Email marketing is an effective strategy for virtually every business, but there are ways you can improve your content to increase customer engagement. Videos are one way you can connect with your customers, and email is a practical strategy for getting them in front of people.
Video email marketing gives you the opportunity to share information with your customers that’d otherwise be difficult to share on most digital channels. It can be challenging to decide whether to implement videos or not, but a list of video email marketing statistics shows how important it is.
With the right strategy, you can add video email marketing to your marketing plan to see a boost in your performance metrics.
What is video email marketing?
Video email marketing is simple—you create email campaigns that feature videos as a way to communicate with your customers. There are a few approaches to using video in your email campaigns. Specifically, you need to consider which of these methods you’ll use:
- Embedding the video: if you want your video to play directly from the email, you can embed one in most email tools. However, this is the least effective way to increase views, as only a few email service providers allow videos to play within messages.
- Hosting the video: if you have your own website, you can host the video and create a landing page for it. When you create your email campaigns, you can include a thumbnail of the video and a link back to your landing page. This can increase views and site visits.
- Uploading the video: if you don’t want to use either of those options, you can upload your video to one of many video hosting platforms, like YouTube or Vimeo. You may be able to add those directly to your website or landing pages as well.
Whichever method you decide to use, it’s a good idea to consider your media limits. This will help you decide the quality and length of your video.
Why is video email marketing important?
Email marketing is lucrative, but the most effective emails contain 50 to 125 words in their body content. This means that longer messages aren’t as likely to be read. You can create videos that contain a lot of information while keeping the text in your emails relatively short. This makes a video in email especially important for companies that have a lot to say.
Part of creating an effective video email marketing campaign is knowing what kind of video you want to use. To make the biggest impact, you want to provide value. Consider these common types of videos:
- Animated videos
- Brand videos
- Case studies and testimonials
- Demo videos
- Educational videos
- Event highlight videos
- Industry updates
- Live videos
- Product videos
- Team videos
- Tutorials
With the right approach, you can combine an effective email subject line with concise content and a link to a killer video with a compelling CTA.
Surprising video email marketing statistics you need to know
If you still aren’t sure whether video content is right for your business, just review this list of video email marketing statistics for insight into how it can help boost your open, click, and conversion rates.
- Almost 90% of online marketing professionals use video in their marketing campaigns. (Wordstream)
- Marketers can see 66% more solid leads every year when they use video. (SmallBizGenius)
- In a single month, more videos are uploaded than the biggest American television networks created in three decades. (Wordstream)
- A video thumbnail can improve subscriber engagement by almost 41% when it’s included in an email. (Backlinko)
- The word “video” in an email subject line can increase open rates by 6%. (SuperOffice)
- Almost 25% of digital marketers have previously used an interactive video. (SmallBizGenius)
- People view more than 50% of their videos on mobile devices. (Wordstream)
- Video can increase open rates by 19% and click rates by 65% while reducing unsubscribe rates by 26%. (Campaign Monitor)
- An annoying voiceover can cause up to 75% of consumers to leave a purchase behind. (SmallBizGenius)
- Over 90% of people who watch videos on their smartphones share them with their network. (Wordstream)
- Product videos in ecommerce stores can increase purchases by up to 144%. (Backlinko)
- Nearly 75% of B2B marketers believe that video has a positive impact on their ROI. (Biteable)
- Over 90% of consumers will watch a video that informs them about a new product or service. (Wyzowl)
- According to 51% of digital marketers, video content has the highest ROI of all marketing channels. (Wordstream)
- Video marketing can lead to an average brand awareness increase of 54%. (TechJury)
- Video content in emails can improve click-through rates by up to 300%. (Biteable)
- Video marketing can grow revenue by almost 50% faster than marketing without video content. (Wordstream)
- A video that’s less than two minutes long will generate the most engagement. (Wordstream)
- Adding video content to emails can potentially reduce opt-outs by 75%. (Backlinko)
- Eight in 10 people will remember a video advertisement for the next 30 days. (TechJury)
- Over half of consumers want the brands they love to provide more video content. (SmallBizGenius)
- Video content on a landing page can improve conversion rates by more than 80%. (Wordstream)
- Video length is critical: 33% of customers will stop watching after 30 seconds, 45% of them by one minute, and 60% of them by two minutes. (Biteable)
- Over 50% of people prefer to watch content online as opposed to TV. (SmallBizGenius)
- Click-through rates on the initial email in a campaign can increase by 96% if it contains a video. (Wordstream)
- Almost 100% of businesses believe that informational videos help increase customer understanding of new products or services. (Wyzowl)
- Before taking a trip to a store, almost 50% of online shoppers look for videos about products and services they might be looking for. (Biteable)
- Businesses most often create these types of videos: explainers, how-tos, product demos, and testimonials. (Backlinko)
- Customers can retain up to 95% of the content in a video, but only 10% of it when reading it. (Wordstream)
- Eighty percent of people think that demo videos are useful. (SmallBizGenius)
From increased open rates to a boost in revenue, these video email marketing statistics highlight how video is a critical strategy for ecommerce stores that want to improve customer acquisition and retention rates.
Effective examples of video in email marketing to inspire your next campaign
Before you decide to add videos to your next email campaign, it’s a good idea to understand some video email marketing best practices. Review these examples to see how an effective campaign works.
1. Use best practices to establish the correct video length.
The length of a video in email is critical to keeping your customers engaged. In general, around two minutes is the best length for video content. Take a look at this example from TrustedHousesitters:
Source: Really Good Emails
They use one of the most common types of videos: testimonials. They pack three testimonials into a video that’s just over two minutes long and they follow up with a CTA encouraging contact.
2. Include video content that provides value to readers.
While fun and festive emails can be a great way to connect with your customers, it’s generally a good idea to create videos that offer value. This video “how-to” email is a great example from Platforma 2:
Source: Really Good Emails
How-to videos (again, another common video example) are an excellent platform for connecting with your customers and getting in front of any questions they have.
3. Add the word “video” to the email subject line.
By calling out the content of your campaign, you can encourage more people to open the email. It’s also a great way to keep from surprising your customers if it autoplays. Look at this email from Wistia:
Source: Really Good Emails
The subject line—“Hey Smiles Davis – did you know that video plays in email?”—highlights why you want to open the message. It also uses personalization to amp up the connection factor.
Wrap up
Using video in email marketing is one of the most effective ways to convey critical information to your customers. You can create a campaign that provides value and increases engagement. Remember these key takeaways when crafting your next video campaign:
- Consider what information you want to include in a video.
- Determine the best method for hosting your video campaign.
- Encourage your customers to share your videos.
With the right email marketing tool, you can include videos in your messages or link back to them on a landing page or video platform. The right tool will also optimize your campaign performance.
Looking for an email marketing tool to optimize your video emails? Campaign Monitor has powerful tools to create engaging emails that connect with your readers.