Well, yes, now there is a solution to integrate video content in emails!

You may have been tempted to insert videos in your emails on countless occasions, taking into account that the new generation is a consumer of online videos. The Nielsen research company reported a growth of 41% in the consumption of the video content, in 2009, as compared to the previous year. Generally speaking, video content was seen by 139,176 million unique viewers and a total number of 11.363.819 billion views.

Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? Especially if you have a very good relationship with your subscribers, thanks to your newsletter, you can use the video content to talk them even more into becoming your clients and into recommending you to friends too.

Until not long ago, the actual use of video support in emails was impossible, given the negative consequences it had when trying to play them in email clients, which affected the deliverability of emails (that were blocked by the ISP’s) and not lastly the reputation of the sender. The main problem is that most email clients block the embedded html code that displays the video, since a flash file included in an email poses a security threat for the ISP’s.

In order to make subscribers watch videos, they were directed from the email body via a call-to-action button, to a webpage where this video was posted.

But now there is a solution to integrate video content directly into emails, and this technology ensures the play of the video file for 75-90% of the subscribers in a list. On top of that, this eliminates the problems that are associated to their delivery in the Inbox of the subscriber.

Characteristics

• Load video content with just one click
• Support for the integration of video, Flash, GIF, HTML5, static images. The system detects automatically the format which is the most appropriate to every running environment.
• Automatic generation of 8 video versions, that are served on a differentiated basis. For instance, IE6 browsers do not support compressed animated GIF’s. In browsers such as Firefox or Chrome, animated gif’s run on frame-rates that are higher than with IE or Safari.
• The possibility to detect immediately the email client that a recipient uses and the load of the video content which is the most appropriate in the email.
• The identification of the bandwidth that a user uses.
• Management of email clients that do not support the loading of the video content.
• Measuring the rate of engagement of subscribers in emails with video content, reporting the number of video viewing seconds .

The diversity and multitude of email clients, web browsers, ISP’s, mobile supports, is quite a challenge for anyone wishing to insert video content in their emails. But you need to consider the fact that not all email clients support the email content in the same way.

In order to prevent that problem from happening, the system analyses every email client and delivers the video content differently for each of these clients, in order to generate the most optimum way of playing the video content and to generate a higher rate of involvement of users.

As soon as subscribers get the email, this technology detects in real time the email client that each subscriber uses and provides automatically a compatible video content (video.gif, HTLM5, depending on the limitations of the detected email client).

Indeed, Outlook 2007 continues to have the highest restrictions in displaying the video content, because this email client can only display the first frame of a video file.

When it can be used:

• In image campaigns where the brand is very important and whenever a more powerful emotional connection is created with subscribers/clients.
• Inserts in newsletters of publishers, in order to increase the conversion and engagement rates.
• Using demos or animated presentations of their products in the emailing campaigns.
• Communicate complex messages that are much easier to present visually and as animations.
• Support the call-to-action messages, in order to support higher conversion rates.

Now you can provide subscribers with videos they can play directly from the email. So your newsletters can be optimise in an even better way.