Using Vimeo Videos With Marketing Emails

Using Vimeo Videos With Marketing Emails – 2023

Dr. Hale Pringle 2/4/2023 V. 1

Sending marketing emails with Vimeo videos embedded is very powerful. Along with great power usually comes great complexity. I certainly found that to be true in this case. This document started out as a set of notes to myself and then it expanded to a much more detailed document to share with some friends. Finally, I decided to share it with others who might be interested and am adding it as a blog post.

What are Vimeo Videos and Why Use Them?

Vimeo Video is a term I made up for this blog post. Vimeo Videos have been tweaked with additions to each video that do not require you to remake the video. You can add material to the beginning (Intro) and end (Outro) of the original video/ The resulting videos play seamlessly and look like the ideas had been created that way.

A note to those who might be new to this process, Vimeo.com is a web-based video storage company. Over the year they have expanded far beyond video storage. Everyone has heard of the video elephant, YouTube. Some of you know that we can host videos on our own WordPress-based websites. You might wonder why I create Video videos. I use Vimeo for a couple of reasons. First, their delivery is much faster than my WordPress website and they have the ability to scale if a particular video draws a lot of simultaneous viewers. Vimeo also has developed tools to add things to an existing video to increase the utility of the videos. YouTube can do a lot of the same, however, they insist on showing additional videos around or at the end of the video we want to be displayed. These videos are distracting to the user and if we are using email to sell something, this distraction is a deal breaker. Of course, all of this is subject to change, but for now, I’m happy to use Vimeo videos for my marketing work.

I will note that Video has a place where they talk about inserting Vimeo Videos directly into emails. Their example seems to assume everyone will be receiving the email using Gmail. As a marketer, I can’t make that assumption.

The Best of the Call to Action Vimeo Videos

Here is an example of the best end results;

Checklist – Just the Settings You Need to Modify

This Post goes into detail and shows where and how to make the changes and additions needed to create a marketing email with a Vimeo Video and its Call to Action. Here is a link to a copy of these steps stripped down to a checklist:

https://halepringle.com/checklist-for-creating-marketing-vimeo-videos/

Some Issues With Using Vimeo Videos

All that being said, Vimeo can be difficult to merge with an email for three reasons.

Vimeo has evolved over the years, The end result is that a lot of the answers Google and YouTube provide out-of-date information when we query our friends Google and YouTube for instructions. (The available plans and their prices are a beautiful case in point.)
Vimeo has two levels of Privacy that work with my Autoresponder (Aweber). Videos marked as Public and as Unlisted are the on;y videos Aweber can see. (I am using Gmail in this document as the email provider. As long as the email provider allows you to insert an image in your email and gives you the ability to go to another website when the user clicks a link, the technique I am showing should work.)
Vimeo has several levels (free, Pr, Pro Plus Business, and Custom) depending on how much you pay. Currently, you can have a free account or a pro version. a Pro Plus version and a Business version. Vimeo videos are shown differently based on the account type you use.

BTW: There is a Checklist document that covers this material at this link: Click for the Checklist

I’m going to start with a quick look at the pieces we will be working with and how those pieces fit together.

Files Needed To Create Marketing Vimeo Videos:

We start wi the basic video, then we add two Image files.

The video – The video is usually a file with an MP4 file type.
Intro Image – This is an image (like a PNG file or JPG file). Since research has shown that viewers usually don’t like videos to auto-play, They will have to click two different PLAY buttons, however, some will REALLY want to turn the sound off before the video starts and that option is only available after they are on the Vimeo site.
We give them the option to click the play control on the video or not. The video is usually a large, eye-catching image on the screen. this is a good place to put a short message for the viewer. The message and image should be designed to catch the viewer’s attention and give them a teaser of “What’s In It for Me?” (WIIFM). In my case, the video starts with a message on the screen that says: “Don’t Leave Money on the Table.” Taken out of context this message could refer to playing poker, negotiating contracts, closing real estate deals, and more. I wanted to narrow this down so the viewer knew what to expect and what the video is talking about before they started watching the video. I am specifically talking to Business Owners who lost revenue due to COVID-19. Almost all of my target market knows little about the government’s PPP program. A relatively small number know about another program they probably qualify for. Watching the short video is much less confusing if the viewer is thinking about that subject area when the video starts. Placing words on the image of the video is a good place to get the words seen and read.
Outro Image – at the end of the video we usually have a Call To Action (CTA). The video probably does not have the message you want at the end of the video. We get a PNG or JPG image of the last visible screen in the video and add words to it.

