, 2018). Similarly, emails with videos in them improve the click-through rate (CTR) by 300% (Campaign Monitor).

Desirable.

But, again, all that glitters is not gold.

There is something we are missing. And not taking it into account can hurt your results.

[If you are more like an audiovisual learner, watch the following video summary now. You'll learn how to effectively use video in email campaigns and which approach works better depending on your goal] [If you are not, keep reading to learn and apply these strategies.]

Using videos in your email campaigns makes it easier to interact with potential customers. But, should you optimize for higher CTR, email open rates, or higher conversion rates?

In my opinion, it really depends on what you want to achieve. Before I share three specific strategies for using video in email campaigns, let's go over the key performance indicators you should pay attention to.

Email Marketing KPIs Related To Video Engagement

Email is the most common one-to-one and one-to-many communication channel. B2B and B2C brands use it widely for customer communications, marketing, and sales. However, because of this, when marketing through email, the competition is fierce.

This is one of the reasons why organizations add images and videos to email content. Using?videos in email marketing campaigns helps increase conversions. Buyers pay more attention to?video content.

Let me share the three most common KPIs you should pay attention to when you use video and email as part of your game.

1. Email open rate: This is the percentage of emails that are opened.
2. Email click-through rate: This is the percentage of clicks from emails that are opened.
3. Conversion rate: In this context, this is the percentage of people that executed the specific action you expected. For example, once they watched a video. For example, buying an e-commerce product.

In this case, I'm not taking into account the video view-through rate. I'll leave this one for another analysis.

3 Strategies To Achieve 3 Different Goals

#1 To Increase Video Views, Add A YouTube Video To Email Campaigns

If you add a YouTube video to your email campaign, a lot of people will watch the video. However, most of them will not take action.?This approach is generally not a good idea to boost sales conversions.

Even though this is a basic strategy, it has its place in your overall strategy. If what you need is brand engagement, YouTube videos are great. But if you are targeting a valuable?segment?of enthusiastic customers and want sales, in my opinion, there are better ways.

If what you care about is CTR, then optimize your YouTube videos for this KPI.

How?

Here are two specific things you can do to help email prospects, leads and customers take action:

First, make sure to use a clear video thumbnail that makes people want to watch the video right away.

Second, make sure that the content of the video leads viewers to a specific action, not just to view the video. This could be booking a call, downloading a PDF, or simply hitting reply.

In my opinion, this option is quite limited in terms of analytics. It is harder to track user behavior across the customer journey. Because of this, it is better to use this tactic to reinforce a message over and over. Use it also to help leads understand why they should work with you.

#2 To Increase CTR, Embed Videos In Email Campaigns

Embedding videos in emails has become popular. However, if you embed a video file in the email and contacts can watch the video right from the email, most of the contacts from the email list will see a fallback image.

Why? Many email clients don’t play videos in emails. Nevertheless, they do show animated GIFs.

This means that, similar to the previous scenario, you will get a decent CTR. But they will not have an easy way to take action.

If you want to optimize your email marketing campaign for sales conversions, you need more than the initial "play" clicks.

But if this is what you intended, then do this to improve the CTR: Optimize the content of the first video frame. For example, you can do this with social proof or curiosity.

Also, optimize the fallback image. If it is an animated GIF, help the user understand that the best of the video is yet to come. You want them to play the video.

#3 To Increase Conversion Rates, Use An Attractive Video Thumbnail

If you send an?email marketing?campaign and add an attractive video thumbnail and reinforce it with a powerful call-to-action button, your CTR will increase. Although, three different things can happen depending on where the video is displayed.

In fact, one of these things has a direct impact on the purchasing decision.

1. If the online video is played from the video page of services like YouTube or Vimeo, the email contacts will get totally lost and distracted. It will be really hard to push potential buyers to buy from your e-commerce site. Users that open the promotional email, will not open your landing page. Instead, they'll end up on a social media platform. In my experience, this approach could only work with strong brands with a captive audience.
2. If you add a video on a landing page, even if it is a?dynamic landing page?like Pirsonal Pages, the contact will need one more step to find the product or service. This adds another step to the buying process.
3. If potential buyers play the video from the product landing page, the potential customers can buy the product right away and even add more products to the shopping cart. From this angle, this is the best approach. This approach offers better conversion rates in e-commerce. This option allows you to track user behavior through the customer journey.

This option doesn’t require playing the video from the email. Thus, any email service provider that supports HTML also supports this option.

At the same time, almost any email marketing software supports HTML content.

With?interactive video software?like Pirsonal Player, you can add?personalized calls to action (CTA) to the videos at scale. Each email contact can see a video CTA with a tailored message.

Below is a screenshot and an example. In this case, through an interactive video, the brand can retrieve customer data strategically. In many cases, the "play" button is like a micro-commitment. This means that you can use it to help the user to further commit to another action (life submitting an in-video form).

Conclusion:

There are many strategic ways to use video in email?marketing campaigns. It all comes down to what you want to achieve.

My recommendation is to optimize your videos and email content for conversion rates. Video views as a KPI are OK, but if what you need is sales, you need more than views.

Today's organizations need people that take action.

How do you use video in your campaigns? What has worked? What hasn't?