by Ethan Beute
Your recipient will likely be presented with other videos to watch after yours is completed.
A more advanced move is to create your own landing page that has the hosted video embedded in it. So, a click on the screenshot sends people not to YouTube, but to your own landing page. By adding this step, you give yourself more control over the video playback experience and keep your video near your branding, contact info, and call to action. Of course, that'll add even more steps and time to the process, especially if you're not using a formal email platform.
Screenshot Method Recommendation 1
If you're going to use The Screenshot Method, use a formal email platform. It'll give you open and click tracking and you'll be able to link your screenshot directly to your video. This is why this method is “free-ish” instead of free. Recording, uploading, and hosting may be free, but to do it well may require a subscription. If you do it with MailChimp (up to a limit) and YouTube, you can do it completely free.
Screenshot Method Recommendation 2
If you're going to use The Screenshot Method, focus on mass or automated sends rather than truly personal sends. It's possible to get a return on the time and effort required to go through all these steps from a personal, one-to-one send, but this method is so cumbersome that you won't create a habit that gets you to 100, 1,000, or 10,000 sends. A large audience for your video email or the repeated, automated use of your video email will provide a greater return on the effort. And most email marketing platforms are mass- or campaign-oriented, so you may not be able to easily send one to one anyway.
Method 2: The Mobile Method
Record, Then Share or Send
This method is free because you record with a device you already own and carry with you nearly everywhere you go, then share or send from that device.
This method starts in a very straightforward manner. Open the camera on your smartphone or tablet, then record a video or select one from your camera roll. Once you've got a video selected, tap the “Share” or “Email” function to send it by email. Your specific step-by-step may vary based on your phone's make, model, and operating system; if you've shared or sent a photo, your process is similar for video. Type in a little text to go with your video, then send it. Be sure to refer to the fact that there's a video to play, because it'll likely go as an attachment rather than an inline image.
As an advanced move, you can record in another app or record on your camera roll and edit in another app. Apps can be used to add a transcription, to add graphics or music, to cut in photos or other video clips, to put a fun filter on your face, or a variety of other adds and edits. Just search the App Store or Google Play for a couple of keywords around what you're trying to do (for example: “add text to my video,” “video editing app,” or “fun video filters”). Save this video to your camera roll, then “Share” or “Email.”
Is this convenient? Relatively, yes. It requires far fewer steps than The Screenshot Method. But its benefits are limited to you, the sender, not to your recipient. And you don't get any open, play, or click tracking. Other pitfalls include:
Upon receipt, there's no smiling face in the email (and you can't control the thumbnail image even if there was).
Your email client has to be able to send a large attachment; our phones' cameras record very large video files these days.
Your recipient's email client has to be able to receive an attachment that large.
If your recipient gets the attachment, he or she has to download it in full to watch any of your video (who wants another large file saved to their laptops or phones?).
Because you don't get tracking on this send, you can't be sure it was received.
This one's subjective, but fair: the attachment looks and feels more suspicious and less trustworthy than a proper video thumbnail image.
With mobile cameras getting better and better in quality, the size of video files goes up and up. Videos are dramatically larger than text files, photos, and audio files. A 15- to 30-second video can be dozens if not hundreds of megabytes in size. These video files require significant upload time for you and download time for your recipient—if it can even be sent at all. Outlook's file size limit for attachments is 20MB. Gmail's is 25MB. And, again, there's no smiling face to greet the recipient to build trust and generate a play.
Mobile Method Recommendation
If you're going to use The Mobile Method, use it in high trust and high confidence situations. Getting someone to download your video to watch it requires a well-established relationship. You're asking a lot of your recipient. Getting the video through requires confidence on your part that you can send it out of your inbox and that your recipient can receive it. Because there's no tracking, you won't know if you're successful. Going device to device (iPhone to iPhone) or email client to email client (Gmail to Gmail) might help, but you've got no assurances and no feedback loop.
Method 3: The Pro Method
Record, Then Send
Many services, including BombBomb, have been designed and built to improve and align the Screenshot and Mobile Methods. Most of these services cost no more than a traditional email marketing platform and include many of the same features. Some lightweight and highly branded versions (their brand, not yours) are even free. A Pro Method approach to sending video email may even be built into a system you're already using.
With this method, you'll save time, improve recipient playback experience, keep your video adjacent to your call to action and contact information, and get tracking and analytics. The Pro Method keeps all your analytics under one roof—opens, clicks, plays, video heatmap, live notifications, Gmail tracking, Outlook tracking, mobile tracking, and any other data collection your system may provide. In contrast, email analytics and video analytics are in separate systems when you use a traditional email platform or CRM in The Screenshot Method.
