- What are video marketing emails?
- Should you use video marketing emails?
- How to create compelling videos for your emails
- Video marketing emails within our meeting rooms
Q: What are video marketing emails? How will using these video marketing emails help my business grow?
A: Video marketing emails are marketing emails that include a video as the main focus of the email. These videos showcase products or services, include testimonials, provide a basic overview of your business, or anything else that might help potential customers get excited about your company. Using these video marketing emails can increase your engagement, provide better data on your target audience, increase consumer trust, and help your company to stand out from its competition.
In the aftermath of the Covid19 pandemic, small business owners are forced to compete with other companies to retain as much attention from the consumer class as physically possible.
Within this constant competition, positioning your business to stand out among its competition isn’t just a good idea, it’s paramount to your company’s success.
Several business owners believe their brands haven’t gone viral or captured enough attention because of a lack of capital or marketing knowledge. In reality, this typically isn’t the case.
According to Gallup’s workplace data, the issue for most businesses lies in a lack of clear branding and employee understanding.
In a recent poll, only 40% of the employees interviewed strongly agreed to know what their organization stands for and what makes it stand out from its competition.
So, do you need to hire an SEO expert or master marketer to improve your brand recognition? What can your company do to stand out from its competition without spending a ton of money?
Fortunately, the modern, digital-first economy provides several different avenues you can take to improve brand recognition, customer loyalty, and employee understanding.
One of these avenues is using video marketing emails to help you stand out, spread the word, and show consumers what your business is about.
In this article, we’ll look at some video marketing email examples, whether or not this kind of email marketing is right for your business, and how you can create compelling videos for your emails. Finally, we’ll finish with some key ways video marketing emails integrate with other digital tools.
So, if you’re hoping to build your own video marketing email strategy, you are in the right place.
- What are video marketing emails?
- Should you use video marketing emails?
- How to create compelling videos for your emails
- Video marketing emails within our meeting rooms
What are video marketing emails?
Before we dive into video marketing emails, let’s take a moment to look at a quick overview of email marketing in general.
In our increasingly digital world, context is king.
If you’re using the wrong marketing initiatives to interact with your target audience, chances are high that they’ll either never see your ads or never interact with them.
Read more: Context is Everything: Your Guide to Contextual Marketing
Below, we’ve covered a few different kinds of marketing emails that your business might find useful.
- Newsletters
- Promotional emails
- Abandoned cart emails
- Video marketing emails
Newsletters
Newsletters are fairly common and self-explanatory. For your business, you can decide whether or not you’d like to send a newsletter that deals exclusively with your business or a newsletter that takes a broader and less specific approach.
Regardless of the decision, this is a great way to keep customers up to date on potential product launches, special offers, upcoming events, and other applicable news.
Keep in mind, newsletters are a great way to build awareness for your business. If you’re hoping to build a high-quality B2B sales funnel or want to educate consumers, a newsletter is a great place to start.
Read more: Improve, Impress, Sell: Building Your Perfect B2B Sales Funnel
Promotional emails
Promotional emails are designed to promote a specific item or sale for your company. Often, business owners put discounts or special offers inside of promotional emails to help incentivize customers to click through.
Promotional emails can be beneficial, but they also tend to look pretty spammy.
Abandoned cart emails
An abandoned cart email is sent to customers that have added items to their cart but never finished the checkout process.
These emails can be used to kindly and gingerly remind customers about their in-process orders without being too forthcoming or forceful.
Video marketing emails
Video marketing emails are just how they sound. These emails contain a video that is the main focus of the email and can contain any content that pushes potential consumers toward making a purchase.
This can include showcases of products or services, a brief introduction to the business, customer testimonials, customer-generated content, or anything else that increases brand recognition and consumer loyalty.
These marketing emails are just the tip of the iceberg. Several other kinds of email marketing initiatives will help your company scale.
Now that you know video marketing emails are simply emails that include videos, let’s move on.
Outside of a video in email, these videos are typically accompanied by text that covers the same topic. It isn’t uncommon for business owners to add the video script to the email’s body.
These videos are a relatively new tactic resulting from a rise in the popularity of video content.
From Forbes, an impressive 81% of businesses interviewed are using video marketing to better connect with customers, and 87% of these businesses have stated that they’re making a positive return on their initial investment.
Needless to say, the benefits of using video marketing emails are clear – but does that mean you should use these tactics for your business?
Should you use video marketing emails?
For almost every business, the answer is yes.
Some forms of email marketing won’t work with specific kinds of businesses, but that isn’t the case for video marketing emails.
Considering the cost of creating a video marketing email isn’t too high, there isn’t much downside to using these emails.
Worst case scenario, you’ve spent a little money creating video content and gathered some data on what doesn’t work.
In the best-case scenario, you’ve spent a little money creating video content, gathered data on what does work, gone viral, exponentially increased your engagement overnight, and connected with countless new customers.
Video helps your business get engagement where written content might not.
