How can you effectively use video in email to meet your marketing goals? First, make sure that your videos complement the email topic. Video is most valuable when it is relevant and illustrates ideas for viewers. Here are some video ideas to get you started.

Educational video

Series of video tutorials and how-to videos are important resources for people or new customers that may be unfamiliar with your business. Try including videos in your onboarding or nurturing campaigns that you know are relevant FAQ topics for your audiences. This video content helps move people through the customer journey.

Suggested template:

USE TEMPLATE

Teaser videos

The launch of a new product or an upcoming promotion are both types of email communications that can be elevated by video content. Try making a short video that teases a new product and builds interest; it will entice your most loyal subscribers to learn more, and make them look forward to your company updates. If your video goal is lead generation, make sure to include a call-to-action.

Suggested template:

USE TEMPLATE

Branded videos

Sometimes great video content simply invites people to engage with your brand. A holiday greeting is a great example of video that highlight your culture and personality. Are you welcoming a new team member? Will your company be attending a conference? Make a quick video to give people an inside look. This type of video content connects with people and help makes your company truly memorable.

Suggested template:

USE TEMPLATE

Quick Tips:

1. Use a screenshot (or gif) of your video’s thumbnail. Embedding a video so that it plays directly from the body of an email can be tricky; email clients such as Gmail don’t alway fully support video embed. Your best bet it to use a screenshot of your video’s thumbnail with a play button on top of it so that it mimics a video player. Link the image to the web page where your video is embedded. By directing people to your landing page, you are also encouraging them to take action on your website, which is the goal of using a video in email.
2. Try using the word “video” in the subject line. It can increase your overall click-through-rate by 7%-13%!
3. Don’t forgot a clear CTA. You want your marketing videos to inspire action—whether it’s filling out a contact form or sharing the video with a friend. A concise a call-to-action in the email body, end of video, and landing page helps point people in the right direction.

Read more: The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Video in Email

Do you use video in email? Share your tips with us in the comments!

La entrada 3 Types of Video To Use in Your in Email Marketing se publicó primero en Wideo.

Knowing what your sharing options are for the main video distribution channels is an important first step in creating your video marketing strategy. With the right strategy, you can achieve the deep engagement and distribution that will help you get the best possible return on investment.

So we’ve created a guide to help you do that. Read on to understand what your sharing options are.

Sharing a direct link

Every video you create has a unique Wideo URL that you can copy and paste in an instant. It looks something like this: http://www.wideo.co/view/9349231472845442674

1. You can copy your wideo link by clicking on the Share button found in the Wideo Editor or your My Wideos page. 
2. Share the link anywhere and with anyone you’d like. When someone clicks on it, they will land on the video’s viewing page where they can watch the video. It looks like this: 

Embedding on website, blog, or web page

You can embed your video to make it viewable inline on your website or blog. Embedding allows you to use video on content like a landing page or blog post.

Watch this video to learn how to embed your video using the Wideo embed code.

1. Click on the Share button in your My Wideos page, the viewing page of any video, or the Wideo Editor.
2. Click on the Embed tab.
3. Copy the code.

Pro Tip: Now, you can also customize your embedded video’s size and autoplay options from the embed window. 

Social Media

With the right strategy, sharing your video on social media will make it visible for your followers as well as for people in your target audience. Because the content that people see and discover on social media increasingly influences their consumer decisions, this type of exposure is invaluable.

When it comes to sharing your videos on social media, the main options are 1) sharing via direct link, or 2) uploading the video natively.

Both have their benefits and it all depends on your business goals. For example, one of the purposes of sharing a link of a video that you’d uploaded to YouTube on another social media page versus uploading it directly to that social media page is to encourage people to visit your YouTube channel after they’ve watched the video.

When you upload a video directly to a social platform such as Facebook, you are building a video content library on that platform. A major benefit of this is that Facebook’s algorithm tends to value native video content over videos linked from other websites.

We believe that an effective video strategy employs both methods of sharing because they each have their unique benefits.

Facebook

How to upload natively: Download your wideo and upload the wideo file to your Facebook page or profile. Don’t forget to add a call to action, subtitles, and a memorable description. Check out our best practices for Facebook video.

How to post via direct link: Copy and paste the direct video link (a link of a video uploaded to another platform such as YouTube) into your Facebook post. Your followers will be able to hit play on the video post.

Pro Tip: To share your direct wideo link to Facebook from your My Wideos page, click on its share button. (You can also share from inside the Editor.) Then, choose share to Facebook. A preview of your video post will appear. When the video is published, your followers will be able to watch it from your Facebook page!

