Videos In Email... How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You!?

It's been long debated the best way to go about implementing videos into email. Well, I'll come right out and state the obvious: it can't happen.

BUT there are cool and creative ways to execute videos in email. The simplest thing to do is to take a screenshot of the video, making that clickable which will lead the user to a landing page.


To take this a step further, take a screenshot of the video BEFORE it plays, with the opaque play button. This will entice the user even more, which will lead more traffic to your site.


Also make sure you add a text link within the email for users who can't view images.

Another quick and effective way to portray that there's a "video" in your email is to take a number of screenshots to blend together to create an animated gif.


Until email clients across the board can support flash, this is pretty much your best bet to get your audience to watch your videos. If you ever come across any company that claims they can do this, they're liars. Straight up.

Email's Face Gets Some Web 2.0-Style Plastic Surgery

In this world of Web 2.0, filled with social networking sites, RSS feeds and blogs galore, email’s role is a little blurry… which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Email and messaging in general is booming right now. Businesses and consumers alike both still embrace email as one of their sole means of communication. Emails, text messaging and IM are continually being lumped together. Take the Sidekick for example: the use of each messaging option is rolled into one device… the same goes for the Blackberry.

Myspace is more or less email on steroids. It’s more engaging than standard email because you can see pictures of the people, bands and comedians that you’re messaging.

Then there’s twitter, which consists of strangers and friends having global conversations with one another via messaging.

Even with flickr you can message your friends back and forth with new photos and such.

As far as I can tell, email hasn’t changed since its inception… it’s just changed faces. And who knows what the future holds for email and messaging. It's an exciting thought, isn't it?