Post date: Sep 13, 2010 9:35:1 AM
I know the concept of video email is quite new. Imagine
receiving a birthday video email, information on a property
you were seeking, or advanced notice of a new car model with
a video of it in the email. Certainly providing links to
videos on emails is becoming common, and many marketers do
that. So why not take the next step?
What You Can and Cannot Do.
First, right now, embedding a video in an email is not
possible. One day it might happen, but right now email
servers don't have the necessary software for this. This
means text links or graphics.
Research suggests that using a graphical representation ofyour video and then providing a direct link to the videoemail is the best way to achieve video emailing right now.The Case For Video Emails.In an article by Mark Brownlow, "Video email: currentpractices", he discusses the research on video emailing.There are some interesting statistics.Looking at this statistic, it is obvious that video is nowacceptable to most internet viewers. "According to comScore,US Internet users viewed 14.8 billion online videos inJanuary, with YouTube alone scoring over 100 million uniqueviewers in that same period". Finally video has come of age,and we are all conditioned to use it.Comparing emails with or without a video link, "When not
linking to video his click through rate is between
20-27%...when linking to online video it's consistently
between 51-65%" Anna Yeaman. We know that a video link
receives a much better open rate than a simple text message.
With an image in the email, views are 5-10 times as many!
Campaign Monitor reported that: "the screen grab was clicked
on more than 5 times as often as the text link." Mark
Brownlow says of his own email campaigns,
"In my own newsletters, a video image attracts between two
and ten times the clicks that the accompanying text link
gets".
Do you get this? If you have a properly constructed image in
your email, 5-10 times more people will click on the link and
view your video. If you are in sales, information
dissemination, advertising what would you pay to have 5-10
times more people view your message?
Direct Video Or Video With A Link.
When considering video email, there are three possibilities;
1. A text Link
2. A Video Thumbnail
3. The video plays within the email. VIDEO TEXT LINK
We are all familiar with text links pointing to videos.
These are common in emails now. The challenge is that the
link is usually a bunch of numbers a meaningless symbols and
not very sexy! The author puts a catchy headline in there to
entice you to click. Now you get about double click through
rates when you direct your emails to a video, so it is
pretty good compared to sending them to a text blog entry
for instance.
VIDEO THUMBNAIL
A Video thumbnail is where you get a picture to click on in
order to play the video email. A really well produced image
looks like a play button. When you click on the image it
opens up a browser and plays the email seamlessly. When
using a video thumbnail like this, the research suggests a
5-10 times better response than a standard text link! This
is huge.
It is not intrusive, as you only see the video if you click
on the link. We believe this is the best way to use video
email right now, and the research backs us up. Compared to
an email with a simple text link to a blog post, you are
likely to see a 10-20 times greater open rate. This is
phenomenal VIDEO WITHIN THE EMAIL
There is an email company or two around now that will send
an email with a video in it. While this seems great, imagine
receiving 20 emails and every time you click on one a video
starts paying! I think this is intrusive, and many are
likely to get angry at invasion of their personal space. As
well, with most of them you need special software or plug
ins to view them.
Because of this in your face aspect, I would suggest that
the best form of video email now and into the future will be
the thumbnail version, where with the click of a mouse a high
quality video plays seamlessly.
What Video Email Service Should You Use?
I think by now you can see why I am so excited by the
concept of video email. It is exciting, new and I believe in
the same space as TV was when it first appeared. Right now
video emails are not that common. This means sending a
message this way is very likely to get opened. As people
become more familiar with the technology, expect even better
response to video emails, and reduced openings of more
traditional text links.
After I was Introduced to Video Email, I did my homework to
see what was available. COMF5
Formerly hello, hello, this has been around for a while. The
cost is $39.95 for up to 5,000 email addresses and bandwidth
is limited to 40Gb. There is no commission payable at this
level and to earn residual income you need to pay $99.95 a
month.
As you can see from the thumbnail provided, their video
templates are fairly ordinary and in my opinion,
unattractive.
Deliverability is fine. There is no mention of free
autoresponders. EYEJOT
This is a FREE service if you want to send videos less than
1 minute long. You can upgrade to a 5 minute service for
$99.95 a year with tracking. No referral commissions are
payable, and there are no autoresponders.
Once again, the actual video template is a fairly ordinary
and not eye catching. Nevertheless, for a free service
providing you only want to send short messages to people yo
know, it would be OK.
There is no video conferencing, and the basic service can't
be loaded onto youtube, etc.
JIVE SYSTEMS At $99.95 a month this is a premium service.
You can have up to 60 minute videos, although I am not sure
why you would have one that long on an email! There is a
free trial, but you have to enter credit card information to
do it.
There is no compensation plan but they appear to have good
training. For most people this may be a litle expensive, but
it appears to be onre of the better services.
They suggest the $99.95 price point is for a limited time to
increase urgency. TALK FUSION
This incorporates a very easy to use interface, enabling
video emails to be on their way in less than 5 minutes from
the first mouse click. The templates are great and they will
even design a professional template for you with the
Executive package.
Talk Fusion have a very professional web site and
autoresponders and video conferencing. One great feature is
the ability to put your videos on your blog, and social
media sites. The autoresponders include a subscription form
you can place on any website. Subscribers are automatically
sent a pre established video and or text email message
series. This is very effective in communicating with
prospects or customers.
There is an affiliate plan and after an initial joining fee
of $175 a month, your monthly spend is just $20 for up to
1,000 clients on your mailing list.
This product has recently had a makeover and features
beautiful templates, high deliverability, ease of use, and a
very nice feel. With so many video formats, the ability to
upload many formats seamlessly is very important.
One more thing, you can combine different video segments in
the same email. For instance you could have a video
introducing a customer to a new property for sale. This
could be a personalised message of 15-30 seconds. Then you
immediately switch to the second video, a tour of the
property you are offering. At the end you could splice in a
third video with a call to action.
Conclusion.
Video Email is the new emerging technology in video. Right
now you can capitalize from this new wave. Television used
to get tremendous response from their ads when it first
started. The same is true of video email right now. In
future years when it becomes more common, the results will
probably diminish, so why not take advantage of it right
now.
About the Author:
John Gaydon is an MLM and internet entrepreneur. He currently
operates 4 profitable businesses. He has a University
Marketing Degree and many years corporate experience. You
can read more of John's articles on his blog at
http://www.johngaydon.com or contact him direct at