Twitter

How to upload natively: Download your wideo and upload the wideo file to your Twitter post. The video will have a Twitter player, and be viewable  

How to post via direct link: Copy and paste the direct video link (a link of a video uploaded to another platform such as YouTube) link into your Twitter post. Your followers can hit play on that video to watch it.

Pro Tip: To share your direct wideo link to Twitter from your My Wideos page, click on its share button. (You can also share from inside the Editor.) Then, choose share to Twitter. You followers will be able to click on this link to go to the video’s viewing page.

YouTube

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, YouTube is a sharing site where you will be directly upload your video file. When you upload to YouTube, you can start building your channel presence and video SEO — this makes it possible for people to discover your content in search results.

Instagram

Instagram is another platform where you will also be uploading your video directly to the platform.

Email marketing

With email marketing, there a couple main ways to send your video to customers. The first is sharing a link to your video from the email body. A common practice is using a thumbnail images of the video that leads people to the page where the video is embedded.

The second is sharing your video in the email signature. Here’s how you can do that.

Do you have any questions about these sharing techniques? Share any experiences or feedback in the comments!

La entrada A Brief Guide to Sharing Your Marketing Videos Online for Maximum Exposure se publicó primero en Wideo.

Animated videos are great in their pure motion graphics form, but when you combine them with a medium such as photos or GIFs, the visual contrast produces a professional and unique look.

Today we’ll show you how to upload GIF files to your wideos to achieve that effect with just your Wideo account, your choice of GIF, and this video template.

Step 1: Collect your GIF files

Aside from being a sort of search engine for GIFs on the Internet, Giphy is also a great tool for creating your own animated gifs by uploading video files or entering a video link. 

You can also search GIFs from Google right inside the Wideo editor.

Step 2: Upload them to your wideo

Once you’re in the Editor, navigate to the Images menu.

Select the GIF file you want to upload from your computer. It will be placed into the current scene once the upload is done. Hit the Preview Scene button at the bottom-left corner to check it.

Step 3: Design away!

From there you can overlay the GIF with some animated text for a social media video or email marketing campaign, use it as a background image, or use them in a video tutorial or product demo to educate your customers. Play around and see what balance works for you!

Share your animated videos, questions, or suggestions with us below!

La entrada Tutorial: Adding Animated GIFs to Your Wideos se publicó primero en Wideo.

“Wideo has helped increase our email marketing click-through rates by 2.57x since we started creating affordable, engaging video content.”

Peter Harris Digital Manager at Key Travel

If you’ve ever used video on your website to communicate ideas and better capture your audience’s attention, then you might have wondered how you can apply the same strategy to your other marketing channels.

Like your home page, email communication is an effective channel for getting your business video seen by a wide audience.

For Key Travel, email is one of the principal ways they connect to customers. When faced with the challenge of how to explain their services to new customers more efficiently, they saw that using video in email provided the perfect solution.

The Challenge

Key Travel specializes in travel solutions for organizations within the humanitarian, faith and academic sectors. They needed a way explain their services to new customers simply and visually.

In order to do that, they needed a tool that was fast and easy to use — and allowed them to deepen customer relationships during the email on-boarding process.

The Solution: Engaging customers with video in email

Key Travel uses Wideo to create dynamic training videos for their email communication as well as for their Key Travel Academy tutorials and resources hub.

Their customers can now watch videos like the one below to learn about Key Travel’s services.

This has enhanced the customer experience across the company’s different online channels.

The Results

Key Travel has greatly improved their overall email click-through rates (the total number of email opens divided by the number of emails sent) and click-to-open rates (how many subscribers clicked out of those who opened an email).

“Since we started using Wideo as part of our on-boarding program, our typical CTRs are up by 61%, while our CTORs are up by 46%,” says Peter, Digital Manager of Key Travel.

Pro tips: Types of video that go well with email

Key Travel uses video in their email communication to explain their services and direct customers to their tutorials and resources page. Depending on your industry, other types of video may be relevant and highly engaging.

Here are some ideas.

Explainer — Key Travel’s explainer video gives a visual and informative tour of their Key Travel Academy.

When you need to introduce your audience to a new service, explainer videos are great at communicating many ideas in a memorable way.

Training/tutorials — Need to address a frequently asked question in several steps?

A video tutorial helps guide people through the process in a more visual way that text alone can’t.

About us — A great opportunity to build trust with customers is a sincere video introduction to the people behind your business. Use images of smiling faces for a personal touch.

Company culture — Give your audience a behind-the-scenes look of your office, or share some moments from a holiday party.

