Should we embed videos in emails?

4/10/2023

Do you think only social network ads attract audiences, and email marketing doesn’t help much nowadays?

Or you have tried enough, but your email open rate, click rate is still flat.

You wonder what you should do, where you’re wrong, but you still haven’t found the correct answer.

The reason is most likely because you forget to add videos to the emails sent to your audience.

Youtube, the world’s largest video platform, has 2.6 billion logged-in viewers every month.

All other social media also support and prioritize original videos, allowing viewers to share compelling, engaging messages.

So, why don’t you take advantage of this great tool to make your email marketing campaigns more effective?

Embedding video to email offers more benefits than you think. In the scope of this blog post, let’s see some tips and instructions to help you utilize video in email effectively.

Why email video works

Think of all the platforms that you are using to share your message as a company.

Some have been around for over a decade, such as Facebook. Instagram actually took off in 2015 and crossed a billion users in 2018, a few years later, Facebook purchased it.

Inserting video in email is a great way to improve open rate

However, in 1971 – almost half a century ago, the first email was sent! It preceded the first website, domain name, instant message, video call, and much more anything we’re using the Internet.

Email doesn’t go away, but because office workers receive an average of 121 emails per day, they need more motivation to open your emails and engage with your message.

And below are the benefits of incorporating video into your emails.

1. Email gets high ROI

Any marketer, regardless of the channel they focus on, is dreaming of a profitable marketing strategy.

How high of ROI (return on investment) do you want to achieve?

Social media examiners say that a 3x return on ad spending (ROAS) is good if you focus on Facebook ads, and a 7X ROAS is superb. In other words, you can spend $1,000 on your Facebook ad campaign, and if your ads do great, you generate $7,000 in revenue.

Now take this into account: You can expect an average ROI of $32 per $1 you spend on email marketing.

2. Email marketing is a low cost method to begin with

You can start small and build up with time to lower the risk. There are no high costs for software or talent.

Moreover, it doesn’t have to be expensive to create videos for your marketing effort.

You can produce high-performance videos without using costly agencies or equipment, with the right approach to video and a great video editing tool.

3. Video in email increases open rates

You want your emails opened when you decide to focus on email marketing, right?

This is exactly what you can achieve by inserting videos in emails.

Specific reports have demonstrated that:

Using the word “Video” in the email subject increases open rates by 19%

Including a video in an email can increase the open rate by 6%

No matter what statistics you choose to lean on, they are both too good not to test the video’s impact on your email performance.

4. Video in email increases click rate

It’s not enough to just open an email and bring your investment a high return.

It should also lead to meaningful action by people. This action can bring you results, complete the purchase, read more, share content.

No matter what that action means to you, it involves making the reader click on an important link in your email that leads to that action.

Video in email increases your chance of being clicked:

One report says you can increase the click rates by 300% by embedding a video in your emails.

Another report states that a video increases the click rate by 96% within an initial e-mail.

An additional study showed a 65% increase in the clicking rate thanks to video.

Wistia’s experiment saw the click-through rate increase by 40%, thanks to a video thumbnail in a mail.

In addition, video in email seems to help reduce unsubscriptions.

More clicks and fewer people leave your list – what else do you want?

5. You get closer to the mobile public by email

More than half of all web pages are visited by smartphone, and 78% of all access to US social media comes from mobile.

This doesn’t mean you should post your videos and other content on social media in one day. Your content forms a small part of endless information feeding your target customer.

You can get closer to a mobile audience if you embed your video in email to promote it. Why is this possible? Because 49% of all emails on mobile devices are opened.

In other words, you can get your audience’s undivided attention by email rather than drowning your video on an endless stream of social media posts!

6. Video and email can customize the audience

The strongest advantage of email marketing is personalization. Customized emails will improve open rates and clicks, engagement, sales and retention.

Video integration can extend these advantages in two ways.

First, for different segments of your subscribers or customers, you can make use of different videos. You can tailor your experiences with various videos for potential customers, brand new customers, and long-term customers.

Second, after receiving your videos in their box, you will be able to use the behavior of your recipients to segment your list.

You can identify your subscribers by tracking clicks in email marketing software by interests in the topics, products, and more, based on videos they have clicked on.

7. Video helps to simplify the complex subjects

Videos can convey a complex message faster and easier.

All you need is a few minutes of video to convey the content, even if it’s technical topics. Watching an embedded video is an interaction among people.

