Have you ever received an email with an embedded video, a clickable image or hyperlink that directs you to a video? Did you end up watching that video? I know I have…
Email is a vital part of our daily life both personal and professional. Statistics say at least 91% of consumers use email daily. The bad news is that not everyone will want to read your email, especially if it’s a rather long one.
Wistia, a professional video hosting and analytics website discovered that their emails that linked to videos had an increased click-through rate of 300%.
If you’re sending an email campaign with a video you’re guaranteed to get more clicks… if done right. But the question is how do you do it right? That’s what I’m just about to tell you!
Linking to your video via the use of images rather than embedding a video is the best way for improving your email click-through rates. Why? Well this has several benefits, such as website interaction, link tracking and permanent video hosting. This all helps with increasing your fans, followers and potential prospects. Let’s go into more detail of the benefits…
Website Interaction:
I don’t know about you but when I watch a video that’s embedded on a website, I tend to look around the website and take a look at what the website is about, what they offer and how I could potentially make use of that. By having a video embedded onto a website and linking to that from your email campaign you are more likely to see an increase in website interaction and potentially gain more prospects.
Having the video embedded into your email might look rather “cool” but it won’t help with the email click-through rates. Users may also not know how to share the embedded video on social media. Also, they are not leaving the email to watch the video. Perhaps most importantly, embedding videos into your emails can suppress deliverability. That’s why we recommend using an image of the video and linking to the video from the email.
Link Tracking:
Unfortunately video clicks in emails can’t be tracked, but what can be is when an image is clicked. Take a screenshot of that video, place it into the email and finish it off with a hyperlink to the video itself. From there you’ll be able to track the amount of clicks the image receives from that email campaign being sent.
Permanent Video:
Linking to a video that’s embedded on a website is definitely better than an embedded video in an email. Looking at it from an SEO and Social Media perspective, it’s much easier for a user to view and share a video that’s embedded on a website.
I think you can agree that when you’ve come across a funny or interesting video you tend to share it right? Well, that’s what you want to aim for when sending emails that link to videos. You want them to be shared around. Of course sharing videos will increase engagement and potentially lead to the content being seen more and discussions arising.
Placing images in emails and linking them to a video might not be as fancy as embedding one, but we think it’s definitely the best idea for increasing your email click-through rates.