The little details can go a long way in fostering customer relationships — and give people a reason to chose your over the competition.

Have you tried using video and email marketing together? Share your experience or questions in the comments below.

Read: The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Video in Email

WATCH MORE CUSTOMER STORIES

La entrada Success Story: Engaging Customers with Video in Email Marketing se publicó primero en Wideo.

This guide will be updated with new information as email innovates for video!

Part of the reason video has risen so quickly and is so established as a key marketing medium is its versatility. You can incorporate an explainer video that you’ve created for your website into your company Facebook, YouTube channel, and most any social media strategy to increase engagement with your content.

However, featuring video in email involves some planning and has a different set of factors and technical limitations to have in mind.

In this guide, we’ll show you how Wideo uses video in email newsletters and provide best practices for incorporating video into your own emails.

Why video in email?

When combined with email, video can help you meet your email goals. For us, most of the time that goal is getting our readers to visit our site to do something, including reading a post, watching a video, or even signing up for a new offer. How does video help achieve this? By providing the attention-grabbing visual element that either complements text, or gets the idea across in lieu of it.

Quick best practices for email in video

Currently, Apple Mail is the only email client that supports direct video embed. If most of your subscribers do not use Apple Mail, we don’t suggest embedding your video in email. (Moosend has a comprehensive list of emails and their type of video support.)

However, you don’t need video playback in your email in order for your video to be effective. Instead, you can use animated gifs or thumbnail images of the video that you can link to your website.

What is an animated GIF? A GIF is a type of image file that can contain animation. They provide the visual element of moving images without the technical limitations of embedded video.

In order to use video and email together for conversions, we follow a few best practices.

1. Mention the video in the email subject and body text

2. Pick an inviting thumbnail to use in your email. (Try using the most visual scene in your video, or a shot of lots of friendly faces.)

3. Include a play button in the image thumbnail and link that thumbnail to your landing page

4. Instead of using a thumbnail and play button, try a looping animated GIF. You can create your own with our online gif maker

Case Study

Here’s how our email with our 2015 Year in Review video looked with all the elements put together. Try using a catchy and direct text describing what viewers will get out of your video.

Pro tips:

• Try using a tool such as LICEcap to create animated GIFs. All you need to do is record a part of your video and the tool will automatically create the GIF.  
• As a rule of thumb, keep GIF file sizes around or under 1MB — anything a lot over will load slowly, and anything significantly less will not have good image quality.
• Limit your calls to action so to keep focus on your video.
• Experiment with email formats and compare results.

Using video and email together successfully depends on your audience and goals. Remember to never stop testing: The more you understand about your results, the more you will be able improve the impact of your video.

Success Story: Video in On-boarding Emails

Key Travel needed a way to explain their services in a visual way and they saw video as the perfect opportunity to engage their new customers where they were: in their inboxes.

So they began using Wideo to create explainer videos for their email on-boarding campaign. The videos have improved their customer experience, not only in email but also on their website and other online channels.

“Video content has helped increase our email marketing click-through rates by 2.57x since we started creating affordable, engaging video content.”

Peter Harris Digital Manager at Key Travel

Have you tried using video and email marketing together? Share your experience or questions in the comments below.

La entrada The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Video in Email se publicó primero en Wideo.

U.S adults consume 5.5 hours of online video daily. By making videos shoppable, marketers can take advantage of these hours spent watching videos without disrupting the content by inserting shoppable ads. With shoppable video, the products featured in the clip get more emphasis; whether your company video is an overview of your products/services, a catalog of your inventory, a tutorial video, etc. You can make your clip more useful to audiences by making it shoppable.

Check out these excellent examples to get better acquainted with the medium.

Welcome to Portland: We Make Stuff

Early adopters of shoppable video have seen a large jump in their view count. According to YouTube’s Director of Product Management for Ads, Diya Jolly, the number of views for product-related videos has increased by 40% over the past year since they introduced their True View Cards. Meanwhile, television channel site BravoTV.com has grown its digital audience by 91%, and it’s in large part thanks to the introduction of shoppable content on their site. Since it’s quite clear that shoppable video has great potential for helping sell products and services, why then have marketers not fully adopted this medium?

If we had to venture a guess, it would simply be due to a fear of the unknown. As you can note, from the examples above, there are many ways to approach shoppable video, and they may seem technologically advanced, but it’s easier than you might think. Marketing teams may imagine the need to hire an expensive video production team all for one piece of shoppable video content. In actuality, shoppable video can be created in-house and quite easily with trackable analytics. Here’s a walkthrough on some simple approaches to creating quality shoppable content.

