How to Use Video in Email
By Stuart Ayling, Solutions Found                                                                   

Should you use video in emails?

Video is everywhere these days. The success of YouTube and other video sharing websites, along with the high usage of broadband internet access has made viewing video online a standard practice.

But should you put video in your emails? I mean right in the body of your email.

More and more people are looking to use the extra engagement created by video to interest their readers and generate action.

However, don’t jump to insert streaming video into your emails.

Why? Mainly because many email programs will not allow video to run. Similarly to blocking images, video is prevented from streaming.

This happens in many mainstream free email services, as well as when going through corporate firewalls in large organisations.

So, what can you do?

If you want to benefit from using video as part of your marketing channel there are two key steps.

(1) Create a Thumbnail Image of Video
The idea here is to insert an image into your email that looks like the video, complete with player buttons.

You’re not trying to fool anyone by doing this. You will link the image to your website, or video sharing website, where your image will play easily.

To create the video image take a ‘screen shot’ or ‘screen dump’ (keyboard button says PrtScn, that is Print Screen) of the web page where your video will be playing.

In an image editing program crop the image so only the video screen and player buttons show. Save the image as a JPG or GIF.

Insert the image into the email. Then create a hyperlink from the image to the web page where the video will stream (example, on your website, or YouTube page).

See example below:
Hold cursor over image to read Alt Text



Importantly, use the Image Alt Text tag to insert a descriptive explanation of whet the video is – example “View dog grooming video”.

By using the Alt text attribute if the image is blocked the text saying Watch Dog Grooming Video is still likely to be displayed.

(2) Use a Text Link in Email Message.
As well as inserting the image as explained above, make sure you include a plain text link that also carries a descriptive phrase. Hyperlink the descriptive phrase to your video web page.

A large number of email programs routinely block images unless ‘unblocked’ by the recipient, fact is, many recipients don’t know how to unblock images, or simply couldn’t be bothered doing it.

Follow these basic tips and you can easily use the power of video in your email campaigns… without running the risk of your entire email being blocked or having the video link disabled.

 
 
 
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