Last week, I explained  that videos and email marketing messages go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Click-through rates for marketing emails increase two or three times with the inclusion of video! This is in part because increasingly larger numbers of consumers (we’re talking trillions!) want to spend time watching online video, and also because it’s becoming easier for them to watch videos sent via email.

Today,  I’ll offer some tips on how marketers can create  videos that consumers will want  to receive via email and watch online. I’ll aso explain explain how marketers can analyze the results of their video email marketing campaigns with mobileStorm’s technology.

Because some companies might not have tried their hand at creating videos, here are some things we at mobileStorm  learned while making our online commercials and comedy shows.

• Online video is not the same as a feature-length movie or network TV show. Its purpose is to quickly pique interest in a brand. Thus, it should start off with a “bang” and not be much longer than a few minutes.
• Links should either lead to a video posted on a site like YouTube or MySpace, or else should lead to specially-designed landing pages. Never use embedded video in email!
• Providing your video in the smallest file size possible, but still retaining a satisfactory image quality, is part of best practices for all Internet video. Flash compression is often the best comproise of file size and quality, making it ideal for online media.

Once you’ve deployed a video email marketing campaign, you need to determine how well it did.

Our platform allows you to  see the success of  both your  videos and your email messages:

• Create stunning charts that track videos or video publishers.
• Compile aggregated video analytics that track across online sites including Google Video, MetaCafe, MySpace, AOL, Yahoo!, Revver, YouTube, and more.
• Find out how many people clicked on a particular link in the email–not only how many people opened the message, but also those specific addresses.
• Determine ROI on an email campaign by using Conversion/Clickstream tracking options.

Email  marketing is  extremely common these days. To stay competitive,  every company in any industry should  utilize  it. To stand out from the rest, and to better engage your customers, you should seriously consider adding video to your email messages. Higher click-throughs, and  commensurate ROI, will be your reward.

Eydie Cubarrubia, Marketing Communications Manager, mobileStorm
“I’d rather you text me”