Creating Shoppable, Interactive Videos with Wideo

Wideo can streamline the video creation process for an affordable amount. Not to mention, analytics accompany any Wideo to monitor video views, clicked links, the length of video watched, etc. so you can measure its success.

To make a Wideo shoppable is simple. You have the option to insert call-to-action buttons, sign-up forms, or spaces for email registry. Just connect a URL to the interactive options presented in the sidebar and manipulate the copy and color until you’re satisfied.  That’s it; you’ve successfully created a simple, professional shoppable video in mere minutes. The interactive video, on Wideo’s platform, is accompanied by detailed analytics, as your video begins to receive views, which will help you ultimately track a quantifiable return.

Re-use this template

Making Your video Shoppable with YouTube

If you want to make a shoppable Wideo for YouTube, there are two great options for you to choose from.

During your clip’s export, Wideo has a straight to YouTube option, which saves you the hassle of downloading the mp4 clip and uploading it yourself. On export from the Wideo platform, the interactive buttons you’ve made will cease to be clickable. Once the video is uploaded to YouTube, however, you can re-instate your buttons’ interactivity through YouTube’s annotations. Annotations allow you to pick a place on your video and hyperlink it to a URL. Line up the annotations with the buttons you made in Wideo, and you’ll have an interactive, shoppable Wideo once again.

For those who would prefer to hide their shoppable attachments more stealthily within the video, rather than display them as part of the storyline, you have another option. A cards-based annotation system, launched in March, is now offered to all advertisers on YouTube via Google Adwords. For this, your video can become shoppable without the stylistic help of the Wideo-made buttons. The cards-based annotation system provides a menu in the YouTube video player which showcases an array of interactive cards that viewers can click on. The menu is hidden from view except for an icon in the upper-right corner of the video player. Viewers can choose to view the menu alongside the video or have it disappear by clicking on the icon.

Here’s an example:

via GIPHY

Using Interactive Video on Your Website

Of course, there is much more to shoppable video than the video itself. Your shoppable video can inspire a whole new approach to how you present your offerings on your site and platforms. Burberry’s elegant display of their latest menswear collection is a great example. You’ll notice while watching the clip of the runway show that as each look appears, the still image directly below the clip changes to present that same look with purchase details.

This video marketing strategy shows great creativity while keeping with the brand’s aesthetic. Most importantly, this strategy has streamlined the Burberry experience for prospective buyers. A fully formed video marketing campaign like this one that properly incorporates a shoppable video will only increase your chances of sales success.

Conclusion

Thanks to shoppable video you can direct a viewer’s focus towards certain products or services more than ever before. By creating quality content, you’ll engage the viewer. By making it shoppable, you’ll market to them without being overly promotional.

Creating these videos in-house allows your brand to integrate the tool fully into your company’s standard digital marketing strategy which will enable you to track a quantifiable return. So whether you’re interested in shoppable video as a means of engagement, or as a sales driver, the format is the perfect blend for audiences today that are turning away from traditional ads.

Create your Shoppable Viideo

La entrada The Beginner’s Guide To Creating Shoppable Videos se publicó primero en Wideo.

In order to help guide marketers through the rapidly developing video landscape, we keep our blog updated with resources and guides to which you can turn whenever you’re in doubt about anything video marketing-related. That includes production costs, distribution, measuring performance, new video technologies, and everything in between.

Here, we rank the top 10 Wideo blog posts of 2015 by the video marketing stories that were most viewed by our readers.

See the results in this interactive wideo! You can click any button in the video to open the article in a new tab. The wideo will automatically pause so you can go back to it and pick up right where you left off!

Do you have a topic you’d like us to write about? Let us know in the comments section!

La entrada Our 10 Most Popular Video Marketing Blog Posts [Video] se publicó primero en Wideo.

La entrada Black Friday and Cyber Monday Marketing Video Templates se publicó primero en Wideo.

We’re well into 2015, which has been named the Year of Video Marketing, so it’s time to revise your video strategy. Taking a look every quarter or so is a great way to making sure you’re hitting your video marketing goals. To help you ensure you’re up-to-speed on all things video, here are the top 10 video marketing stats for 2015 and what marketers can learn from each.

1. Online video now accounts for 50% of mobile traffic

What this means: Your videos must be optimized for mobile and you should consider using mobile video ads to promote your brand.

2. 75% of Business Executives Watch Work-Related Videos at least Weekly

What this means: Your execs are responding to videos really well, so consider making in-house weekly newsletter videos to communicate company news.

