Using Videos in your Email Marketing Campaign
As many of my blog readers and customers know, I am a big proponent of utilizing email marketing as part of your mix to distribute an online video created to market or promote your business, service or product. It is a great tool to touch base with your existing customer base and if that video is done creatively, is a simple and easy way for your customers to pass your message on to friends.
I have been giving regular seminars with Zak Barron of Constant Contact about how best to integrate email marketing with online video. One of the statistics I use is one I got from the Email Standards Project where their research showed that a “…screen grab was clicked on more than 5 times as often as the text link.” Of course being a video production company I latched onto these stats and used them to my benefit. I’ve seen these statistics used as part of Email Marketing Reports and also in a discussion I had on the Constant Contact User Community Forum…but then I wondered…what would my own research find? We already knew from our own monthly newsletters that we were getting really high click-throughs compared to industry standards and most were going to the new video that we sent out every month. Most of those click-throughs on our e-newsletters were also clicking on the screen-grab JPEG image (see “screen-grab sample image above) which “looks” like it will play but actually links to the video on our website rather than using the text link to that same video. Here were our cumulative statistics for our open rate and for our click through rates for 12 e-newsletters which amounts to several thousand emails going out:
Cumulative Open Rate: 48%
Cumulative Click Through Rate: 44%
So then on two occasions we decided NOT to include a video with a screen-grab link in our e-newsletter and instead sent out informative articles, upcoming events or blog posts. All good content…just no video. Our statistics for these two e-newsletters were:
Cumulative Open Rate: 47%
Cumulative Click Through Rate: 16%
It wasn’t a full 5x as often but including video in our campaigns was a very significant 175% increase in click-throughs when video content was included. Another really interesting fact is that our open rate remained virtually the same which basically means there is a 64% decrease in the number of click-throughs on our e-newsletter when we do not include video.
I hope you find these statistics as interesting and useful as I did. Now my head hurts from all that math so I’m going to have to get back to doing something creative but with these statistics in mind…have you included video in your email marketing campaign? What have your results been? Please share your own results by commenting below or pinging this blog post.
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I think utilizing videos is a great way to market. Reaching out to people in different and unique ways makes them remember you. Not that videos are unique, but you can spice them up and present them in a different manner. Great post!
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I completely agree with you, Frank. Not everyone understands text, or should I say, not everyone can interpret words for what they really mean. Visual learners need something they can work with too.
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Using videos can really enhance email marketing success. These days people simple just don’t have the time to read through emails or try to interpret what the email is about. A video provides someone with visual and audio interpretation which can let that person multitask. It’s just one more strategy that can set someone apart from someone else.
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With the use of videos you can increase your email marketing success for sure. I agree with Frank, videos are certainly not unique but if you’re creative enough you can make your video stand out and present them in a different manner. Thanks for this great post, very informative!
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Totally agree on that. A picture paints a thousand words and what better way to show it than a video.
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