10 Do’s and Dont’s Before Embedding Videos into Your Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is still far from dead. It’s a no-brainer for most companies to get closer to their subscribers.

No wonder it’s a long-lasting trend in this ever-changing digital marketing landscape.

Fueled by the innovative process of engaging more audience, email marketing evolves and has become smarter over the last few years.

The innovation allows businesses to personalize marketing material to reach larger specific audiences.

Now, email marketing gets onboard with visuals. Businesses are aware that their subscribers are getting busy, so they want to consume content without having to read the plain ol’ text.

One of the most popular visuals incorporates into email marketing is video. You probably already know the drill: video and email marketing now go hand-in-hand.

Embedding video in email has now become a popular strategy to build a strong connection between businesses and their costumers.

If you do it right, it undoubtedly boosts your conversion rate.

So, how you do it right?

In this post, you are going to get some technical know-how to embed a video in your email marketing.

The Do’s

In case you forget, your subscribers receive a bunch of emails every day. Your task is to make your email stand out among the crowd.

You want them to click on the email, watch the video, and take action. Namely, you just want your subscribers to stay. Don’t you?

Now, you need to capture their attention from the first few seconds with the video.

Here are the best practices to consider as you’re getting started:

1. Keep it short. There’s no optimal video length for emails, but in most cases, keeping it short– less than a minute is the more clickable.
2. Create an enticing thumbnail and title. Don’t forget to use a catchy thumbnail to spark their curiosity. It increases the click-through rate by 65%. Also, write a killer title and make sure you mention the word “video,” which can increase your open rates up to 19%.

Look how Wistia has done it right with the endearing dog picture as the thumbnail:

3. Write a brief or short description of the video. Utilize a strong short description helps your subscribers to get a glimpse of what the video is about and tempted click and watch it.

Here’s an example from Animaker:

4. Turn off autoplay. Don’t force them to watch the video. Give your subscribers more space and choice to click on it themselves.

5. Personal touch. The video doesn’t have to talk about your brand directly. You can also embed a video that tells an inspiring story to encourage your subscribers to engage more with you.

Also, remember to talk to your subscribers like your talking to a long-time friend– call their name and make them feel embraced.

Look at the precise example from Vidyard

6. Powerful call-to-action. You don’t embed a video in your email marketing without a plan. So, drive your viewers to do the desired action with strong CTA. Make it clear and compelling.

The Don’ts

Embedding video in your email is a bit tricky. Here’s the caveat: if you use it wrong, it can be an epic fail for your subscribers and say hello to an increased unsubscribed rate.

Here are some points that you better avoid in embedding video in email:

1. Use UPPERCASE for written content. I get your point; maybe you want to emphasize it. But It’s just like you’re shouting to your subscribers– and most of them don’t like it.
2. Send it to multiple recipients from the same company. This can be seen as a spam attack by the email firewall.
3. Forget your mobile users. Don’t fly blind! More than 70% of your subscribers access their email on mobile devices. Test your video-embedded email on mobile apps to ensure that they’re coming across the way that you want them to.

4. Use video with a massive file size. Videos with large file sizes are most likely to take a long time to load– making your subscribers lose their interest.

Alternatives

One thing you should know before embedding a video in email is that not all of the email clients equipped to play the video right in the inbox.

Gmail and Android devices display a fallback image. In this case, it’s essential to create an appropriate thumbnail for the video first.

For the alternatives, you can use an animated GIF or a screenshot and simply add a play button over it to link your video content.

Look how Wave use GIF-style as the thumbnail for the video:

Wrapping Up

As email marketing is far from being dead, embedding video in your email can be an impact-worthy way to elevate your marketing strategy.

Video embedded in an email can be either captivating or aggravating. It all depends on how you put it.

If you embed them wisely, video helps you step up your email marketing to the next level with higher open rates.

Related: How Will Autoplay Video Help Your Site?

So, what do you think?

Is embedding video a smart way to captivate your subscribers and increase the open rates?

Or, do you think embedding video in an email doesn’t give much impact to email marketing?

Let us know in the comment below! 👇