How to send a video through email the correct way

With video being an incredibly powerful way to make your message stand out, it’s only natural that sales representatives want its impact to be felt even in the emails they send. Are you one such sales rep considering adding video to your next email? You’re not alone! Lots of our customers ask us the same question. While it’s tempting to embed video within your email and hit ‘send’, the question to ask yourself is, “Can you play the video in your email? And more importantly, should you?

Read on for answers as we uncover why embedding videos right away may not be such a good idea after all!

1. You need to take multiple steps to upload a video yet it can still get overlooked

If you’ve ever tried to embed a video in an email, you know what I’m talking about. To upload a video into an email, you need to first record the video, upload it into YouTube (which is an arduous process of its own), open the email provider of your choice and finally copy paste the unique URL YouTube gives you. Phew! Now this is how your screen will look like:

It looks fine, doesn’t it? You have the video link in the body of the email and the video thumbnail appears under the fold. However, there are three problems to this:

1. With only a video link in the body of the email, it can easily get lost among the overwhelming text.
2. The video thumbnail appears under the email fold and if the recipient doesn’t scroll down to the end of the email, this too can remain unnoticed.
3. There’s no preview to grab the viewer’s attention and encourage them to click and watch the video. As a result, your time, energy and effort that went into making the video will all go to waste.

Now you might wonder – can’t I simply upload the video as an attachment? Well, in cases where your videos are a large sized video, this is the alert message you will receive. 

2. No opportunity for viewer engagement

Despite your best efforts, the truth is that when you attach a video to an email, you limit what the viewer can do afterward. Sure, you might include meeting links and additional resources within the email, but how many steps are you making the viewer take? In today’s fast-paced world, nobody has time to open an email, watch a video, and then backtrack to click on CTAs within the email. It’s simply not feasible.

When you create a sales video, the end goal is always to prompt viewers to take action. But with traditional email embeds, you’re not making it easy for them. By this point, the moment may have passed, and they may have already moved on to another task. This defeats the purpose of creating a sales video in the first place, doesn’t it?

Instead, consider an approach that puts the viewer’s needs first. Give them control. Allow them the freedom to explore your content at their own pace. Engage them in a way that piques their interest and inspires them to want to learn more.

3. No room for end-to-end personalization

In today’s world, customers are demanding more than just a standard, one-size-fits-all approach to business interactions. They want to know that every moment you spend engaging with them is personalized and tailored solely for them. That is why personalized videos have become all the rage in the B2B world. However, by embedding a video in an email, the user will be unable to navigate to any other pages or content that might facilitate more informed decisions. This can potentially lead to missed opportunities, where the user may want to learn more about your product or service but can’t. For instance, you may miss the chance to redirect them to a personalized sales page that hosts additional videos or a landing page that can help them learn more about your product. Such oversights can leave the user with an incomplete picture, susceptible to the lure of your competition.

4. Lack of in-depth analytics to decide next steps

Did you know that you can derive some of the best analytics from your video? Yes! And this is exactly what you will be missing out on when you embed a video directly in an email. Come to think of it, the only “analytics” you will be able to track is if they opened your email (if you enable an email tracker) and watched your video. You will not be able to see the action they took on your video, the CTAs they clicked, the pages they visited once they watched your video, their email addresses, and a whole lot more. 

5. Your video will only be a one-time watch kinda video

Consider this: Your email recipients are bombarded with countless emails every single day. When you embed a video in your email, you’re setting it up for limited exposure. Once your recipient watches it, the video’s lifespan plummets. It may get deleted unintentionally or be lost amidst the sea of other emails in their inbox. Moreover, poor network connectivity can further hinder their viewing experience.

In essence, your video’s impact relies heavily on how much attention it garners at the first go. 

The ideal way to include video in your email – a video hosting platform

Are you looking for the perfect way to incorporate videos into your emails without any hassle? Look no further than Hippo Video! By utilizing our video hosting platform, you can create and send videos with ease, all while gaining access to real-time video analytics that allow you to track and monitor viewer engagement. 

With our platform, you’ll also have the ability to create a dedicated sales page in record time, complete with video carousels that offer an end-to-end personalized experience for your audience.

Are you concerned about issues with email deliverability? Hippo Video has got you covered! Our platform ensures that your videos always reach their intended recipients, so you don’t have to worry about potential setbacks. Plus, you’ll never have to deal with the frustration of unnecessary back-and-forth in your sales emails, thanks to our interactive CTAs that allow viewers to directly engage with your content.

It also provides unique video URLs and video thumbnails, complete with detailed video previews and mentions of video duration. It’s all part of our mission to help you create engaging, personalized content that truly resonates with your audience.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while embedding a video in your email may seem like a good idea in concept, the potential complications make it seem less optimal. This article’s ultimate goal isn’t to convince you to abandon your video strategy or even avoid including it in your emails altogether. Instead, we aim to highlight why you shouldn’t embed a video inside your email and seek to present other approaches to consider. Instead, leverage video taken from an external source or provide links to video content within the email as an effective tool for engaging your subscribers. Consider design elements that reflect your brand, highlight important CTAs, and share only the critical sections and contexts of the video. Give it a try, as it’s worth it for better engagement, stronger relationships, and more successful email marketing.