The #1 reason users send video mail is to increase the likelihood of their message being viewed. In the first quarter of 2012 mailVU video mail had a 66% click-through rate, and a 21% unique click-through rate. This compares to an average of a little over 5% for traditional text email as shown below.

Note: This chart is part of a recent study: North America Email Trends and Benchmarks Results, by the Epsilon and the Direct Marketing Association’s Email Experience Council, based on the analysis of 8.5 billion emails sent during the fourth quarter of 2011.

The Reasons and Whys Video Email Gets 60%+ Click Rates

1. Video emails offer your recipients more information in a shorter amount of time. Instead of trying to describe or sell something in paragraphs of text that people have little time to read, you can simply record a personal message or show the recipients your product in a short video clip.
2. With mailVU’s service, you see the sender with a “Play” triangle over their image. Put yourself in your recipient’s position. If you’re sent a video mail with person’s image, you’ll feel more confident that the email is from a trustworthy source, especially if you recognize the person sending it. That image will also pique the recipient’s curiosity and that is a great encouragement to click ‘play.’
3. To ensure the best results, keep your recipient list updated. Bad lists will lead to bad results. With video email you are more likely to send emails to targeted recipients; those you know, met at trade shows, or signed up for your newsletter or mailing list. Don’t waste time creating videos to send to dead email addresses!
4. When sending a personal video mail, it’s less likely to be labeled Spam. We all know that Spam words in the subject line lead to low deliverability rates to the inbox. A personal video message from a named person within your organization will go a long way to making sure your video is viewed. Check out this post on helping your recipients keep your video messages out of their email provider’s Spam folders.
5. More people are now opening emails on their smartphones and tablets. At the outset, mailVU ensured that all video emails played in the correct orientation on mobile devices without the sender having to take any action. Whether your recipient is viewing your message on their home computer or on the go, mailVU recognizes their device and automatically plays the appropriate format.

How Are mailVU’s Total Clicks So High?

1. mailVU allows the user to place links to their social media sites, as well as links in Additional Text or Signature Text areas. Not only is your video viewed, users can take action directly from your message.
2. Videos often get played multiple times.
3. The more engaging and interesting, the more your mailVU video emails may be shared with others (as long as you don’t set the self-destruct feature for number of views or days available – yes, that’s possible with mailVU’s videos!)

mailVU video email Open rates in the 1Q12 were 112%, with Unique Opens of 42%. Compare these open rates to the text email open rates in the low 20% range in the chart above. Why are mailVU open rates so high? Unless you use mailVU’s self-destruct feature our video emails can be forwarded to others to view. The recipient may pass the video mail around the office, or to others who may be interested. Here’s an example of how a forwarded message got mailVU one of its first customers:

Early in mailVU’s journey we met a recruiter at an event and later sent her a personal video mail saying it was nice meeting her. That day, the video email to her had been viewed several times (mailVU provides View Notification and counts). The recruiter said she loved the video mail and forwarded it around the office. The whole office loved it and the recruiting company became one of the early customers of mailVU’s Business Plan.

If a video message is interesting the recipient may play the video over and over. When marketing with video, a user who repeatedly watches your video message could easily turn into a repeat customer. With a mailVU account, free or paid Business Plan, you can see not only the number of times your video was viewed, but who watched your video and how many times that person watched it. Try getting that information from YouTube (they don’t provide it.)

Links to Social Media

mailVU allows our Business Plan users to embed social media icons and links in the footer of their video emails. This makes it super easy to offer a call-to-action in your video such as “Click on our Facebook button below for a 20% discount.” Linking your video mail marketing efforts to social media can lead to great success.

Custom Video Email Footers

mailVU allows all account users to create a custom footer for their video mails. One of our business users, Natural Running Store, placed a coupon image under his video message. Clicking the coupon takes the user directly to the web page. What a powerful selling tool!

Summary

Sending video via email can lead to open rates and click-through rates 2-3 times higher than text emails.

1. Video Email gets viewed
2. Video Email gets shared.
3. Video is engaging and leads to interactions with your social media sites.
4. Using a call-to-action in your video message generates results.

Would you like better email marketing results? Contact us for a service plan that works for your business. We offer affordable individual accounts, as well as private label video email service for large clients.

Send us a video message, or call us at 704-237-0102 and let’s talk live about how mailVU video mail can connect a face to your business.