One other tactic you can employ using videos is video email marketing. But is it effective?
A report from Marketing Vox reported impressive results, with a 33.42% clickthrough rate, including 63.95% of that 33% “watching the video through to completion”. Marketing Vox added, “The average viewing time was one minute and thirty-six seconds; by way of comparison, the average email viewer will only spend eight seconds reading an email.”
However, before you rush to include video email marketing in your own marketing arsenal, stop to consider the fact that Marketing Vox does not clarify who the target demographic was made up of.
This means the most important question you have to ask yourself right now, before you make a decision, is: “Will my particular target market respond well to video emails?”
One simple way to answer that question lies in looking at your subscriber preferences, if your autoresponder allows that. If 79% of your subscribers have stated they prefer text emails, seriously consider abandoning video email marketing on the spot. However, if 100% prefer .HTML, you’ve successfully passed the first hurdle.
Right now, jot down other pre-qualifying questions you can think of, specific to your subscribers.
Before you rush off to create a video, however, one of the first things you’ll need to ensure is that your autoresponder is up to the job of working with video email – Constant Contact and GetsResponse are leaders in this field, so if you’re using one of these services, you’re home free, in that respect. (Constant Contact offers a generous free trial, too.)
Some other tips to video email success:
- Make sure your message is extremely short – around 1 minute is best, for email videos.
- Make sure your message is valuable and highly relevant. Your readers will not click on your videos again, if that first message was an empty, promotional blurb.
Benefits of eMail Videos
- These can make a memorable personal connection, in a way that the written word can’t
- Have an unusually strong video testimonial? Use it here! Video testimonials are usually shorter than 1 minute; plus you can ask your list for more video testimonials – using your “example” to hook them into viewing the existing one.
- You can track your video email marketing with Google Analytics (or more sophisticated tracking programs, of course)
- You can use videos that instantly play, the moment your subscriber opens the email: However, for this to work rather than annoy them into unsubscribing, make your first video especially short – perhaps a small animation rather than a formal marketing message. That way, when you send your next, longer video, your subscribers will be “expecting” it, and won’t feel annoyed.
You barely have seconds to grab your reader’s attention. A video animation that loads in quicker than they can decide could be the perfect way to make your product or services stand out.