The promised flood of video in all things email has been a long time coming and has not yet arrived, much to the frustration of the pundits who promised it would. There are the first glimmerings though.
The reason for the current take-up is probably the suggestion that video gives a significant increase in click-throughs and completions. The norm would appear to be around 20%, although some suggest considerably higher figures. It has not got to the stage where subscribers expect, at the very least, an animated gif but it would seem that sooner rather than later, a marketing email sans movement will be seen as old school.
Rather than searching for that magic phrase that will ignite desire in your subscribers, a video can capture them in a form that most find believable. Customers accept what they see at twice the level of what they read.
There are two main reasons people are put off video: costs and difficulty. A decent quality video camera is expensive, the software is hardly cheap and there are lots of new skills to master. What’s to like? Well let’s look at the details.
Near broadcast quality video – which is as much as you will need, and for some time – is available via most digital single lens reflex cameras (DSLR). A mid range (prosumer) level DSLR with all necessary accessories will come in under £1000. Easy to use video editing software, with features that would have graced mid range products just four years ago, can be bought for under £30, and a decent desktop or laptop can cope with the requirements.
The next concern is footage, and we will cover that in a later article, but for now accept that you do not need story boards, scripts, clappers and tantrums from actors to produce something that people will want to view.
Video can be used in different ways for different products. A film of a previous seminar, with participants enjoying a discussion in comfortable surroundings, is more likely to encourage attendees to the next and if customers are concerned about replacing the inks in a competitor’s injet printer, then a 60 second video of the task being performed on the one you are selling might well convince.
