Ugh, another email to read. Clicking it open, you find yourself staring at a significant chunk of text, which leaves you with a feeling that the kids are describing nowadays as tl;dr – “too long; didn’t read”. You skim through it quickly, trying just get the gist of it. After a moment of barely reading, you see it’s another marketing email. Click, click, trash, and then it’s off to those hilarious cat videos again.
This is what your customers and potential customers do every day. You’ve worked hard crafting that perfect MailChimp email that communicates your message as best you can. But, remember the people you’re sending it to get tons of email every day, just like yours. So how do you capture their attention? What do you need to do to increase your click through rate, and not just become another digitally crumpled letter in the virtual trash bin? Three words: Videos in Email.
If YouTube has taught us anything, it’s that people love videos. Even the ones that don’t have cats in them. With current technology, it’s easier than ever to use that to your advantage when you are creating your MailChimp email campaign. Here are some reasons why video in email is a train you’ll want to get on:
- For some people, even two blocks of text might be bothersome. Video allows you to grab their attention right away, and lock them into your message.
- It’s really cheap and easy. Seriously, use your iPhone or shell out $60 bucks for a webcam and in about 15 minutes, and you can create, upload, and be sending out all the video you want. Or just cruise the halls of YouTube for a cinematic masterpiece to add.
- It will make you stand out from the sea of emails. Not only will you be more unique from what everyone else is doing, but it will help to make your business look more tech savvy and personal.
- It really will increase your click through rate (CTR), which is a huge factor of success for any email campaign. According to a recent study, 73% of business who added video to their emails experienced a dramatic rise in their CTR.
- Videos will help to make sure your message is gotten across, and that people will be open to it. Not only is it easier for people to assimilate something when watching a video, as opposed to reading it, but with the added effect of tone of voice, facial expressions and body language, it will ensure that people connect with it.
How to insert video into your MailChimp emails
To insert your video into MailChimp you need to use a merge tag and click the auto-convert check box, in the advanced options area on the campaign info screen. Here’s the merge tag … *|YOUTUBE:[$vid=xxxxx, $max_width=160, $ratings=N, $views=N, $border=N, $title=N, $trim_border=N]|*. Just replace the xxxx with the unique identifying number from the Youtube video. You can change the width of the video in the max_width area.
If you need help with MailChimp email marketing please feel free to post on my Google+ at AmyHall.biz/GooglePlus or Facebook at AmyHall.biz/Facebook or call me at 619-770-7716. MailChimp is affordable for all small businesses because it’s free for up to 2,000 email addresses, sending out 12,000 emails a month. I create professional looking MailChimp templates for your business that keeps your branding consistent between your website and your MailChimp email. Contact me with your MailChimp email questions, I’m happy to answer them.
Here’s a special cat video for your viewing pleasure. 
About Amy Hall