Video in marketing is a powerful means of influence. While VR-reality has not yet reached email newsletters, and ordinary pictures don't catch on, videos in emails increase CTR by 280-300%. Of course, it's an average figure but still impressive. In this article, you'll learn how to use video in email marketing and what you have to do to make newsletters with videos that tear up the viewers' aesthetic receptors and motivate them to click and buy.

Why Should You Use Video in Newsletters?

A video in the body of an email works the same way a person's story works offline. Written text has only one meaning, namely, the one it encodes. A video works as the way of indirect marketing and brings it to life and fills it with new colors. The voice, the movements, even simple glitter backgrounds and the body language convey to the viewer a vast array of non-verbalism that tells whether the narrator is worth believing. As a result, email video generates customer trust. And that's not the only benefit over other types of content.

1. Video is easier to understand. The viewer sees the text or picture. But the video he also hears. Twice as many channels of information perception, twice as much speed of its understanding. And if the video is created with an exciting storyline and fascinating solutions, it will be remembered even quicker. It can even go viral.
2. Saves time. A video that is 90-180 seconds long conveys the same amount of information that takes 5-6 minutes to read. For this feature, video content is loved in the b2b segment, where they know the value of time. According to Forbes Insight, 59% of top managers prefer to watch videos rather than read the text if both options are available on one page.
3. Improves search engine rankings. People like action in the story. Thus, a video is more likely to go viral than a picture or a gif. More views mean more social media sharing and brand mentions online.

So, incorporate video content into email marketing if you want to have a decisive advantage over your competitors in the products and services marketplace. For instance, if your website specializes in anything tremendous, like properties for sale in Sydney, you will need to understand the nature of your video email marketing work in the context of online setup. Get started and engage your subscribers with your business, increasing your market share. 

How to Use Video to Increase CTR

Video increases clickability, but that's no reason to turn your email into a colorful coloring book. It won't bring additional clicks, but it affects the company's image. Not for the better, but you can use more subtle ways to reach your target audience:

1. Use video as social proof. Instead of promotional videos that describe the product or service, prepare video testimonials from your customers. An emotional story about how the brand helped solve a problem is more engaging than a dry recitation of the facts about the product. 
2. Show how the product/service works. Likewise, the RiteTag service shows its subscribers how a new service works. The mailing was done on a cold base and increased click-throughs to the site by 20%.

How to Add a Video to the Newsletter

Simply copying the link from YouTube and pasting it into the layout/HTML code won't work because the video won't play. Although most email services support HTML layout, adding a link to the video "directly" via an iframe is against the principles of email security. So instead of a nice splash screen with a "Play" button, the recipient sees a link with the <alt> property. There are, however, several ways to help with this problem. 

Method #1: Insert a Picture with a Clickable Play Button

This method is often called "vision trickery." The recipient thinks he sees a video shell in the body of the email. Instead, it's a screenshot with a clickable play button. The advantage of this method is that it doesn't use the power of the email service. 

How to add?

• Take a screenshot of the video: using the Printscreen key or YouTube Plus browser extension.
• Open Paint, choose "Paste," and save the screenshot.
• Using the graphical editor, remove unnecessary fields. Save the image.
• Insert the main image into the email layout.
• Insert an image of the Play button from Youtube in the markup on top of the main image.
• Insert a link to a Youtube video in the button properties.

You can use this method even if the sending email service supports the playback of Youtube videos. Just because your mail service can do it doesn't mean the recipient's server can.

Method #2: Turn Video into a Gif

Animated. GIF and. PNG videos are distant cousins of HTML5 that play video from the body of the email. But gifs and .png can be downloaded directly from an email, while pulling HTML5 from a message is tricky. All known email services support. GIF and. PNG.  The only disadvantage of gifs is that they do not produce sound. The GIF format replaces 100% of the as-yet unavailable HTML5. In addition, the image dynamics captivate the viewer and send an introductory message that is used by successful brands such as TopShop.

How to add?

• Convert your video into a gif image. 
• Upload the gif image to the email layout simply by uploading it to the service server.

Summing Up

Video email marketing is a trend that is growing in popularity in markets worldwide. And it's not surprising because it's most likely the future. But just adding a video to your email isn't enough. It would help if you studied web analytics and behavioral psychology to achieve real business success.