Video Email Marketing: A Simple Guide to Boost Clicks

Email is one of the oldest and most effective components of successful digital marketing. These days, including video marketing in your email strategy increases important metrics like open rates and click-through rates.

Video captures your audience's attention better than other forms of media. In fact, video can boost open rates by 19% and click-through rates by a whopping 65%.

We're going to dive into video email marketing, why it's effective, and how to do it right.

Whether you're a new business owner trying to master email marketing or a seasoned marketer looking for the latest tips and tricks, we've got you covered.

And with our easy-to-use video editor, you'll be adding videos to your email marketing strategy in no time.

What is video email marketing?

Video email marketing is email marketing that includes video to help your sends stand out in your customers' inboxes. Video complements your email marketing strategy amazingly.

Video is a rich form of media that consumers love to interact with because it's more engaging than pictures and text.

Why is video email marketing effective?

Video email marketing is more effective than traditional email marketing forms, so using video in your email campaigns is essential. Here's why:

Video increases important metrics

As we mentioned, video can increase your important email marketing metrics like click-through rate by 65%. That's huge! Increased email marketing metrics will, in turn, help your website's conversions, search engine rankings, and more.

It captures attention

Video captures the attention of internet users all the time. One-third of all internet activity consists of users watching video content.

Capturing your audience's attention is probably one of your goals, so using video is a no-brainer. It delivers important information.

Visuals, especially videos, help people retain information better than other forms of media. 90% of users say that a video is more helpful in the decision-making process when shopping online.

Video increases sharing

People love sharing great video content with family and friends. If you create great video content within your emails, you can expect recipients to share your business with their communities.

Want to go viral?

Great videos have the potential to increase your exposure. Videos go viral all the time, but you can never plan for that to happen. All you can do is create great video content, and hope the internet does the rest!

What are the benefits of video email marketing?

Video helps you reach audiences in new and more effective ways. By adding video to your email marketing strategy, you'll be able to foster a better relationship with your email recipients with these top 3 benefits.

Video allows you to tell the full story

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? A video can provide more details about your brand than static images. Tell your audience everything they need to know so they feel comfortable enough to make a purchase.

It's your audience's preference

People prefer video content–there's no way around it. That's why YouTube is the second most visited site on the web and why TikTok has over a billion monthly active users. Include it in your email marketing, and your unsubscribe rate will thank you.

Video is transparent and authentic

If you want to create a great relationship with your customers, video email marketing is the way to do it. Video is considered a transparent method of communication that can help your brand's perceived authenticity.

Video email marketing statistics

There has been an abundance of research conducted on video email marketing, and the results are in. These impressive statistics will persuade you to add video to your email marketing strategy.

• Video content has the highest ROI of all marketing formats, according to 51% of digital marketers. Investing in video content doesn't have to be expensive, so a good return on investment is easily achievable.
• 80% of people will remember a video advertisement for 30 days. If you're trying to grow your brand awareness, video is the way to go.
• People view more than 50% of their watched video content on mobile devices. Optimizing your video email marketing for mobile is important.
• Videos under 2 minutes in length will generate the most engagement. Short and sweet is the way to go!

5 video email marketing tips to drive clicks

Ready to get started with video email marketing? To help you begin, here are 5 tips to make your video email marketing drive your click-through rate through the roof.

1. Stick to your roots

Be true to your brand. Your video email marketing should reflect your business's overall marketing. Allow audiences to recognize and identify with your brand on any platform. Cohesion can increase loyalty, so keep your marketing consistent.

2. Create an experience

Above all, make sure your videos are engaging and entertaining. Nobody will watch a long and boring video. Track your results to see what your audience likes and dislikes.

3. Harness the power of emotion

Video has the power to affect viewers' emotions, so use that power to your advantage. Creating a strong emotional response can lead to consumers trusting your brand. Whether you choose to tug at heartstrings, empower others, or make people laugh, you can use video to connect with your audience.

4. Add text

Adding text can be an essential part of video email marketing. People often open emails in settings where they aren't using sound. By including text, captions, or subtitles, you can share important information and keep them intrigued. With Animoto, you can edit your video’s text size, color, position, and more.

5. Optimize

Optimization is less of a tip and more of a requirement, as optimizing your video email marketing is so important. Formats, margins, and all other page aspects should be optimized for mobile and desktop viewing. Conduct A/B testing to understand what performs best and use that information in your video email marketing strategy.

Practices to avoid in video email marketing

With best practices comes less than preferred practices.

Email marketing is a tricky tool that will have you scratching your head. Add video to your emails, and it gets even more complicated.

But don't worry, avoid these practices, and you'll have nothing to fear.

