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Can’t Wait For HTML5? Here’s 3 Essential Video Email Marketing Shortcuts

November 22, 2011 By 6 Comments

Internet users and Internet marketers alike are waiting on the final implementation of HTML5 to allow for embedded videos in emails. With the text format of weekly newsletters and blanket emails wearing thin, users are dying to use an engaging media like video to spruce up their email campaigns.

HTML5 aims to bring this universal change, but with Gmail not quite there yet, and many online users unhappy with the overall Hotmail service (which is the only email provider to allow videos in emails at the moment) video email marketing is still at a standstill. Even the iPad and iPhone uses of video emailing isn’t really cutting it for most brands, bloggers and businesses.

So, what can you do? Well here are 3 essential shortcuts for using video in your email campaigns without HTML5.

Gmail URL Preview

Video email campaigns on Gmail can make use of the video preview function to help make video URL links more prominent in amongst your email text. This does go on the basis of a simple URL placed within in the email, but its Gmails’ ability to preview this link that provides the video Thumbnail.

Be wary that the effect of this shortcut will be stunted if you try to include more than one video at a time. Try to keep the video content in your emails limited to just one link per email. A barrage of links will be just as off-putting as a barrage of text. Remember your Gmail preview will only work with other Gmail users or Hotmail users so you may have mixed viewership of your video content depending on the types of email account your recipients are using.

Image of YouTube's email videos

Video Image Hyperlink

If you’re a YouTube user you’ll be familiar with the concept of using hyperlinks to send users to pieces of video content. Users do this to send online audiences to other pieces of content they might enjoy. Your email can adopt a similar convention.

Image of Sesame St. Elmo in a video

If you take a Screenshot (Print Screen) of your video Thumbnail on YouTube or on Vimeo, Daily Motion, Viddler, Bitsontherun, Brightcove or whatever video hosting site you’re using, you can then use that image, hyperlink it to your video content, and send users to your video that way.

Emails are always very happy with using image content and by using an actual picture of your video player Thumbnail you can encourage users into clicking the content as they’ll be expecting to see a video play). When they click the hyperlinked image they’ll land on your video page and receive the video content, except it’ll be presented in a different Tab or Window instead of within the email.

.GIF Files
An alternative shortcut to getting around the absence of HTML5’s video email support is to make use of .”gif” files. Gif files are captures pieces of video that play on a loop with no audio. They’re traditionally found in online Forums and as such sometimes have a certain spammy or unfamiliar stigma attached to them. Although as you would make your own .gif image file for your content your email recipients would have no such issues with your content.

A .gif file can be hyperlinked much like an image and can help to encourage users to click on it in order to access the video content referenced in your email.

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at what I mean, the link is http://www.gifbin.com/985925

funny gifs


Summary

When HTML5 comes into play the platform for email marketing will take drastic shift. When it allows for effortless video integration Internet marketers everywhere will be able to make their email campaigns stand out from the crowd. Until it’s released though you can be sure to make use of these 3 essential shortcuts to help you market both your email campaigns and Internet video productions far more effectively.

Filed Under: Email Marketing, Video Optimization

66% of Small Businesses Plan to use Behavioral Targeting

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Yesterday AWeber Communications announced the results from a survey of more than 2,500 small businesses regarding email marketing and social media marketing efforts. Highlights can be found below:
  • Email marketing continues to bring significant value to businesses with more than 82 percent of respondents planning to increase their email marketing efforts over the next year.
  • The more social media grows in popularity among consumers, the more attention it will receive from marketers. Almost 70 percent of small business marketers are employing some sort of social media tactics and a majority (77 percent) indicate that integrating email marketing and social media is either “very important” or “moderately important.”
  • The most popular tactics at the moment involve spreading content onto additional mediums such as sharing email newsletters on Twitter (36 percent) and delivering blog posts via email (35 percent).
  • Nearly 50 percent of respondents indicated that behavioral targeting increases their conversion rates either significantly or moderately.
  • More than 66 percent of respondents indicate they intend to use behavioral targeting as well as sales tracking in their campaigns over the next 12 months.
  • 54 percent of respondents indicate they intend to use Facebook as a tool to help build their email lists
  • Nearly 20 percent of respondents indicate that integrating email marketing and social media increased customer loyalty
  • Almost 12 times as many respondents said that email marketing ROI is more easily measured than social media ROI (61.46 percent versus 5.28 percent)
Filed Under: Email Marketing, social media

Dirty Dozen Report from MarketingSherpa

February 6, 2008 By Leave a Comment
MarketingSherpa has released a new white paper dubbed “MarketingSherpa’s Dirty Dozen” which reports on the top 12 mistakes made in email marketing.

