Every day more and more companies turn to the power of video. This persuasive and easily understood marketing tool can be adapted to fit video email campaigns. By leveraging online videos, you can strategically target your audience, strengthen your brand, and increase search engine visibility. However, a video is often hard to delete once you hit publish, which means that you must think carefully about the quality of video emails that you want to produce.
Why Are Professional-Grade Video Emails So Important?
In order for a business to remain an industry leader, they must develop the content that they need to maintain their online presence. Video emails are a great way for businesses to achieve the following benefits:
- Improve SEO;
- Increase conversion rates for both the email and subsequent landing pages;
- Reduce unsubscribe rates;
- Increase visibility via shareable content;
- Improve click-through rates; and
- Deliver a higher ROI than other marketing channels.
Whether you choose to use animation or live action, getting the attention of your audience with a high quality video is a must. In fact, grabbing their attention begins with the audio that accompanies your images. Your audio must be both powerful and effective. Morgan Freeman is a primary example of an actor who’s voice is easily recognizable, while at the same time versatile. Unless you have a similar-quality voice, you might consider leaving the audio, and in particularly the voice over, to a professional.
To Ask An Employee Or Not … That Is The Question
Let’s imagine a scenario where your business is considering using an amateur voice actor aka an employee. Perhaps one of your team members is going to step up to the plate to become the voice of the video email marketing campaign. Their voice is great, it sounds friendly, it invokes images of fun, and you think it is going to be perfect.
Fast forward to the recording. Do you notice the following issues?
- Audible breathing that no matter how hard you try can’t be edited out.
- The letter “P” suddenly sounds like a poof and the “S” reminds you of Hiss from the animated classic Robin Hood.
- Perhaps the employee stumbles or hesitates on long words or complex phrases.
- Their tone might sound friendly, but the recording picks up something unnatural (perhaps it is because the employee turned amateur actor is reading from a script).
- Background noise subtly chimes in at the inopportune moments.
- All enthusiasm is lost on the closing line; or worst, it borders on the “used car salesmen territory.”
In short, the end result of using an employee, who doesn’t have any professional voice training experience, is often a disappointing one. When it comes to producing videos, especially those that you are going to send out via email, you only want to deliver a professional result. After all, if you seem unprofessional in your video, then your customers will think that your services or products are also unprofessional (which means that they might head straight to your nearest competitor).
Factors To Keep In Mind For Your Next Series Of Video Emails
After reading the above cautionary tale, you might still be considering using an employee as an actor in your video. However, before you make this choice, you should review the following factors.
Factor #1: Know Your Audience — You must first identify who you want to communicate with before you create a video. Next, identify what style of video will resonate strongly with this type of audience. Finally, think about whether your employees can become the voice or face that you need to connect with your established audience.
Factor #2: Create A Clear Message — Establishing a clear message will require you to first create a storyboard. Ask yourself the following types of questions:
- How is your company different from its competitors?
- What is the point of your video? In other words, what result are you trying to achieve?
- How can you convey a succinct message within your video?
- What tactics will you use to make a great video?
Once you have answered the above questions, you will need to write a script that is engaging. The script should compliment the video’s story. Keep in mind that video analytics show that viewers are more likely to share and watch shorter videos. This means that without rushing, you need to convey your video’s message in a succinct, yet powerful fashion.
Factor #3: Be Authentic — As with any email marketing campaign, your videos should be authentic. Your company shouldn’t deviate from its brand or values, just for the sake of trying to create a viral video email. Instead, you should give recipients a transparent view that showcases what your company has to bring to the table.
The Bottom Line: Hire Or Fire?
Hiring an actor for your video emails can be a great way to bring a heightened level of professionalism to your digital marketing efforts. However, the keyword in the latter statement was not “actor,” but rather “professionalism.” With this in mind, you might just discover that with the right video editing equipment, a creative marketing team, and smooth-voiced employee, you have the in-house tools that you need to create a high-quality professional video that will be well-received by your intended audience. Hire or fire the actor, the choice is yours; just remember, that some choices can’t be taken back and not every employee will have what it takes to be a voice over or stand-in actor.
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