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. (more…)

mobileStorm’s six messaging types for marketers are all conducive to our stance that multi-channel campaigns are best. We’ve also long suggested that marketers be multi-channel within a single message–for example, by including video in an email marketing message, which engages the recipient and also makes the message viral.

We’re so forward-thinking that it’s only been recently that the rest of the marketing industry has caught up, and realized that–like chocolate and peanut butter–video and email can be combined into one message to really entice consumers. Two great tastes taste great together, indeed!

• According to analyst David Daniels at Forrester Research, putting a video link within an email, such as a clickable screen shot, “can increase click-through rates by two to three times.”
• Mr. Daniels also notes in his recent report that between July 2008 and July 2009, 17 percent of marketing executives surveyed planned to use video in email. Marketers are getting competitive with video email!
• Meanwhile, Nielsen Online reported that in April of this year, 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month; total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago, while streams-per-viewer are up 27 percent and time-per-viewer is up 58 percent. Consumers love watching online video!
• Technological advances make viewing video in an email more seamless for the consumer. For example, Gmail Labs now has a feature that allows users to turn on previews of YouTube videos. Once consumers set this on their accounts, they’re able to watch YouTube videos from inside the email message. As word spreads, marketers will reach increasingly more Gmail users with video emails!

So savvy marketers will want to beat the competition before it beats them. This requires them to: (1) post videos where they can easily be found, and (2) incorporate video into their email marketing messages. This may be easier said than done, but with mobileStorm’s technology and expertise, it’ll still be relatively easy. (more…)

Speak of the devil. Last week when I wrote about Cloudmark’s SMS spam hype, I thought I made a good case, noting that the majority of marketers follow industry-accepted best practices, and that the price of sending texts will greatly limit SMS spam-senders.

But it’s easy to use fear to cause good intentions to veer to the dark side. “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering” and all. That’s what could happen, though, with a new proposed federal law aimed at curbing SMS spam.

The act, called m-SPAM and introduced by U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe and Bill Nelson, wants to restrain marketers from sending unwanted texts to consumers. No one can argue with that. But the law as proposed could unintentionally harm legitimate marketers–those who only send messages to people who’ve opted in to receive them–and even consumers who wanted those texts offering a coupon, entry to a party, or other discounts or specials.

How would this harm honest mobile marketing campaigns? As our CEO, Jared Reitzin, told Mobile Marketer, “I’m extremely against having wireless numbers on the do-not-call list, it’s absurd… They’re going to charge people to scrub against it? Will they offer APIs we can automatically scrub against? How long is it going to take to get your data back? That will be shot down… Overall the m-SPAM Act is probably a good idea to establish best practices, but not going to stop spam.”

Legislators should work with mobile marketing leaders to create the most effective law, one that will criminalize mobile spammers while supporting the efforts of honest SMS marketers. Carriers should weigh in too, since SMS marketing is one of the reasons why texting has become such a revenue-driver for them. Marketing experts should write to their own Senate and Congressional representatives, explaining what lawmakers need to consider when crafting the federal statute.

Those on the Hill shouldn’t be quick to rush in heavy-handed.

Recently I started receiving email marketing messages from a high-end department store. I honestly don’t remember signing up to get them, so I was willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt on that. But my goodwill was very short-lived.

I soon found myself getting messages every single day. Now, I would definitely remember if, when I signed up, I had been told the frequency of email that I would receive from this company. Clearly I wasn’t. This violates one best practice standard: As they first sign up, marketers should tell subscribers how often they can expect messages, so that they know what they’re in for. Or at least, give them a choice as to how often they would like to receive them.

As a digital marketer, I’m usually more open to receiving marketing message campaigns. After all, I want to promote our industry! But the barrage of messages from this particular marketer made me decide that enough was enough. So I hit the Unsubscribe link.

That’s when the second violation of best practices occurred. Instead of being a one-click process, in which I should immediately be told that I have been removed from the mailing list, here’s what happened: I was directed to a page that asked me if I wouldn’t instead want to change the frequency of messages, and was given a list of options like “once a week,” “twice a week,” “once a day,” etc.

Not only did this anger me–I said I want to unsubscribe, so just let me, darn it!–but it also made me sneer at the incompetence. These frequency options should have been offered at the beginning of the subscription process, not at  the end.

The unsubscribe process should be as painless and easy for the consumer as possible. One click and it’s done. Otherwise, all you do is harbor ill will from the consumer, who will then (A) decide never to opt-in for marketing emails at a later date; (B) be wary of online commerce with the offending retailer, since his/her email address might be added to the marketing mailing list without permission–because after all this retailer doesn’t bother with best practices; and (C) choose to do business with a competing department store.

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