Vimeo Video Composition

Here is a visual representation of the video in blue and the Intro Image and the Outro Image in red.

There is one more file you need and it is almost always used with emails.

Email Image – Most email viewers will not play a video that is embedded into the email, so we use a little trick. We take a copy of the Intro Image, even if we didn’t make changes to the INTRO screen. We add a Fake Play Button on the image and insert it into the email we are writing. We link the Image of the video with a play button to your video on Vimeo. We want the transitions to be as smooth as possible. Using the same basic image in the email and at the start of the video, helps the viewer know they are in the right place and doesn’t jar them with a jump to a disconnected image.

Given this layout, we need three images in addition to the basic video.

I find that it helps the process to prepare these static images in advance of working on the video file on Vimeo.

The Project This Post is Baaed On: ERTC

Among other things, I am a Field Agent for a company called ERTC Express. ERTC stands for Employee Retention Tax Credit. ERTC is a program designed to help small and medium-sized businesses that were hurt by COVID-19. There are many companies that do not know that they are qualified to receive a substantial Tax Credit in the form of a check from the government. Field Agents help to identify these companies and connect them with ERTC Express.

ERTC Express has several short videos we can use in our advertising and emails. To do this you need to carry out a series of steps that are standard if you are trying to share a video that has a Call to Action at the end.

Steps That Prepare a Video for Inclusion in an Email (or a website).

Get the video on your computer. In this case, you download the videos, In other cases, you might create them.
Capture images of the beginning and end of the Video, and Edit them with a special message and a fake “Play Video” Button.
Upload the video. Entering a Title and a short description are part of this process.
This is where we set the Privacy to Unlisted and get links to our Vimeo Videos.
Modify several settings on Vimeo. This includes uploading the Image files at the appropriate Intro and Outro settings.
Set the End Screen. What happens when the video stops playing? For marketing, this step is critical.
Upload the Intro and Outro images
Test – look at desktop AND mobile.

Then there is an overview of what you can do with your Vimeo Videos

Finally, we will look at using Vimeo Videos in marketing emails.

There is another image with a fake “video play” button needed for most email systems when you want to include the Vimeo video in an email. Since I was creating these images anyway, I decided to go ahead and document the steps.

SIDEBAR: Files that accompany this Vimeo Videos article
Here are links to download a zip file that contains the PNG files mentioned here:

Don’t Leave Money on the Table
https://www.dropbox.com/s/684o4bqxi9ikuw3/Money%20on%20the%20Table.zip?dl=0
Got W-2 Employees
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4lyt29vjw6da150/Got%20W-2%20Employees.zip?dl=0

For those who are working with me, I have a zip file that contains two folders. One for each of the video files.

TIP: If you need to edit the PNG files to make space for an additional message, it is worth keeping a copy of the blanked-out file. That makes it easy to change the message without having to go through the process of blanking out unwanted design elements or text. I use Photoshop Elements. It keeps text in layers that I can hide with one click. That makes it easy to create several different PNG files from one Photoshop (PSD) file.

Most of the files start with one or two keywords so you can easily tell what the PNG is used for. There were more than enough files to be confusing, so I numbered the three PNG I used to modify the Vimeo video. 1) Intro, 2) Outro, and 3) the Intro plus a button for the email system.

