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Interactive Email: Why you need it and how to incorporate it in emails [WEBINAR]

Posted by apadmin on October 22, 2012


ActivePath CEO, Jeff Kupietzky, presented a Vertical Response webinar last week on Interactive Email, and judging by the excellent turnout and enthusiastic Q&A session at the end, clearly email marketers are catching on to the next big thing in email marketing: Interactivity.

In his presentation, Jeff ran through some facts and figures reinforcing the power of email as the #1 preferred marketing communication channel and the astounding impact of video on email performance, leading in nicely to the crux of the matter:
Email is ripe for innovation, and enabling interactivity, namely video, is the way to start.

Read more →

Posted in Email Innovation, Email Marketing, Interactive Email Tagged , , ,

Why marketers should use “true” video in email

Posted by apadmin on September 10, 2012


According to comScore’s recently released July 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings, 85.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video in July. That’s a record of more than 184 million U.S. Internet users who watched 36.9 billion online content videos.

And it’s not just consumer audiences going nuts over video. A Social Media Examiner survey of 3,800 marketers found that a full 76% named YouTube and video marketing as their top areas of investment in 2012. That’s because, thanks to their engaging nature, videos are great for promoting everything from products, to webinars, to events and much more.

Even business executives are succumbing to the power of video. According to a Forbes Insights study, more and more executives are embracing the “Non-Text Web” and are now just as inclined to take action based on viewing a video than they would be based on reading an article.

The power of video is so bewitching, that according to Experian’s 2012 Digital Marketer Benchmark and Trend Report, simply including the word “video” in an email’s subject line saw an increase of 7%-13% in overall click-thru rates in 2011, and embedding a video in an email itself generated an average conversion rate (CVR) that was 21% higher than emails containing a static image alone.

Put all of these resounding stats together and you have a pretty clear message: Video is a must-have element in today’s marketing content mix, whether you’re targeting B2C of B2B audiences, and since email is still the #1 preferred marketing communication channel, it makes perfect sense to use the two together to create killer user-engagement.

Using video in your emails could increase CTR by as much as 67%, so if you’re not already using video in your marketing initiatives, you might want to re-think your strategy if you want to compete with those who are.

But is all ‘video in email’ truly video in email? Apparently not.
Read more →

Posted in Activate Email, Email Innovation, Email Marketing, Interactive Email, Video Email Tagged , , , , ,

Using video in your emails could increase CTR by as much as 67%

Posted by apadmin on July 24, 2012

Evidence continues to mount in the webosphere claiming video as the new “darling” of rich media content-types for marketers.

In their presentation titled, Video Email: When, Why, and How, the Email Experience Council (eec) offers an impressive list of video-in-email stats, making the case for video in email even stronger.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • About 86% of Americans (180 million) viewed online video in August 2011, which was a 26% increase from the year before.
  • By 2014, video may account for 50% of web traffic.
  • According to Forrester, click-through rates in an email with video increase by as much as 2-3 times.
  • Even before viewing the video, merely starting the subject line with ‘Video:’ can double the CTR.
  • Meanwhile, inside the email, video brings the CTR up to 67% higher than an average campaign.

Read more →

Posted in Email Marketing, Email News, Video Email Tagged , ,

You’ve Got [Video] Email: Where your email marketing strategy is headed in 2012

Posted by apadmin on July 20, 2012

If you’re an email marketer, then one of the most crucial questions you must constantly be tackling is how can I make my email more engaging this time? As we’ve said before, user experience trends and content expectations are moving forward at record speed, so it’s crucial to keep at least one step ahead.

One of the rising trends in email engagement is including a video in your message – and we don’t mean a thumbnail linking to a YouTube link. In this Column Five infographic created for Wistia, businesses surveyed indicated that video has become the forefront of content strategy in 2012 email campaigns.

Some of the stats include:

  • Over 75% of businesses surveyed planned to continue (or in some cases, start) using video in their email campaigns in 2012.
  • Of the kinds of video content available, most videos sent to customers via email were training courses, with product demos or product promotions right behind.
  • Close to 70% of respondents believe that including a video in their email messaging has had a positive impact on conversion rates.

Read more →

Posted in Email Marketing, Video Email Tagged , , ,

Rich Media: The not-so-secret ingredient to boosting email engagement

Posted by apadmin on July 12, 2012

The Humble Animated GIF

If you were old enough to use a computer back in the late 1980s, then you’ll remember the advent of the animated GIFs, a file type that flips through two or more images combined to create basic animation. Although they’re no longer considered as revolutionary as they used to be, they nevertheless enjoyed a very long run as part of marketing efforts, including email campaigns.

An animated GIF viewed inside an email.

Dynamic elements such as animated GIFs allowed email recipients to see more than a flat image to represent a product, deal, or ad. Marketers could apply simple animation to graphical elements inside their email messages and display different product angles, color options, and calls to action. Here are some good examples of GIFs use in emails from a May 2012 blog post by Philip Barnes.

For a long time, animated GIFs were all marketers could use to make their emails interactive. The trend caught the attention of industry analysts as far back as 2010, when Responsys published their animated GIF usage findings, concluding that “the increase in usage likely stemmed from the ability of animated gifs to get subscribers’ attention and therefore boost engagement and clickthroughs.”

“We’ve used them quite a lot with various clients over the years,” said Aaron Smith, Director of Creative Technologies at Smith-Harmon, a Responsys company, “and in tests we’ve done, we’ve seen several percentage points higher on the clickthrough front with the animated versions.”(1)

Read more →

Posted in Email Innovation, Email Marketing, Interactive Email, Video Email Tagged , , , , , , ,
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