Video in Email

With consumers becoming accustomed to watching video on web sites of all kinds, adding video to e-mail can greatly enhance its appeal. The mere mention of video in the subject line can significantly boost open rates. Deciding what type of video to include, however, poses a serious challenge, because it must be relevant to the consumer.
While many retailers opt for videos that educate consumers about a product, the entertainment value can be just as important in attracting and maintaining the consumer’s interest. Apparel retailers, for instance, can create video fashion shows, complete with models walking down the runaway to display the coming season’s fashions.
Potential drawbacks to video are that image quality and the ability of the consumer’s e-mail program to quickly download and play the video significantly influence how consumers respond to it. These problems are magnified for consumers that read their e-mail on a mobile phone, as video-playing technology readily available on personal computers may not work on certain mobile phones.
For example, while a Flash video may play on some mobile devices, it will not play on such popular Apple Inc. devices as the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad. If the video doesn’t play or isn’t playing properly, retailers lose their opportunity to communicate with the customer. Without knowing what type of device the e-mail will be opened on, it is becoming more difficult to confidently embed video in an e-mail. The safest bet is to leave video out of the message unless it has been extensively tested on different mobile and desktop operating systems.
E-mail marketers should also pay close attention to the size of the video file as that directly impacts download times of the message itself. “Video can add a lot of bulk to an e-mail.
One way to overcome playability and download issues is to embed an image from the video that displays a play button in the e-mail. When the play button is clicked, consumers are linked to the retailer’s server or to YouTube,which plays the video.
It’s a very seamless process and a good solution for marketers that want to include video because not all the e-mail clients can support video. It’s also a nice alternative to simply including a link to the video in the body of the message, because it adds some visual appeal.
An alternative to video is animation that plays when the e-mail is opened. Animated GIFs adds visual appeal,but without the sound. One well-known example is that of a retailer that included a chocolate bunny animated GIF for an Easter promotion whose ears were being eaten away. Retailers can also use animated GIFs to show a 360-degree rotation of a product or swap products in a hero image.
Given some of the technical hurdles retailers face by adding video to their e-mails, it is recommended marketers first determine whether the medium fits their objectives for the e-mail campaign. If the objective is to educate consumers about a product, it may be worthwhile to include a video product review submitted by a happy customer or one that demonstrates how to use the product.
Product demonstrations, for example, make sense when the consumers targeted in the e-mail campaign are likely to have limited knowledge of the product.
A health and beauty retailer that sells primarily to teens should not assume their customer base knows how to apply the product, so in this case a video can be extremely relevant. What retailers don’t want to do is simply add video because it is a trendy thing to do.
Adding technology for the sake of technology is not the best use of technology. As retailers prepare for the upcoming holiday season there are a number of tweaks they can make to improve the effectiveness of their e-mail campaigns. Identifying and encouraging brand advocates that post promotional e-mails to Facebook or forward them to friends is one way to expand the reach of e-mail during the holiday season.
Retailers can add widgets that make it easy for consumers to post the retailer’s e-mail offers to a Facebook page or forward it to a friend. Retailers will want to prominently display the buttons to activate the widgets; those widgets can also track how many additional people receive and view the message.
Brand advocates are a powerful marketing tool, especially when they use social media to take a message viral. Retailers can readily identify them and create offers they are likely to re-circulate based on past behavior. The more a brand advocate spreads the word about a retailer, the more credibility they can lend to the retailer’s brand.
Simply targeting brand advocates to take a message viral is not enough. Retailers need to make sure they are reaching the brand advocates that have the most dedicated following within their social circles.
A consumer that shares one message that is clicked on by 20 people is more valuable than someone who shares 20 messages that get only one click. Both customers have value, but retailers that want to be sure their message is viewed by the largest audience possible should be concentrating on their most effective brand evangelists.
Consumers that are just getting to know a retailer, and those who have come close to buying before abandoning a shopping cart, are also good targets for e-mail marketing during the holiday season.
Consumers that have recently opted in to the e-mail list can be sent a series of automated welcome e-mails highlighting best-selling products or popular gift ideas over a several week period as a way to expose them to the retailer’s top products.