1. A Text File (README.tx) with a link to this blog post and the Google doc that contain the Checklist.
2. The ERTC video file was renamed to match its message. For example one of the files is named “Don’t Leave Money on the Table.mp4. You need to be a ERTC Field Agent to download the file.
  The following files were created for each of the videos.
3. INTRO-A PNG file for the beginning of the video.. You can use it as a Thumbnail. image. You can also add text to it by editing it in Canva or another image editor.
4. INTRO2+MSG -A PNG file (the file name starts with INTRO2) for the beginning of the video..This one has my additional message added to it.
5. OUTRO -A PNG image of the last screen with all of the text removed. . I include the text I used here. You can do whatever works for you.
6. OUTRO2 +MSG A copy of the last screen with my message as an example.
7. BUTTON – A copy of the INTRO image with a fake video PLAY button.on it. Most email readers will not play videos in the actual email. The solution is to place an image with a PLAY button on it and link the image to the actual video in Vimeo. When the email recipient clicks on the image, they are redirected to the video.
8. BUTTON +MSG – A copy of the first image with a fake video PLAY button.on it. This version has my additional text on it.
9. A PNG file of the button in case you wanted to do something else with the looks-like-a-Video/play button image
10. There are photoshop files containing all of the images. You should not need them, but they are there if you want them.

End Sidebar

NOTE: The reason I like Vimeo for this type of project is that we can control the ending screen AND Vimeo does NOT show links to competitor videos in the margins while my video is playing or after my video ends.

Here is the text I used for What To Do Next to Get Your Check

PPP Wasn’t the Only Subsidy &
Many Companies Don’t Know!

I assume you have a Vimeo account or can create one. As I will show. it takes a Pro Plus Account to do a Call to Action with a link in the description field that shows below your Vimeo video;

STEP 1 – Get the Video – the core of our Vimeo Videos.

You need the video to take screenshots of the beginning and emd. You also want to upload it to your Vimeo account so you can make it into one of hour Vimeo Videos.

STEP 2 – Add Text to the PNG files for the Intro and Outro screens. Do the Intro plus Button too.

Getting these ready first makes the process go smoother.

Outro – Create the image that is on the screen when the video is finished. (If you have my images: The empty images you want to edit, start with the word OUTRO. When the video plays, there is a message at the end that says “Click on the link below”. Your text should include that message too unless you use Vimeo’s built-in Call to Action (CTA) Outro option.. The CTA option places a button over your Outro Image and asks the reader to click. I used that option in my video. If you are using Vimeo’s CTA you don’t need to edit this file.)
I like the Vimeo Call to Action option for an End Screen. *What happened at the end of the regular video.” Vimeo puts a button on top or the image you choose for the last image shown when the video ends.
Intro – Edit the Intro image that in on the screen before the video starts to play.(My image files have names for the first screen that start with INTRO. Originally I had this as an optional step; however as I looked at my emails it seemed far better to add some more teaser to the big bright image that just sits there before the reader clicks on it; I moved the text around on this image so that the message on the file could be read when the button was placed on top, we want the email recipient to be able to read the message.
Email Button -The fake play button images should be okay unless you edited the first screen. In that case you might want to make a copy with the fake play button on it. (My image names with a fake Video Play button already on them start with BUTTON.)
Be sure to rename the video to something relevant. The viewer will usually see the file name. (You can turn that off, but it tends to show up in several places.) The file name (minus the:.mp4″) is the default title for your video.
My videos were displayed at 1200 x 628 pixels. I resized the images I got for the Intro, Outro, and Email Button to that size. They don’t line up exactly with the video, but they are close enough.
Try and find a font for your additional messages that match any text already on the image. There are tools for this, but all we need is close, not perfect. (Get it DONE!)

STEP 3 -Upload the Video and Enter a Title and Description

The next step is to upload the mp4 video. Just click the NEW VIDEO button and follow the instructions. It is very simple.

#1 is the general Create a New Video Button
#2 – Pick Upload

That brings up the standard Drag and Drop or Browse screen.

