Email Click Through Results With Video

Non-profit video email

Video in email achieves substantially higher click through rates than text email alone. Last year we published this study showing mailVU’s click through rate in 2Q12 was over 60%. We thought it would be nice to refresh our data so we just pulled mailVU’s click through rate for 4Q12. The result? A 66.59% click through rate.

Does everyone achieve this click through rate? The short answer is “no”. Mass emails with video will never achieve the same click through rate as a one-on-one video email you send to a person who knows you. (You can achieve a 100% click through rate on video emails to your mom!) Emails have to be opened to even have the chance of a click, so having a good email list and subject line are key to your emails being opened. Hubspot wrote a great article on Spam Trigger Words to avoid in Subject lines last year that we highly recommend reading.

If you pass step one and the person opens the email, you now need to have an enticing pitch for them to play the video. The whats-in-it-for-me principle applies to video just as it does to text. Why should someone play the video? If the video is for entertainment, education, or news it is likely to be watched.

Product videos can be effective if the recipient has already expressed interest. A how-to video for a product is such an example. Someone purchases a new Cuisinart blender and the company sends them video via email showing how best to take it apart for cleaning. That’s helpful. Or a car dealer sending a video mail to a client who expressed interested in a vehicle. If the recipient is likely to be interested in the subject matter of the video, and you can make it entertaining or educational, it will be watched.

If you are a non-profit consider the emotional appeal of a video versus text. Here is an example of an effective non-profit video email. You could transcribe the text, but the powerful emotional appeal of video is what makes the difference.

If you haven’t tried sending video in email you should conduct a trial this year and see the difference for yourself. mailVU has product plans that allow you to easily record and send video via email, whether you use our email delivery or wish to embed it in iContact or other mass email service (we are compatible with all the major players).

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