Video Marketing FAQs: Email, Social, Global and More

Whether on the phone or on the road at events, we regularly speak with hundreds of B2B marketers interested in upleveling their video marketing.

We've compiled a short list of top questions here to help those of you with the same queries.

HOW DO I USE VIDEO IN EMAIL? SHOULD I EMBED VIDEO DIRECTLY IN AN EMAIL? OR LINK TO A LANDING PAGE WHERE THE VIDEO PLAYS?

The death of email has been greatly exaggerated - it is more popular than ever with marketers

Thus the question of “how do I use video in emails” is a popular one.

In short, we recommend NOT embedding video in your email for primarily two reasons:

Roughly one-third of email clients can’t display embedded video. That’s right, if you code your video into email, chances are the email client will strip the code, leaving your recipient clueless as to your intent.
Video is just one element of digital communication. House your video on a landing page that plays video inline with other elements, giving viewers have easy access to all the information they need. This accelerates their move through the customer journey instead of keeping them siloed in email.

So what’s the best practice for video in email?

We suggest inserting a video thumbnail into your email which links to an informative video-focused landing page, surrounded by related content. Because visitors have demonstrated an interest in watching, you can set the video to auto-play, increasing video metrics and improving UX.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

How to Optimize Your Landing Pages for 4X Lead Form Conversion

WE'RE A GLOBAL COMPANY. WHAT GLOBAL VIDEO ISSUES SHOULD I TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION? HOW DO I LOCALIZE VIDEO CONTENT?

Wow, this is a loaded question! But let’s go through a few considerations.

Be very cautious about using free social video sites to distribute global content. Some social video sites are blocked not just by companies internally, but in some cases, an entire country, like China.
Create an accessible video environment. Video captioning, whether for language subtitling or government regulation compliance, needs to be compatible across every device, especially for global workforces working on mobile.
Localize video content with transcription and translation services. In that way, their messages reach their audiences in their native languages.
Localize your site text and onsite metadata for a better experience.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

Video Marketing Mentors: Scaling Global Enterprise Video
The Complete Marketer’s Guide to Live Streaming

I ONLY HAVE A SMALL NUMBER OF VIDEOS. WHY SHOULD I CONSIDER AN ONLINE VIDEO PLATFORM FOR MARKETING?

As we say over and over again, video is the most effective form of digital communication. And for that reason, the use of video is increasing at exponential rates. So, whenever you choose any type of enterprise business technology, you'll want to anticipate the needs of your company 3-5 years from now.

An online video platform supplies you:

Better Internal Video Organization: on the backend, you want to be sure your platform scales with easy-to-use folders and playlists. Create a tagging strategy that allows you categorize assets quickly and dynamically so you can pull these assets into any online content experience.
Stronger UX for your Audience: for your viewers, consider using a video experience that is organized by topic. Your viewers can now quickly and easily discover video based on interest while you source them related content for a better understanding of your brand, products, and solutions.
Video Marketing ROI and Initiative Expansion: by utilizing a video platform, you'll have video analytics for your homepage, landing pages and social sites - showing how your audiences are engaging with your content. Even if you only have a few videos, you'll want to know what's working, what's not and how to reiterate on your success.

WHAT IS THE BENEFIT OF TAKING OUR VIDEOS OFF OF YOUTUBE AND VIMEO?

First and foremost, we are firm believers in a blended distribution strategy for video. YouTube has built in communities, so a marketer would be foolish to ignore YouTube during the awareness stage when using video across the customer journey. But there is more to a marketing strategy than just “reach”. Top video and digital marketers understand when it’s time to expand past YouTube and Vimeo.

Some basic things to consider when choosing a free social video site like YouTube versus a professional business-grade online video platform (OVP).

In order to lead prospects and customers through the customer journey, you need to lead that individual to your own site for a holistic and compelling content experience.
There is a difference between asset SEO for single videos and site SEO. If you post your videos only on YouTube, then search engines will register YouTube (not your own website) as the site with compelling content. Learn how to use video SEO to boost site rank
iOn the competitive front, you don’t want the player to display ads for competitors and recommend related titles that will take the viewer away from your content.
For those concerned with technical issues, YouTube and Vimeo lack true security features such as LDAP and single sign-on protection for your videos. Also they lack the ability to assign specific administration rights. Every person with administration rights to your free site has FULL administration rights. You either need to assign only a couple of people to oversee your company’s video, or things can get very messy, very quickly.

Video is everywhere. It is distributed via email, social, and spread across the globe. So, how to do you map video for it's maximum effectiveness? Think about the type of action you want to elicit from each video, in each channel, and then, build a conversation with you viewer. Video enhances the experience with your brand, building trust and loyalty faster than any other medium can.