People are busy, tired, and overworked. Videos allow them to listen rather than read, which is far more passive.
This way, recipients of the email can consume the video content while they’re handling other tasks. The easier it is to consume your brand’s content, the easier it will be to convince customers to participate.
The idea is to get engagement in situations wherein your target audience might otherwise have clicked away. Granted, to foster this engagement, you’ll have to do more than simply create video marketing email software and wait for exponentially higher click-through rates.
Just because your virtual marketing emails require some effort doesn’t mean there aren’t several excellent ways to increase customer engagement with your email initiatives.
Creative marketing ideas allow you to position your company to stand out from its competition without being forced to hire expensive marketing firms.
Read more: Creative Marketing Ideas: Surprising Benefits and Inspiration for your Remote Business
At the end of the day, standing out is the most important thing your emails can do.
With endless competition and a constantly growing ecommerce market, you need to do everything you can to make your organization memorable.
Videos help your emails stand out. They give you an easy hook you can place at the beginning of your emails to help you quickly capture attention.
The video draws attention, and the contents of the email educate consumers about your operations – all you have to do is create appealing content.
Keep reading for more tips on how to do this!
How to create an effective video for your emails
The video marketing email statistics are clear – a recent study from Forbes shows that including videos in your email marketing leads to an astronomical 300% increase in click-through rate.
If simply adding a video to your emails can have such an impressive effect, it’s reasonable that you want the content inside the emails to resonate with as many consumers as possible.
Fortunately, modern business owners have more tools at their disposal than ever before, so you don’t have to be a screenwriter to make compelling content.
Conversely, thanks to the technological capabilities and the incredible quality of smartphone cameras, making content on a budget has never been easier.
We’ve put together a brief list of guidelines for business owners to follow as they learn how to create effective content for their emails.
Relevant information
Consumers might be more willing to watch a video than read an article, but that doesn’t mean you should load your video marketing emails with irrelevant information. The video should be directly related to the promoted product or service and immediately grab your target demographic’s interest.
Short and sweet
The video needs to be short and direct. The average American attention span is growing woefully short, and there’s an excellent chance this trend continues. Try and make your videos 1-2 minutes in length.
Clear call to action
Whether it’s something like “Buy now!”, “Subscribe to our newsletter!”, “Visit us at”, or another similarly worded demand – you want to give viewers an easily identifiable next step. The fewer instructions consumers are required to follow, the fewer opportunities there are for mistakes.
Ensure mobile optimization
Countless people read emails on their mobile phones, so ensure your emails are optimized for mobile viewing. For video marketing emails, this is as simple as using an aspect ratio and resolution that functions on smaller screens.
Test
Because these videos are inexpensive and straightforward to create, you should test as many different elements as possible within your email and video, such as your subject line, the length of your video, the CTA used, and the product covered to see what works best. The more data you gather, the better equipped you’ll be for future emails.
Before we look at some different techniques you can employ when creating video marketing emails, it’s worth noting that you don’t necessarily have to create entirely new scripts for each set of marketing emails.
Your video can simply be you, an employee, or a freelancer reading a copy of the email. This alone is occasionally enough to help you capture your audience’s attention and get your message across.
However, if you go this route, you need high-quality video and audio.
This isn’t to say that you can’t use a smartphone to create this content, but you probably shouldn’t record at home or in a crowded coffee shop if you want to see increased engagement.
Recording at home can give a poor impression if not handled correctly and making a recording in a coffee shop is just too chaotic for you and the people watching. You want to come across as professional and have a quiet, clean environment to record in.
Our on-demand meeting rooms are the ideal place to record. They’re always clean, always professional, and ensure you have exceptional video quality every time you film.
Read more: Getting Started With Alliance Virtual Offices
Outside of recording yourself or an employee reading a pre-written email in a quiet office, feel free to get as creative as you’d like. Remember, connecting with your target audience is the single most important goal for your business.
The better you connect with consumers, the more they respond to your content. The better engagement your business receives online, the more customers will see your company.
Below, we’ve covered some different video email marketing techniques you can use when creating content on a budget.
- Product demonstrations
- Customer testimonials
- Animated explanations
- Live-action skits
Product demonstrations
Product demonstrations are a fun and innovative way to demonstrate how a product or service is used. With a basic smartphone or video camera, you can record yourself, an employee, or a freelancer using your product and walking customers through the process.
These videos give you a perfect chance to explain any features and benefits associated with the product or service.
Consider these demonstrations as short commercials and pack as much relevant information as possible without distracting consumers.
Some other quick tips to keep in mind when creating product demonstrations are as follows:
Use basic lighting equipment if you have access to it
This goes for every style of live-action video imaginable. If you have access to lighting equipment – use it. It will elevate your content and make your videos look far more professional than they would otherwise.
Short and sweet
If your product or service requires several minutes to demonstrate – you probably shouldn’t go this route. Remember, 1-2 minutes is optimal for your video marketing emails.
