A Movie in Every Mailbox

Want to get your message to the masses? Looking for a cost effective way to create leads and sales?  Why not try sending a video via email? While you can’t actually embed videos in every email, you can attach them to online newsletters such as Constant Contact.

With billions of videos being watched online monthly, it seems logical that businesses will want to maximize the marketing potential of video in such areas as email, newsletters, blogs and social networks.  What’s even better is the fact that a number of popular platforms are adding ways for their users to put a  movie in every emailbox. 

Google Goes Viral

Gmail recently unleashed a feature that allows users to preview YouTube videos right from their inbox. Sweet! Now all those YouTube links that your friends keep bombarding you with can be reviewed without ever having to go to YouTube.

When is Email Freemail?

Recently a number of video email purveyors have sprung up to help feed the public’s voracious appetite for online video.  Some of these sites are even free to use, such as Eyejot.com and howdywire.com.  This makes composing and delivering video emails a snap.  Designed to work with your computer’s webcam, you can compose, shoot and send emails in a matter of seconds.  If you want to send a more polished video, Eyejot makes uploading a polished video as simple as point and click.

A Bright Future for Email Marketing?

While the uses of video email are only going to grow during the coming years, the rules for using this medium as a marketing tool are still the same as with traditional email.  Spammers beware.  Therefore, the secret to getting your video message across without ruffling any feathers is to use 4 parts infotainment per one part sales pitch.

Accomplishing this task via video is not at all difficult, provided that you throw in a bit of production value.  One of the simplest ways to create production value without breaking the bank is by creating microcasts of 1-2 minutes that provide helpful tips.  A dollop of humor wouldn’t hurt either.  Something along the lines of Tim Allen’s ToolTime shtick comes to mind.  Better still would be to use a buxom blonde to provide the tips.  You get the picture.

There are hundreds of ways to get your message across using video email marketing. Not every production will work for you, but you can bet that given a little trial and error you will be able to come up with a number of ways to employ video to create a loyal following online.

Where Google Leads Others Will Follow

You can also bet your boots that the folks at Microsoft are looking for a way to incorporate Silverlight into MSN and Hotmail.   I’d also wager that Yahoo has got to have something in the works as well. All I can say is that in time there will be a plethora of multimedia friendly email services along with a host of apps that will make embedding video as easy as ABC.

So why wait? The most important word of advice that I can give any online marketer is to embrace this cost effective advantage before the competition beats you to the finish line. 

Carl Weiss has been getting paid to work the web since 1995.  You can see his own brand of video tutorials by going to http://access-jax.com and htt://Jacksonville-video-production.com