There is no doubt about the fact that video is a powerful marketing tool. The advantage of video is that it captivates attention and stands out from other mediums of communication. According to recent research, over 83% of businesses use video marketing as an important part of their strategy to boost ROI. 

Clubbing video with email adds an element of liveliness and motion to the plain emails and makes it visually more appealing. Email marketers can create more attention-grabbing and interactive emails by representing the content in the form of a video. It can work wonders in increasing customer engagement, improving brand awareness, and boosting conversions. 

Videos increase email click-through rates by 300% and using the word “video” in the email subject line increases open rates and reduces unsubscribes. Incorporating engaging videos in emails has proven to be effective as it can help your emails stand out from the noise and engage your subscribers better. 

Want to create awesome video emails? Get started by downloading Mailchimp templates or take the help of Mailchimp email developers. You can even use free HTML email templates available online

Video in Email for Various Stages of the Customer Journey

For Onboarding Users

The welcome email is the most anticipated and has maximum open rates when compared to other emails. Adding a welcome video message from your founder or a walkthrough video about your brand and its offerings in the onboarding email will help in creating a good first impression. Use the video as a tool to induce engagement and entice the users to know more about your brand.

For Highlighting Product Features

Videos can be used to highlight the special features of your products or services or showing product demos. Instead of writing long paragraphs of text or using images that do not do justice in conveying the actual depth of the information required, simply add a detailed video that can explain it better.

For Marketing Events

Email marketing being a direct mode of communication helps promote your events. And, using videos to put the message across increases the success rate of the event marketing campaign. Whether you include a sneak peek video of what’s in store for the event attendees, or showcase previous event highlights, it can help you draw more participants for your event. 

For Showcasing Customer Stories

Adding customer stories, reviews, and feedback helps in building your brand credibility and customer loyalty. There is no better way to showcase your happy customers than including testimonial videos of them reviewing your products or speaking about your brand. Customer testimonials in the form of video are more effective than the written word.

Various Ways to Include Video in Email

Link a YouTube video

One of the most successful and easy ways to add video is to embed the YouTube or Vimeo link in your email. On clicking the play button, the viewers will be redirected to the original website where the video is hosted. Here’s an example from Ubisoft.

Source: Really Good Emails

Link to an External Landing Page

Another effective and well-known method is to host the email on an external landing page and link it in your email. This is a great tactic to increase traffic on your landing page. Check out this email by Filmsupply that has added video previews in the email and linked them to their landing page.

Source: Really Good Emails

Use a GIF

If the content that you want to represent is short, you can make use of a GIF instead of a video. A GIF is supported by all major email clients and works equally well. Burberry in the below email uses GIF in place of their hero image to attract users.

Source: Really Good Emails

Show Video Preview

Instead of having the entire video in the email, use a GIF to show a glimpse of it. The GIF must convey the message as effectively as the entire video would. This will give the users an idea about what’s there in the video. Check out another example from Filmsupply that uses GIF to show the video preview.

Source: Really Good Emails

Embed the Video

By embedding videos in the email, the users can view the entire video in the inbox without having to go to an external server. However, it is very important to use a fallback image in case the video fails to render. Check out this example from Robust Designs.

Source: Really Good Emails

Word of Caution: Not all email clients support video in emails!

Although video is helpful, there is very limited support for HTML5 videos in emails. Email clients such as Native iOS, Apple Mail, Samsung and Thunderbird render embedded videos flawlessly. All other email clients fail to render HTML5 emails and show a static image in place of the video. It is therefore advised to avoid using embedded HTML5 videos in emails. And even if you do, make sure to use a fallback image that carries all important information and conveys the message instead. 

Author Bio

Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, that specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Marketo Email Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on the email marketing blog.