3. 52% of Business Executives Watch Work-Related Videos on YouTube at least Weekly

What this means: If you’re trying to get your video in front of an executive, even if you host it on Vimeo or Wistia, you must post it on your YouTube channel. If half of business executives are watching work-related videos, they’ll be seemingly more likely to see yours if it’s on YouTube.

4. 52% of Marketing Professionals Say Video is the Type of Content with the Best ROI

What this means: If you find you’re not getting a high yield in your marketing efforts, bump up your video marketing efforts. You may be spending too much time and resources in an area which should be allocated to video creation and publishing.

5. People Stay 2 Minutes Longer on Websites with Video

What this means: If you are making a marketing video, try placing it on your homepage and improve your bounce rate. The video can be on a splash screen if you don’t want it to take all the attention of your homepage.

6. Adding a Video to your Email Marketing Campaign Increases Engagement by 200–300%

What this means: You don’t need to create a full two-minute video to put in your email, but instead of putting your latest blog, make a 15-second promo video for your newsletter readers.

7. 96% of B2B Companies Plan to use Video in the Next Year

What this means: Many B2B companies make the excuse that video is only for B2C companies, but this is not true anymore. B2B video is growing exponentially, so it’s important for B2B marketers to include video in their campaigns.

8. 78% of people watch videos online every week

What this means: If your target market includes “people”, which I’m guessing it does, you really need to be using video…since people watch a lot of videos.

9. 65% of Video Viewers Watch More than ¾ of a Video

What this means: We’re watching videos for longer amounts of time, which means marketers can tell impactful stories that motivate the viewer.

10. 93% of Marketers use Video for Online Marketing, Sales, or Communication

What this means: If you’re part of the 7% of marketers not using video — you are missing out!
This article was originally posted on business2community.com. Agu De Marco is the co-founder of Wideo, a DIY animated video production platform. Follow him on Twitter @mrwideo 

La entrada Top 10 Video Marketing Stats & What Your Brand Needs to Do to Keep Up se publicó primero en Wideo.

We’re well into 2015, which has been named the Year of Video Marketing, so it’s time to revise your video strategy. Taking a look every quarter or so is a great way to making sure you’re hitting your video marketing goals. To help you ensure you’re up-to-speed on all things video, here are the top 10 video marketing stats for 2015 and what marketers can learn from each.

1. Online video now accounts for 50% of mobile traffic

What this means: Your videos must be optimized for mobile and you should consider using mobile video ads to promote your brand.

2. 75% of Business Executives Watch Work-Related Videos at least Weekly

What this means: Your execs are responding to videos really well, so consider making in-house weekly newsletter videos to communicate company news.

3. 52% of Business Executives Watch Work-Related Videos on YouTube at least Weekly

What this means: If you’re trying to get your video in front of an executive, even if you host it on Vimeo or Wistia, you must post it on your YouTube channel. If half of business executives are watching work-related videos, they’ll be seemingly more likely to see yours if it’s on YouTube.

4. 52% of Marketing Professionals Say Video is the Type of Content with the Best ROI

What this means: If you find you’re not getting a high yield in your marketing efforts, bump up your video marketing efforts. You may be spending too much time and resources in an area which should be allocated to video creation and publishing.

5. People Stay 2 Minutes Longer on Websites with Video

What this means: If you are making a marketing video, try placing it on your homepage and improve your bounce rate. The video can be on a splash screen if you don’t want it to take all the attention of your homepage.

6. Adding a Video to your Email Marketing Campaign Increases Engagement by 200–300%

What this means: You don’t need to create a full two-minute video to put in your email, but instead of putting your latest blog, make a 15-second promo video for your newsletter readers.

7. 96% of B2B Companies Plan to use Video in the Next Year

What this means: Many B2B companies make the excuse that video is only for B2C companies, but this is not true anymore. B2B video is growing exponentially, so it’s important for B2B marketers to include video in their campaigns.

8. 78% of people watch videos online every week

What this means: If your target market includes “people”, which I’m guessing it does, you really need to be using video…since people watch a lot of videos.

9. 65% of Video Viewers Watch More than ¾ of a Video

What this means: We’re watching videos for longer amounts of time, which means marketers can tell impactful stories that motivate the viewer.

10. 93% of Marketers use Video for Online Marketing, Sales, or Communication

What this means: If you’re part of the 7% of marketers not using video — you are missing out!
This article was originally posted on business2community.com. Agu De Marco is the co-founder of Wideo, a DIY animated video production platform. Follow him on Twitter @mrwideo 

La entrada Top 10 Video Marketing Stats & What Your Brand Needs to Do to Keep Up se publicó primero en Wideo.