This method eliminates or accelerates the steps required in The Screenshot Method by putting video recording, video hosting, video previewing (screenshot or GIF), and video sending all in one seamless workflow. Advantages include:
Fewer steps are required—recording, thumbnailing, and sending are tied together.
Video hosting is automatic and built in, not a separate tool or platform.
Landing page is automatic and built in, so your video plays with your branding, contact info, and call to action with no extra effort on your part (exception: most free services play your video in their branding).
Most services will give your video a default thumbnail image automatically, some (including BombBomb) allow you to customize the thumbnail image with a simple smile and snap of an image.
With BombBomb, an animated preview (or GIF) of your video is automatically generated and sent in place of a static thumbnail image.
The Pro Method may also come with its own Mobile Method. For example, we provide two mobile apps for iOS and Android—one app for recording and sending videos by email, text message, and social media and another app that serves as a mobile inbox for one or more email accounts that has video, canned responses, and tracking built right in. Many pitfalls of The Mobile Method are avoided with Pro mobile apps. Videos are recorded and sent in one motion, plus …
Your video's smart-streamed, rather than attached (no downloading required, just click and play).
Your video can have an animated preview or custom thumbnail image, so you greet recipients with your smiling face, not a faceless attachment.
Your video automatically sends in a design of your choosing.
Tracking and analytics are included in and may be uniform across the mobile app, web app, and Gmail and Outlook inboxes.
Different tools and platforms fulfill the full promise of The Pro Method differently. Some only go part way and leave you with a link to share, for example. Too many exist and they evolve too quickly to run through them all here, but a few words on how BombBomb operates in various environments will help you determine what you need or want in your video-sen
ding toolbox.
Google Chrome Extension
Many services operate partially or fully from a Google Chrome extension. With a click, you can open a video tool right there atop your internet browser. Typically, these extensions will provide a video recorder and quick access to the video's link, its HTML embed code, or both. The link can be dropped into a messaging app like Slack or LinkedIn Messaging. The HTML code can be used in some CRMs' email composers. From the top of your browser, you may also have access to a video library or the ability to make screen recordings.
Gmail and Outlook
BombBomb operates in Gmail through the Google Chrome extension and in Outlook as an Add In. Many other services offer one or the other. Video recording, video library access, and video sending are common features directly inside the inbox. Some go further with: tracking every email open and link click, even when there's no video; scheduling sends for any day or time in the future; selecting, saving, and reusing canned responses so you don't have to type the same email over and over or record the same video again and again; setting reminders on open opportunities; screen recording; and allowing your recipients to reply back to you with a webcam or smartphone recording. These are some of the benefits you might look for with service providers aligned with The Pro Method.
Web App Recording and Sending
Many services allow you to record and send videos from a web application to which you log in from a website. Heavier versions allow you to create emails as you would in an email marketing platform, then record a video straight into the email or insert a video into the email from a video library. Add text, graphics, buttons, and other elements to the email before sending. Lighter versions allow you to open up a recorder that drops your video into a template; add text, then send. In both cases, you can typically send to an individual, to a segmented list of people, or to everyone in your database. The ability to send designs that range from completely simple to fully designed and to send one-to-one, one-to-many, or one-to-all gives you flexibility to send videos for any occasion. Sends may be manual, triggered auto-responses, or automated sequences of emails and video emails.
Video Throughout Your Day
The Pro Method is fully realized when you have a recording and sending, access to your video library, access to canned responses and email designs, access to your lists and contacts, and tracking and analytics in a matching, unified experience across a web app, in your inbox, in a mobile app, a mobile inbox, and even integrated into your CRM or another platform. For example, a video recorder, your video library, and tracking and analytics can be used directly in a Salesforce lead or contact record. As you move from the office to an appointment, from your laptop to your smartphone, and from your inbox to your CRM, you have quick and seamless access to a consistent video toolset. This takes you beyond the one-off app, extension, or add-in to video unity and parity in the places you work every day. This is pro.
SCREEN RECORDING
Want to do an “in person” pitch, demo, or presentation, but you can't be there in person? Have a complicated web form or document that you need to walk a person through? Need to provide service or support inside a tool or platform where a customer is having trouble? Want to get someone's attention by showing his or her company website, personal LinkedIn profile, or a webinar or podcast appearance? These are just four instances in which a screen recording benefits you. Record a video of your screen as you walk and talk through slides, web pages, or anything else you have on your computer screen. But humanize it by including your face along with your screen.
The reason to include yourself with your screen should be clear by now. It's not just about the information on the screen, it's about connecting. It's about eye contact. It's about building trusting relationships at scale. If you're anxious or uncomfortable appearing on camera, know that in this situation, you're just a small image in the bigger picture. Also, we'll address that anxiety and discomfort in the next chapter (spoiler: you need push through).