It makes the information easier to digest because videos require undivided attention. And short videos also work unbelievably well!

How to insert videos in emails?

Some advice before you start

In any way you decide to insert video into your email, it’s important to stick to the email’s design. Take a look at the Moosend wonderful guide: The Best Email Newsletter Design Formula for 2020.

Advice 1:

We have already mentioned that email focuses on one message at a time (compared to social media feeds). So, instead of attracting your subscribers by clicking and watching elsewhere, you may want your video inside to play directly within your email.

In theory, the HTML5 solution can be used. In fact, very few email clients can actually show this kind of video and offer a great experience.

According to email on Acid, only Apple Mail, Outlook for Mac, iOS 10+ native client, Samsung Galaxy native mobile app, and Thunderbird allow recipients to play the video in the mail.

So, you should include the massively popular Android devices, Gmail, Outlook.com, and more to show a fallback image instead of video.

For example, a snippet from a Mailchimp report shows that the video won’t play inside the email for most email subscribers.

Therefore, there are some more tips to give you control over how your video is received in email.

Advice 2:

As the email providers don’t support embedding video into the email itself, you’d better provide your users a link to the original video.

You need an attractive video visual to make it more click-worthy.

Let’s look at what you can do to preview a video clickable.

1. Make a video GIF

Turning a video scene into a GIF is one of the best ways to display your video, without making it play natively in the email.

Even though it only lasts a few seconds, it can be sufficient to spark interest because it shows your video’s dynamics.

2. Add a play button to a static image

Another way of making your email engaging without animation is by adding a static play button.

You can use Canva, a simple free tool that provides you with a library of icons to add a static button.

Adding a static play button to make your video engaging

You can also include a static image in your email footer with a play button.

Recent research has shown that 48% of professionals use their email signatures to get traffic to their websites or social networks.

You can incorporate clickable pictures into your business sign-offs using MyScript or Newoldstamp.

3. Take a video playing screenshot

Capturing a screenshot of your video is the fastest way to embed it in an email.

You can capture video screenshots anywhere your video plays, including YouTube, Facebook, and more.

Video screenshot can immediately show the theme, length, and feel of the video

Cloud App is a screen capturing tool that can help you a lot.

The benefit of video screenshot is that it can immediately show the theme, length, and feel of the video.

4. Use thumbnail in your video

If you already create your thumbnail video, why don’t you use it in your email?

If your thumbnails work well, they will hit audience’s attention

If your thumbnails follow best practice, they already do a great job in communicating what your video is all about and why it’s worth your audience’s attention.

Then take another step and add it to your email.

Some tips for embedding video in email

The key question now is how to make your video more efficient, and make people click to see it? Here is some key advice.

Ensure that your video meets your email campaign objective

If you add videos to your emails just because it can increase your open rate or click rate – you’re pursuing the wrong reasons.

Answer these questions every time you insert videos in your emails, and you are on the right track to achieve the right objectives.

Why is video the best way to transmit your message?

How better is it than text email?

Make your video your goal’s endpoint

What role does your video play in the email sent?

You only have to come back and do three things to reach the point of your email; if your email subscribers open your mail and excitedly click through the video to watch it. They’ll delete it quickly.

Would you like your audience to consume more information, or do an action such as buying? Enable this possibility on the page your audience landed on when they clicked on the video, not when they back in the mail.

Test different formats of subject line and video insertion methods

How can somebody know your email contains a video? You can add it to the subject line by using the formats below:

[VIDEO] Three ways to solve [problem]…

[New video] How you can achieve [goal]…

X major [industry] trends for 2019 (video inside)

Actually, you can use many ways to announce your video available in your email.

To find which format performs best based on video rates, video time, and actions, you should test different methods.

Cover your video with hyper-focused, compelling copy

Ensure that all the information in the email text is closely associated with the video content, and increases the chances your audience will watch it.

You can dilute the key message, miss your goal behind your video and email if you add too much extra text.

Video and email have a strong relationship that you may not have noticed yet. Email helps increase reach for video, also drives you to focus on the right audience.

Once you have a video, choose a method to email it to the target audience. And, don’t forget to test, improve, and submit regularly.

Don’t worry about your emails having low open rates and low click-through rates; perhaps you don’t know the power of email embedding.

Take action now, change your email marketing plan by adding a localized video to your email to see the difference.