4 Ways To Send a Video Through Email
Using video as part of your marketing effort is becoming key as they are more engaging and more effective at communicating information about the product, offer, and brand simultaneously. Email clients seem to be late to the party, though there are ways to fit video inside email campaigns.
The obvious way is to send a link to a video, or attach (very small) video files, but that approach wastes most of what makes video fantastic for marketing.
Fortunately, there are ways you can circumvent this. Let’s take a look at 4 ways to send video through email, and the pros and cons of each method.
Embed video in email using HTML
While this is the obvious solution, most email clients don’t support embedded video players, including Gmail, and even if you’re ok with that (works with Apple Mail for iOS), you’ll still need some experience writing HTML.
Email clients that support playing video in the inbox:
- Apple Mail
- Outlook on Mac
- iOS Mail
- Samsung Mail
Unless all your recipients are using some of the above, you will need a backup option that covers clients that don’t support video.
For a deeper dive on how to embed videos in emails, take a look at this in depth article by Email On Acid.
Pros: Plays video inside the email.
Cons: Only selected clients support it; Requires some technical skills.
Poster with a play button
The most common way to “embed” a video into an email is to take a screenshot of the video (or a custom thumbnail) and put a play button on top of it. Since you can link the image itself, clicking the play button will take the reader to the website hosting your video, whether it’s YouTube, Vimeo, or your own video hosting setup.
This is a great way to improve your email click-through rate but be careful, some won’t be happy to load another page and those clicks could end up bouncing.
Pros: Higher click-through rate.
Cons: Users might feel misled.
Email a GIF
GIFs are a great way to communicate your message via email. This way you can have all the advantages of using video with the added benefit of assuming the content was seen - since GIFs are played automatically. As with images, you can also add a play button on top of the GIF, if there’s more to the video.
The main limitation when using GIFs in email marketing is the size. All email clients have a limit when it comes to embedded media. You can solve this by lowering the GIF quality or cherry-pick a few frames from your full video as a teaser.
GIFs in email work best with short, loopable videos. They might not be as flashy as the video it’s derived from, but it can communicate everything you need, whether you’re showcasing products and promoting special deals or encouraging recipients to view your full video.
In some cases, older versions of email clients won’t support GIFs, that is they won’t “play” them and show a static image instead. Work around this by making sure the info is communicated throughout the GIF, so even a static image sends the right message.
You can easily convert video to a GIF for free with online tools like GIPHY, Ezgif, GIFMaker and a bunch of other free tools.
Pros: Communicates as well as video.
Cons: Email maximum limits GIF size, causing lower quality output.
Animated play buttons
A combination of the previous 2 suggestions where a static image features an animated play button overlay on top. The image can be a still from your video or a custom made thumbnail. The animated play button makes it clearer that the video is hosted elsewhere so people are less inclined to feel like they were unexpectedly redirected.
The added benefit of this approach is that even users on older email clients (which don’t support GIFs) will understand what the idea is.
Pros: Easy to notice; Clear intention.
Cons: No video in the email itself.
What is the best kind of video for email?
Like with any other marketing channel, the type of content and messaging you want is determined by your audience. There’s no better way to find out what works best than extensively testing different kinds of content.
Create as much content as possible and test on different segments of your audience. In time, you’ll learn what the preferred style and content is for each segment, and improve the quality of messaging to the benefit of both your customers and you. Ultimately, the more relevant and relatable the content is, the more people will respond to your message.
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