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FC Member Blog

Video Email

BY Carol Montgomery Adams | 11-26-2008 | 2:42 AM
This blog is written by a member of our blogging community and expresses that member's views alone.

Video Email:  A Natural Evolution

Websites have advanced so much.  Video on YouTube and websites is becoming a standard practice.  So, why then do we still send black and white text emails or have to pay lots of money to create HTML emails that we "hope" will get past the ISPs?

With more and more tools available for producing videos, better technology, YouTube and other upload sites, and How To's from "experts", it seems only natural to combine the simplicity and power of video with email for your marketing needs.

The average business sends 600 emails per day!  250 Billion non-spam email messages are sent on average per day.

Video email is an unsurpassed marketing tool for promoting you business or service, anywhere an email can be sent!

The cost is considerably lower than direct mail, using external email marketing agencies and offline marketing.

One can send video via email today.  But the professional look and feel as well as the quality and speed of the video need to be consistent with the expectation of the business customers receiving.   The video upload services must deliver too.

However, there IS a difference between uploading a video to YouTube and creating and sending video email through an Inbox.  There are more technical considerations that have to be addressed:

1.  browser type for PC vs Mac
2.  bandwidth connection
3.  spam filters
4.  the reputation of the email service provider
5.  player availability

So, what would have to happen for video email to be the rule, rather than the exception?

1.  You should be able to produce a video easily and quickly without special equipment
2.  Your email system should allow you to embed the video easily
3.  You should not have to worry about what format the video is in or what browser and player your recipient has; the system should take care of that for you
4.  Spam filters would not block it
5.  The quality of video should be high; professional business look and feel

BOTTOM LINE:  the ideal video email would be one which allowed you to upload a video from any source and email it to anyone with no player downloads required or attachments.  The system would convert the video format automatically to the recipients format