Video email: 8 recommended practices

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The first half of our look at video in email reviewed those scenarios where video makes sense as email content. Now let's get down to some specifics.

What tricks, traps, tactics and practices do our five video experts have for us?

1. Use video as a means, not an end

Wayne Wall, CEO at Flimp Media, a rich media marketing and analytics service, notes that your video is:

"...a means to get your audience to follow through on a call to action."

That's easily forgotten in all the excitement about "video experiences."

The actual business objectives of the email can suffer if, for example, the video "reveals all" without offering some way to take the next step toward a sale, download, registration, donation, etc.

2. Find the right video/copy balance in emails and landing pages

That means ensuring the video and surrounding copy complement each other. You need actionable links near the video, otherwise (as Wall puts it):

"...you give your audience no choice but to say, 'That was cool,' and delete the email."

It's a point echoed by Anna Yeaman of email design agency Style Campaign. She says the combination of video, text and images in the email mustn't do too good a job if, for example, you want to drive traffic to a website:

"For instance, we surmised that between the video gif and step-by-step recipe in this email, subscribers were left with little reason to clickthrough. Whether that's good or bad depends on your objective."

The trick is to find a balance between an engaging video and action-oriented copy. The latter should provide an outlet for those seeking to explore further, but without drawing too much attention away from the video itself.

Justin Foster, co-founder of video commerce solutions provider Liveclicker adds:

"Don't over-complicate your email with long copy or several different prominent calls to action when featuring video...people cannot view the video and read outside the video at the same time."

Similar principles apply to videos featured on landing pages. Chad White, Research Director at agency Smith-Harmon and author of the Retail Email Blog says you need to make it very clear what you want subscribers to do after they watch the video:

"Hallmark recently sent a back-to-school email that leveraged a TV commercial that they made. The point was to sell greeting cards that gave encouragement to students on their first day back at school. The email contained the video promo plus related cards, but the landing page didn't include any card promotions."

"In fact, it didn't include any Hallmark branding or navigation. It was just a video console on an otherwise blank page. That's a huge wasted opportunity to leverage the engagement of the video to sell products."

3. Don't forget video analytics

Obviously you'll be measuring and testing the impact of video content on the results of your email campaigns, through clicks, sales, forwards etc.

But you can (and should) also measure how people engage with the video itself. Flimp's Wall notes:

"...producing and distributing video is only half the battle. Once it's out there, you need to be able to monitor what it's doing."

Justin Foster agrees, suggesting you "...measure the engagement of video in email to learn how much of the video your subscribers actually watch."

How?

Well, your video email service may offer engagement analytics, where you can see, for example, how long people watch the video and when they break off to go elsewhere.

Anybody who has put up a video on YouTube will see a very basic example of this with YouTube's Hot Spots feature.

4. Keep it short and sweet and draw attention to the player

These engagement metrics will help you understand how long your videos should be. But Foster suggests 10-30 seconds worth of video in the actual email is a good target to aim for.

Yeaman adds:

"As a designer I get frustrated with the size restrictions of video gifs. Adding 10 seconds to the length will not impact performance so much as adding 50 pixels to the player width."

"For instance this Kraft food video is only 240x144 pixels. In order to offset the size, I added a drop shadow and orange box. Try adding design elements around the player to help it stand out."

5. Don't disguise the video link

Drawing attention to the video is particularly important where you use just a linked screenshot or still. This is where many marketers lose out, because they fail to make it clear that the image actually leads to a video.

Yeaman believes a static screenshot can hold its own against, for example, video gifs, but only if well executed...

"Pick a compelling still, place a play icon over the top, add a play bar, length of the video and repeat your CTA in HTML text."

...and she points us to examples from Express and Dillard's.

6. Design for failure

Unfortunately, even the best-designed screenshot can break down when images are blocked, which means alt attributes and adjacent text links are a must (for more on coping with image blocking see here.)

And even the best "video in the email" technology cannot guarantee full functionality in every situation. So you need to design for when the video format is not supported.

Peter C. Horan, Chairman and CEO of Goodmail Systems notes that their CertifiedVideo technology has built-in redundancy, where the video:

"...falls back to today's 'static video image with the click arrow' should a consumer's browser fail to cooperate."

Video gifs are image-based animations so face image blocking constraints, too. In addition, the Outlook 2007 email client only displays the first frame of such an animation. So it's worth giving creative thought to how that first frame looks.

Anna Yeaman says:

"One technique we've been using is to add a play icon over the first frame for Outlook 2007 users. You might take that a step further, by replacing the default first frame with an engaging still."

Justin Foster also points out that different clients vary in terms of optimal frame rates for video gifs.

"Video .gifs work 'nearly' everywhere, as opposed to 'everywhere.' For example, Outlook 2007 will not display video. Some mobile clients will show choppy video, while others support only static images."

"Video .gif delivery technology can help compensate for some of the client-specific limitations by automatically swapping in static images or varying the video frame rate based on the detected client."

The lack of audio in video gifs also demands creative thinking. You can't simply repackage an existing video that has sound, if the audio is an important part of the message.

7. Test your options

With video email there is a tradeoff between the quality of the in-email video experience and the cost. Whether you go for a video gif or CertifiedVideo, it's worth testing against the (cheaper) simple screenshot linked to a video hosted online.

Chad White's company, for example, "...A/B tested a video gif vs. a standard video image tease. The email with the video gif dramatically outperformed the one that just used a static image to promote the video content."

Justin Foster also notes that "...a 5%-25% increase in sales has been demonstrated in A/B tests featuring in-email video v. the 'gold standard' of video in email (using a static image with a play button overlaid, linked to a landing page featuring full video)."

It's important, however, not just to compare the performances of the alternatives in terms of your email goals, but to balance that against costs.

8. Be aware of production and bandwidth costs

Anna Yeaman warns that for smaller organizations those costs:

"...can outweigh the benefits. Video production fees, editing, converting to gif, delivery and or bandwidth charges are currently a deterrent for many."

You have some cost flexibility with regard to content generation. Wayne Wall says a video doesn't have to be expensive to be effective:

"The prevailing theory is that video takes lots of time and effort to get it 'right.' But there's no 'right' way to do video. We've seen effective campaigns shot in a half hour on $100 flip cameras."

Nevertheless, delivery and bandwidth can incur significant costs, depending on the technology and approach you use.

Justin Foster notes:

"It's quite possible for video email to consume anywhere from 10X to 500X the amount of bandwidth required to send 'normal' email...email marketers used to sending 'on the cheap' could be in for a case of sticker shock."

The actual physical infrastructure required to feed video files to a large list is also an issue. As Yeaman says:

"If you're sending out to a small list, your ESP might accommodate you. For larger lists you'll need to partner with a video vendor, or find someone capable of hosting the video file."

Foster also recommends using dedicated content delivery services to ensure videos display smoothly regardless of the email subscriber's physical location.

The technical nuances of videos playing in the email itself suggests the technology may not be appropriate for a DIY approach yet unless you're sure of your expertise and infrastructure.

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