• Don't set your videos to autoplay. Let people choose when to play your videos.
• Don't stick to one call-to-action. A simple CTA like “click here” might seem like the obvious choice, but it can come off as pushy. Always test different CTAs to find what works for you.
• Don't only use uppercase. It can also be pushy. Furthermore, it can make your emails appear to be scams. Be authentic with your messaging.
• Don't forget the text. Make sure to include some text in your HTML email, or your send might not make it past the spam checkers.
• Don't ignore the numbers. Make sure your numbers and results always guide your video email marketing strategy.
• Don't forget aesthetics. Make sure your video email marketing is visually pleasing and on-brand. Don't overlook your email's aesthetics because you put effort into a great video.

How to make video for emails with Animoto

You might be thinking, I just got the basics of email marketing down, and now I'm supposed to create video content?!

The good news is, editing videos doesn't have to be hard.

Animoto is a simple and fun online video maker. You'll be shocked at how easy it is and how quickly you can create professional videos.

Pick a template

Animoto has an amazing library of customizable templates. There are product video templates, testimonial templates, behind-the-scenes templates, and more. You name it–we’ve got it.

Upload your content

Drag and drop all your content into the Animoto online video editor. And if you need stock content, don't worry about gathering it ahead of time. Access our stock library from within the editor.

Get creative

Now it’s time to get your creative juices flowing. Animoto has so many customizable options–here’s where to start:

• Add text to inform your viewers. Use text styles to make your text stand out with animations and backgrounds.
• Add music to entertain your viewers. Upload your own song or browse through Animoto’s Music Library.
• Add video styles to tie it all together. Video styles are sets of transitions, backgrounds, and effects that can take your video to the next level.

Optimize

Make sure you optimize your video and format it to suit your email templates. You'll want to make sure you optimize it for mobile viewing as well. Animoto makes it easy to change your video’s aspect ratio if you need to. Choose from horizontal, vertical, or square aspect ratios depending on your needs.

Export and download

Once you've created your masterpiece, it's time to export and download your video.

If you plan to A/B test different emails, try making some changes to your video and downloading a second version so you can test performance with your sends. With Animoto, you can easily duplicate and edit your existing video.

Best video email marketing ideas

There are endless options for what type of videos you can add to your email marketing strategy. If you already use video in other areas of your marketing strategy, feel free to create similar content.

If you're new to video marketing or simply need some inspiration, here are five ideas to get you going.

Behind the scenes

Show your email subscribers behind the scenes footage to help them get to know your brand. Detail the production of your best-selling item, share how your business started, or introduce your team members and what they do. The BTS options are endless.

Promotional videos

Next time you send an email campaign about a sale, include a video. Create a sense of urgency by highlighting your amazing prices and informing customers that the promotion won't last forever.

Educate viewers

Give your email subscribers valuable information. Whether you offer information about your products, services, brand, or beyond, adding value to your video email marketing will keep your viewers engaged and less likely to hit the unsubscribe button. A popular educational video option is a tutorial.

Testimonials

Create a video highlighting your customers' reviews and other positive things people say about your brand or products to entice new shoppers.

Product or service demo

Create a demonstration video showing your product or service in action. Give your email subscribers insider info on how you can solve their problems. Get up close and show all the details and features you're proud to offer.

An effective video email marketing example to inspire your next campaign

Shopify always provides great resources to their customers and their email subscribers. Take a look at this email Shopify sent. This campaign sends emails to leads who have expressed interest in setting up a Shopify store but have not yet done so.

It offers the email recipient a tutorial video on setting up their store and includes helpful links to jump to each critical point in the video.

With this video email marketing strategy, Shopify provides value to their email receivers by giving them an abundance of information with the hopes of increasing sales.

The video lets viewers feel like there's value in being on Shopify's email marketing lists.

How to send a video through email

There is one big speed bump when using video in your email marketing. And it requires you to get a little creative. Most email providers don't support embedded videos in emails because video files can be large. Luckily, we have two easy ways around this complication.

Use a GIF

A GIF file format converts a video into an animated picture. Thus, the size of the file is much smaller than a video file.

The downside is that GIFs don't have sound. Include a link in your email to the full video if audio is crucial to your video. Use the GIF as a teaser and direct viewers to the full video.

Here are four quick ways to create GIFs that can be added to your email.

Use a still image

The other way to direct people to your video content without including large files in your email is with a still image.

Take a still image from your video, use a photo editor to add a play symbol over it, and voila! Your email subscribers will click on the picture thinking it's a video.

When building your email campaign, add your video's link source to the photo. Clicking on the picture will direct viewers to the video you created.

Ready to hit send?

Video email marketing can be easy. And considering the benefits it can have for your business, it makes sense to start adding video to your email marketing strategy.

By offering your email subscribers videos of value, you can improve your important metrics, brand awareness, and customer loyalty.

Animoto makes video editing fun and easy, so give it a try and boost your video email marketing strategy today!