The Dirty Dozen Report provides tips such as the following:

  • Avoid common mistake of disregarding BlackBerry and other mobile readers and increase sales by up to 262%.
  • Find out how good deliverability can increase email-generated revenue by up to 143%.
  • Learn how the right subject lines can improve clickthroughs by as much as 92%.

Below are MarketingSherpa’s Dirty Dozen


  • Mistake #1. Blatant Lack of Permission
  • Mistake #2. Utterly Deficient Segmentation
  • Mistake #3. Lame ‘Welcome’ Messages
  • Mistake #4. Frequency Decisions Made for the Wrong Reason
  • Mistake #5. Institution-to-One Messaging
  • Mistake #6. No Real Interactivity
  • Mistake #7. Deliverability: Content, Formatting & Lack of Self-Advocacy
  • Mistake #8. Designing Images That Appear as Red Xs
  • Mistake #9. Disregarding Your BlackBerry and Mobile Readers
  • Mistake #10. Repeating Ad Types
  • Mistake #11. Collecting Bad Response Rates
  • Mistake #12. Relying on Email Only
Filed Under: Email Marketing

Email Marketing Solutions/Packages

January 31, 2008 By 2 Comments
Email marketing campaigns are still widely used in online marketing strategies. It becomes very important to measure the overall effectiveness of a campaign so that when you deliver content your readers actually engage with it. Many of the standard email marketing solutions offer metric tracking such as:
  • Email Opens
  • Bounces
  • Email Forwards
  • Links Clicked (ClickThroughs)
  • Spam Detection
  • Amount of Successful Deliveries
  • New Subscribers
  • Opt Outs
The most successful email campaigns are the ones that measure the email message related metrics and take it a step further by tracking website usage after a reader clicks through to a given website. By combining the metrics mentioned above in addition to tracking email campaigns down to website content viewed/conversions/purchase, this can truly help you create a customized campaign which will result in far fewer bounces and opt-outs.

Below I have compiled a list of some of the most popular email marketing solutions, most of which offer some type of free trial period:

Constant Contact starts at a price of $15/month for up to 500 members in your mailing list and comes with a 60 day trial version. Constant Contact also has a survey module which can be added for an additional monthly fee starting at $15/month.

Lyris has an advantage in that it has a tight integration with CMS (Hot Banana) and Web Analytics (ClickTracks). It offers different versions of desktop/web based solutions but I found the price a little difficult to find on their website.

MailChimp offers a 30 Day trial version and offers free support, email templates, sign up forms and starts at $15/month (500 members). If you’re a non-profit organization you get a discounted rate of $12.50/month. MailChimp also integrates with Googel Analytics.

EmailLabs offers various solutions including Newsletters, eCommerce, Enterprise and Agencies. I wasn’t able to quickly find a price but was impressed with the number of features EmailLabs offered. The website also mentions an integration with HBX (now SiteCatalyst HBX).

Campaign Monitor’s pricing is per email which makes it easy to expense. They also have a service aimed at designers who manage the mailings for their clients. They also offer some neat email testing so you can test your emails in various clients and against various spam filters before you send (for a per use fee).
“I like the ala carte pricing model…and nice looking stats.” – Software Developer, Jonathan Bowers

Responsys offers a complete campaign solution by being able to provide email, direct mail and mobile marketing integrated together. Additionally it provides very comprehensive segmentation and reporting to really help target customers.

I am sure there are other great resources available, let me know and I will add you to the list!
Filed Under: Email Marketing, Web Analytics