VideoRetailer.org - Exploring the Intersection of Video and e-Commerce.

“Videos we’re loving” - Lonely Planet’s video email marketing strategy.

The volume of email and newsletter marketing is soaring during the current Christmas season and we are seeing good examples of video and rich media implementations from retailers and online shops.

Take Lonely Planet, the most popular travel guide, for example. A couple of years ago they already started to use video on their website; they also started experimenting in a very early stage with user-generated video content allowing travelers to share their amateur clips with other users, integrating these videos very naturally in the community section of the web. Today, professional video content is a key to promote almost any destination at Lonely Planet’s sites.

The brand also understood that short videos help to curb relatively low conversion rates of email and newsletter campaigns, a format that has become less attractive, for some users even intrusive, especially in times when users prefer pull marketing in form of RSS subscription or social recommendations via Facebook or Twitter.

All week, Lonely Planet newsletters include at least 2-3 short video clips, like these from their latest newsletter on top Christmas travel destinations for example.

If you have video content think about if and how it could be used in your email and online promotion strategy because it it can help to make a good old newsletter look attractive again. A study of MarketingSherpa said already back in June 2008 that embedded video in emails have the potential to increase conversion rates up to 50%!

Video Email Best Practices

Video Email Marketing in 2009: Facts, Stats, Limitations, Possibilities from Justin Foster on Vimeo.

Here embedded an excellent presentation on video email by Justin Foster and Lisa Harmon. Topics covered include:

- Concerns, attitudes, and expertise level of marketers seeking to learn more about video in email marketing
- Forces driving video in email
- Methods for achieving video in email
- Video .GIF vs. Animated .GIF
- CertifiedVideo (from Goodmail Systems)
- Video .GIF pros and cons
- List of which mail clients support video, by video inclusion method
- Email client market share
- Browser market share & video .GIF limitations based on browser
- Which email clients block images by default
- Several examples of email messages that include video
- Video .GIF best practices
- Example results
- Common questions re: video in email

Video Email Marketing Webinar: “Video Email Marketing in 2009″

Date: August 12, 2009

Time: 11:00AM Pacific / 2:00PM Eastern

Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/688801731

Description: For years, email marketers were told it was impossible to include video in their outbound email campaigns. Those who tried often encountered ISP delivery blocks or rendering issues as ISP email administrators began clamping down on Javascript and Flash in email due to potential security issues. As a result, embedding video in email remained a pipe dream for email marketers.

The longstanding best practice used as a workaround was to embed a static image in the email, with a “play” button overlaid to indicate a video was viewable on the campaign landing page, once the subscriber clicked through the email. Even today, we still see articles like this one preaching the merits of this method of video in email. There’s only one problem - it’s not video in email. It merely suggests video exists, but nothing actually plays in the email at all.

Today, email marketers no longer have to settle for this best practice and the pat answer that video in email simply doesn’t work.  Two new industry innovations have changed the game of video in email, and email marketers are beginning to experiment once again now that the spam issue can be avoided - at least for those who know what they’re doing and plan ahead.  Lest you get too excited and start going willy-nilly embedding your videos in email campaigns upon reading this blog post, it’s worth noting that major limitations still exist with regard to video in email.  To use an automotive analogy: if you expect to find the holy grail of achieving universal video in email (across all email clients, and across all ISPs), you might just have to settle for a nice, practical Toyota Corolla for now and leave the Ferrari on the showroom floor most of the time with the exception of the occasional joy ride around the dealer parking lot.

This webinar will get into the details of how email marketers are achieving video in email today, while highlighting innovations in research and development that are driving the push for universal video in email adoption tomorrow.  We’ll also highlight the limitations of video in email in considerable detail, and share best practices for achieving workable video in email by following some important best practices.  Attendees will learn:

- How to showcase video in email across 80% of your subscriber list, without triggering spam filters

- The limitations of video in email, including breakdown by email client and ISP

- The role of video certification services, and what can (and can’t) be done with these services

- Why email marketers who seek to include video in email will need to learn about bandwidth maintenance, video compression, and “designing for the exception” when including video in email marketing campaigns

- The impact of video on the subscriber experience, and how to design for the optimal experience without distracting or annoying your list members

The webinar is hosted by Justin Foster, Founder of the Video Commerce Consortium, Co-Founder of Liveclicker, and Founder of the Email Marketing Roundtable.  He’s joined by Lisa Harmon, Principal and Co-Founder of Smith-Harmon, Chair of the User Experience Roundtable at the Email Experience Council, and President of the Email Marketing Roundtable.  You can learn more about the webinar and register here.