Another quick, low-budget split test optimization opportunity is in changing the subject line to indicate the message comes from a person as opposed to a company, as some consumers respond more favorably to an e-mail from an individual. Retailers can also test subject lines that ask an intriguing question, such as ‘What are you doing this weekend?’ as a way to engage the customer.
Retargeting consumers that have abandoned a shopping cart can serve as a reminder they have an item in the cart or provide a nudge to complete the purchase, especially if the retailer offers an incentive to buy now.
E-mail campaigns can even be used to precede slower transaction days of the week to level out warehouse and shipping activity. There are a lot of ways retailers can use their customer data to make their e-mail campaigns more efficient.
Marketers can boost e-mail open rates by adding a call to action in the subject line, such as a request to share tips on the retailer’s Facebook page or web site about how to throw a memorable holiday party or decorate the house for the holidays.
A call to action that gets the customer involved by visiting the retailer’s web site or Facebook page can be a subtle way to improve open rates down the road or generate a future sale, because the message keeps the consumer interacting with the retailer.
Regardless of how creative retailers are with subject lines or e-mail content, it means little if their message does not get delivered to the inbox or ends up categorized as bulk or unimportant e-mail. The guardians of consumers’ e-mail inboxes, such as Yahoo, MSN, Google and AOL, which are often called by e-mail marketing experts Internet service providers from the days when e-mail and Internet access services were linked, are continually changing the ways they rate the reputations of bulk e-mail senders, including retailers. Engagement with e-mail—opens, clicks, replies and so forth—is starting to play a bigger part in terms of inbox placement, which means that retailers must get more timely, targeted and relevant for success.
Before, if a retailer sent messages over a clean IP and had a low rate of complaints, they pretty much landed in the inbox, but now the ISPs are trying to reduce inbox clutter and make it easier for consumers to digest their messages. Retailers need to start focusing on building out lifecycle marketing in order to successfully speak to consumers at the right time in the right way.
Other ways retailers can improve delivery rates is avoiding sudden changes in e-mailing patterns. A retailer that regularly sends 100,000 messages per e-mail campaign will most likely receive a red flag from ISPs if the merchant suddenly starts sending to 1 million e-mail addresses. The inbox providers may block the campaign as a result.
Communication is a part of maintaining a good relationship with ISPs, and letting them know in advance of sudden increases in campaign volume or frequency is a best practice Retailers should also make sure their e-mail service provider does not reuse an IP address that is also used by highly aggressive marketers, as that can raise a red flag.
It’s also advisable to put an e-mail campaign through an automatic spam checker that flags keywords in the subject line and main body that may be blocked by an ISP’s spam filter. Using an e-mail marketing system that stays up to date with the latest spam definitions is vital, because avoiding the latest spam definitions ensures a higher delivery rate. The same goes for size limits because some spam filters will block e-mails over a certain size.
Steps should also be taken to scrub e-mail lists, especially when retailers are collecting consumer e-mail addresses in-store at the checkout or customer service counter. All too often e-mails collected under these circumstances are incorrectly entered into the e-mail database, leading to bounced e-mails that damage the retailer’s reputation with the ISPs.
Verify the address before the customer walks away and have keyboard tabs that auto-fill ISP addresses such as @aol to help reduce data entry errors. Once these best practices are mastered, retailers can focus on how to integrate their e-mail campaigns with their other marketing efforts, particularly those in the increasingly vital areas of social media and mobile commerce.

Facebook for making money

With Facebook on virtually every retailer’s mind,many of them are asking,“Why aren’t we using Facebook to make money?”
Indeed, some already are. Social gaming powerhouse Zynga Inc., which sells virtual goods through its FarmVille and other online games available only on Facebook, has demonstrated the willingness of Facebook users to spend money on the social networking site. Zynga, which says it has 232 million monthly active users, reported last month in its filing for an initial public offering of stock that it had revenue of $235.4 million for the first quarter of this year, up 133% from $100.9 million in the year-earlier quarter.