Highlight important features
You want to get consumers excited about the product. Be sure to identify any important features you can think of and make sure the video does a good job of showcasing these features.
Use the product
You want the demonstration to include footage of the product being used. Without this, you aren’t demonstrating anything.
Add subtitles
Subtitles are in the same boat as lighting equipment. If you can add them, you should. Even better, you should give viewers the ability to toggle subtitles depending on whether or not they’d like to listen.
Clear CTAs
As always, a clear call to action is paramount to your video marketing email’s success. The CTA you use will change depending on what you’d like the customer to do after watching the video.
Product demonstrations provide a low-budget way to engage your target audience and increase your click-through rate.
You don’t need a high budget and expensive equipment to create high-quality content. Just follow the guidelines above and you’ll have a professional-looking video in no time.
Customer testimonials
The only thing better than making inexpensive content that allows you to connect with new consumers is when your existing customers create content for you.
A customer testimonial is a statement from a satisfied customer that relays the value of a particular product or service. Within a customer testimonial, you’ll typically see a customer expressing how pleased they are with a particular offering.
As you can imagine, this kind of content works wonderfully for video marketing emails.
To create customer testimonials, the first thing you’ll need to do is get in contact with previous customers that are willing to express their satisfaction.
To do this, you can incentivize customers on your website, make posts on various video marketing email platforms, or just cold-call previous customers that were happy with their purchase.
Once you’ve found customers willing to provide testimonials, you can start preparing questions and scheduling the recording. This way, you can provide the customers with all the information they need to create a professional-quality testimonial.
Naturally, the next step is recording. Record the testimonial with a smartphone, video camera, or any other recording device that films in good quality.
Again, if you have access to lighting equipment, use it. If the customers aren’t local, you’ll likely have to record these testimonials on Zoom, Skype, or another similar platform.
Once the recording is finished, all that’s left to do is edit the video, add subtitles, and put the email together. Even with a customer testimonial, you should always include a CTA that encourages viewers to click through.
Animated explanations
Animated videos will typically cost a bit more than a video you’ve filmed yourself.
If you’re comfortable, you can use animation software and other online animation tools to create the content yourself, but you can also use websites like Upwork and Fiverr to find freelance animators to help your vision come to life.
The animated video marketing emails can include any style of content you’d like. You could animate customer testimonials, product demonstrations, or anything else you feel would resonate with consumers.
Like all other kinds of video marketing emails, be sure to include optional subtitles, a clear CTA, and strictly relevant information.
Live-action skits
Creating a live-action skit for your video marketing emails requires confidence, creativity, and a willingness to possibly humiliate yourself or an employee or freelancer willing to do so.
These skits can be as simple as exaggerated product demonstrations, footage of the business operating, or something as silly as a video about two individuals fighting over your products.
With live-action skits, you’re giving your brand a personality. Sure, this requires a little more thought than the previously mentioned styles of video marketing emails, but with a skit, you’re breathing life into your operations.
The best way to create live-action skits that aren’t solely embarrassing is to plan the content in detail before filming. This includes gathering any materials you’ll need to film, determining where you’d like to film, and how long the video will be.
Write a script, talk to other people, get as much feedback as possible, and then film a rough draft. All of the previously mentioned rules still apply – the point of the skit should be clear, the skit should be short, and the information presented in the skit should be relevant.
Filming a live-action skit allows you to add branding materials to any characters you film. It also allows you to perfectly curate the video to your brand’s specifications.
Once the skit has been filmed, you can start making edits. While you’re editing, be sure to continue getting feedback.
After the skit is complete, subtitles have been added, and a clear CTA has been attached, you can start drafting the email.
There are several different kinds of video marketing emails that your business can use to get ahead.
The key is creating compelling content that consumers will react to.
Using our meeting rooms to create video marketing emails
Video is on the rise on every platform, including email.
Including video in your marketing emails can help you hook readers, increase engagement, and ultimately, make more money.
Our easily reservable meeting rooms allow you to make your videos as impactful as possible without breaking the bank
Through Alliance Virtual Offices, entrepreneurs can book one of our private and professional Meeting Rooms to ensure that their video marketing emails are filmed in a professional setting.
Further reading:
- Improve, Impress, Sell: Building Your Perfect B2B Sales Funnel
- Creative Marketing Ideas: Surprising Benefits and Inspiration for your Remote Business
- Getting Started With Alliance Virtual Offices
- Context is Everything: Your Guide to Contextual Marketing
Alliance Virtual Offices provides established entrepreneurs and new business owners with several tools built to help their operations scale.
From Virtual Offices built to accommodate remote and brick-and-mortar business owners, to our Live Receptionists that can eliminate an extraneous position in your company, to easily reservable Coworking Spaces that you can use to break the monotony of working from home, Alliance has something for everyone.
Contact us today to see how Alliance Virtual Offices can help your company create compelling video marketing emails, and be sure to check out our Virtual Office Blog!
