The results are in… with a limited number of respondents I’m not sure how scientific this is, but the results did show a number of very strong trends.
1. Embedded video in email, Does it work?
89% of respondents selected a No response, with the leading result being attributed to Poor support in email clients (50%) and rendering issues (27%). Of the yes answers (11%) the trend showed only “OK” results. No one responded with having “great” results from Videos in email.
2. How do you get around video in email issues?
Another overwhelming result showing the 85.7% of respondents choose to sent static images with the look and feel of a video screen, the remainder indicated no issues related to sending videos.
3. Optimal Video format
73% of responders answered by indicating the choice to not send video in email. MPEGs (17%), AVI and Wav files were the next most popular with 5.6% each. Write in answered included Flash, QuickTime, SWF and YouTube embedded options.
4. Tips for sending video in email, reasons not to send video in email
User comments seems to indicate a strong distrust of the Marketing Sherpa tests and results. Recommendations to Avoid Flash and other scripting were also popular due to the high probability that an ISP will pop us warnings or disable these out right in the users inbox. Providing images (or animated gifs) and links to hosted video, on your site or even YouTube, seem to be the most popular recommendations occurring several times.
We even had comments from a couple of recipients that indicated a significant dislike of the idea and application of Videos in email.
Key findings:
- Use images that point to hosted video
- Understanding your recipients view of your services is important
- ISPs and email clients do not support many of the formats used to manage video
Thank you all for answering.