The technology for selling on Facebook has existed since 2009 and it’s proven to be an effective, low-cost sales tool. But in a study of retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500, my company, e-commerce software provider Ability Commerce, found that 90% of those retailers are not selling on Facebook. Moreover, 21% of them, or 105, have yet to even create a Facebook page. Why the delay? What is holding these companies back?  the data we collected points to some answers and may give clues to the future of e-commerce—and specifically Facebook commerce, or f-commerce.But many other retailers, particularly small to midsize ones that sell goods commonly purchased online, such as clothes, consumer electronics, and books and other media products, appear to be missing an opportunity. And with Facebook recently reporting it has 750 million active users, it’s a big opportunity.
One aspect of Facebook that retailers have readily adopted is the brand page. In the roughly one year since Facebook introduced company brand pages where consumers can click to “Like” a company, replacing “fan” pages that used to compile the number of consumers signed up as fans of a company, consumers have enthusiastically “Liked” the Facebook pages of their favorite brands. Retailers have started treating these “Likes” as markers for social media engagement—collecting them through awareness campaigns, contests and other incentives. 
Retailers in the Apparel/Accessories category, which includes the top three “Most-Liked” companies in the IR Top 500, actually average far fewer “Likes” than retailers in other Top 500 categories, with an average number of “Likes” per retailer of 592,175.  at figure falls behind the retail categories of Books/Music/Video, Toys/Hobbies, Mass Merchant and Health/Beauty.
Some merchants have gone beyond just seeking “Likes” to selling directly to Facebook users.
One example is American Musical Supply, an instrument retailer that is No. 262 in the Top 500 with $45 million in 2010 sales. Inside the retailer’s Facebook store,a virtual shopping cart lets shoppers select as many items as they want. When a customer clicks to check out, she is redirected to the secure checkout on AmericanMusical.com and the contents of her Facebook cart transfers with her. American Musical Supply also features contests like “U like U Save,” where its Facebook fans vote on which product they would like to see on sale.
With such an enormous user base, we know Facebook presents a huge marketing opportunity,implementing a Facebook shopping app is easy to do and can open another high-volume channel of commerce.
Retailers now have a variety of applications available to them to enable direct selling on the world’s most popular social network. Here’s a deeper dive into what Facebook shopping apps can offer.
Virtual Carts—Because Facebook does not off er checkout, many companies with shopping applications off er a Buy button that
redirects shoppers to the retailer’s web site to complete a purchase. This can be cumbersome for someone who wants to buy more than one item. Well-designed Facebook
shopping apps work around this issue with a virtual cart. A virtual shopping cart, such as the one used by American Musical Supply, allows a shopper to add multiple items to her shopping cart without leaving Facebook. When the customer is ready to check out, the contents of her shopping cart are transferred to the web site where she can complete a secure checkout.
Live Chat—A simple and cost-effective way to help customers as they browse a web store, live chat has become an integral part of many of the IR Top 500’s e-commerce sites. However, while that feature is readily available for Facebook, only eight Top 500 retailers, or 2% of those with a
Facebook page, offer chat to their Facebook visitors. Among the categories of Apparel/Accessories and Computer/Electronics retailers, just four retailers employ live chat for Facebook, while the categories of mass merchant and jewelry each has one retailer with a Facebook chat interface.
Other retailers are missing out on a great opportunity to easily connect with their Facebook customers and increase conversions. Live chat enables the retailer to help eliminate buyer objections, direct shoppers to products they need, and up-sell buyers on products and related items.
In researching Ability Commerce’s clients, we have found that shoppers who use live chat for help are three times more likely to buy than other visitors to e-commerce sites.  ose shoppers bump up the average order value as well, as chatters buy 55% more than non-chatters.
There are other features that can enhance a Facebook store, but adoption is limited. Of the 395 Top 500 retailers with a Facebook page, only three integrate their Facebook product listings and their Amazon.com merchandise, a step that lets customers buy through Facebook any items a retailer sells through the Amazon e-commerce platform.
Based on the popularity of “Liking” a brand on Facebook and the scarcity of shopping applications, it’s clear retailers have been using Facebook more as a branding tool than as a storefront. That’s a missed opportunity, as Facebook shopping apps can now provide a shopping experience as engrossing as on any traditional e-commerce site.
Looking at other features, only 24 merchants, or 6%, of the Top 500 with a Facebook page, offer some kind of promotional freebie on their page, and only 17, or 4%,
let Facebook visitors buy gift cards.