Some Tips for Better Screen Recording Videos
Include your face, not just your screen.
Consider starting full screen on yourself with a customized whiteboard or note for a warmer introduction.
If you don't start with yourself full screen, make sure something in the slide, webpage, document, or on screen adds specificity, curiosity, or relevance for the viewer to encourage a click to play.
If you use more than one monitor, put the screen you're recording on your main monitor next to your camera so you can make more eye contact.
Maintain periodic eye contact with the camera, don't just stare at the screen!
When you make an important point, pause, look up, smile, and reiterate that point.
Organize all the material you want to share in advance so you can just click through the slides or scroll down the page or move from browser tab to browser tab.
Consider ending full screen on yourself for a stronger call to action with less visual distraction, unless that call to action is on the screen you're recording.
Like other styles of video, screen recordings can be used throughout the customer journey, from initial prospecting through purchase, onboarding, support, retention, and renewal. And look for opportunities in internal communication, project updates, and other situations characterized by complexity, detail, or nuance to take advantage of the additional visual support this format provides.
Some screen recording tools only capture your video, so you need to use The Screenshot or Pro Methods to host, send, and/or track your screen recording. Some Pro Method solutions have screen recording built right in. Some screen recorders don't include your face. Others allow you to have your face, your screen, or both at the same time and even to switch between them as you record. Find one that works for you and start screen recording!
SENDING VIDEOS BY TEXT MESSAGES
We were a half step away from SMS/texting while discussing The Mobile Method of video email, but the benefits of texting videos demand this breakout. Once you acquire the contact information and build the relationship, text messaging is a great way to reach prospects, clients, suppliers, strategic partners, team members, and others. Open rates, response rates, and response times are all improved compared to email. But it's also a more challenging environment.
Over the past few decades, standards have been set that allow you to successfully send one email into an incredible variety of email client, internet browser, operating system, and device combinations and produce a remarkably similar experience across them all. That animoji you sent from your new iPhone to a couple friends, one on an iPhone and one on an Android? Different experiences. Even plain, old-fashioned emojis don't display the same across devices and operating systems.
Videos sent by text message straight from your camera roll or sent as a link vary in the way they're received and displayed. For example, the direct texting of a video file from your camera roll can result in dramatic denigration of video quality to reduce its file size. Beyond that challenge of video compression, which crunches up its appearance and sound, your video may not display properly from device to device or operating system to operating system. Your odds of a clean send are best when your device and operating system match your recipient's. For example, when you text a video from your library through BombBomb's iMessage app to another iPhone, it plays directly in-line in your recipient's texting screen. Sending a link to your video, rather than sending the video file itself, is recommended.
Email laws and regulations like CAN-SPAM (US), CASL (Canada), and GDPR (EU) are well established and functionally accepted by sales and marketing professionals and by consumers. Do you have permission to mass text or even individually text your prospects? That depends on your interpretation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (US). Its success depends on your prospects' and customers' expectations. In any channel, you have to provide value to be welcomed back. This is especially true when you text. The need for timeliness, relevance, and anticipation of y
our text message is heightened by the intimacy of the channel. Texting is far more personal than your email inbox or social feeds.
If your phone number and your recipient's phone number don't have an established exchange, thumbnail images or animated previews of your email may not display. Your recipient will also have an easy opportunity to block your number, just as they have the ability to unsubscribe from your email list, so treat your ability to reach that mobile number as a privilege, not as a right. Some SMS and MMS marketing systems may assign you another phone number for texting service. Be sure to give clients your proper number to reach you going forward.
A Few More Recommendations on Texting Videos
Because of the variance in display and delivery, add some words to let people know you've sent a video and to provide a reason to play it.
Ask a question or make a clear call to action in your video to generate a reply; tracking text opens and text video plays isn't as common or consistent as it is with email.
When video-texting new people, focus on putting a face with the name or another concise message; respect the brevity expected in texting.
If you sign up for a video-texting service that assigns you a new number, be sure to establish a process to give people your real, personal number if you want future conversations to move there.
SENDING VIDEOS IN SOCIAL MESSAGES
Nearly every social network offers native video features; take advantage of them. You'll get far better results uploading a video directly into Facebook or LinkedIn than you will dropping a YouTube, Vimeo, BombBomb, or other hosted link into a post or status update. Native video gets better distribution and display. They want users to stay within their social network, not follow links that send users away. They also want the video analytics. Who's watching whose videos? For how long? How often? They collect and monetize those analytics, but more so when the video is hosted natively within their platform. Most of this activity, though, is related to marketing through video or for casual communication.