Get the file from your computer

Enter the Title and the Description

You will be asked to enter a Title and a Description during this process. Put the link to the webpage you want the person who sees this video to go to on the first line of the Description. It is the only line that is visible initially.

Your changes will be updated automatically here (most other places require you to click a SAVE button).)

After the upload, check that the video was uploaded correctly.

#1 – Check the Video
#2 – Check the TItle Note: The Title defaults to your file name. For this screen, Vimeo has been nice to us and strips of the “.mp4.”
#3 – Enter the link for where you want your visitors to go (in my case it is the replicated ERTC website) in the Description field. This link is critical. The audio in the video and our text will ask the trader to “Click the Link Below”. You can also edit this field when we get to Advanced Settings.

Note Vimeo will turn the URL you enter into a clickable link when the video is viewed. There is no way to create a proper link where the URL can’t be seen

As I will show you in a minute, you really need a Vimeo Pro Plus account to make this work.

Big, Big, BIG NOTE: This is for marketers. Be sure your link has your affiliate number attached. Mine do, you just can’t see it. All this work would be for nothing if you don’t get credit.

This is what I used for the Description field:

https://HalePringle.com/ERTC

Click the link to Start a FREE Analysis, prepared by CPAs who specialize and only work on the “Employee Retention Tax Credit” (ERTC) program. A specialist will call you within a few minutes. All you need to do is fill out your contact information and an estimate of the number of W-2s you issued in 2020 and 2021.

*** End ***

STEP 4 – Change the video’s Privacy Setting and Get the Link to Your Vimeo Videos

While it may seem a little out of order, we have to change the Privacy setting BEFORE we get the link. The link changes when you change the Privac7 setting from Public to anything else.

Setting 1 -THE PRIVACY ICON – Setting the right Privacy for Vimeo Videos

Change the visibility to UNLISTED, Unlisted, and Public will play on Aweber Landing Pages and work with Gmail. The other options (like Private) are not visible to my Page Builder. The Page Builder would return “Page Not Found, Check yours.

Here is how the screen looks when you click the Privacy Icon (the lock).

#1 – The Privacy setting defaults to Public (BTW I wanted people searching Vimeo to be able to find my file, so I uploaded a second copy and left it as Public. I won’t try to integrate that copy.
#2 – Clicking this\ changed the setting at the top to Unlisted.
#3 – The area in the red box changes depending on which of the icons on the far right is clicked.
#4 – The lock icon opens up the PRIVACY options.

Note: This link changes after you mark the file as UNLISTED.

Get Vimeo links to your Vimeo Videos

Click the CHAIN icon to get the link to your video.

Check that you have it and store it somewhere.

My “Don’t leave money on the Table” link:

Note the two sets of numbers at the end of the URL separated by a slash. Videos marked as PUBLIC only have one set of numbers. Files that are public have links like this: “https://vimeo dot com/79433807”. When the files are marked as Unlisted, Private, or Hide From Vimeo, the link changes to look like this: “https://vimeo dot com/794338078/ca7922455c”. Note the TWO sets of numbers.

STEP 5 – Change the Rest of the Settings

Setting 2 – THE PLAYER ICON – Modifying What Vimeo Adds to Your Vimeo Videos

There are a number of things you can control here. The defaults usually work okay. You can control the upper left corner. There are three parts 1) your Name, your Picture, and the Title. You can turn each of them off or back on.

If you click on The Player Icon in the right-hand menu you will see this:

APPEARANCE is the sub-menu we need to look at.

After you click on Appearance (#2), you will see your video with three blue boxes in it. You can edit two of them with a Pro Plus account. The one on the upper left corner was all you could edit with a Pro account.

NOTE: I found that if the options don’t work, clicking the Ctrl+ or the Ctrl- (zoom and un-zoom) may get you to a place where they do work.

Setting 3 – (Optional) – Your Profile

There are three elements in the upper left corner of Vimeo Videos. You can turn them on and off. Click on the blude box around your profile picture to see the options.

Your Picture
The Video Title
Your name

I decided to turn them all off for this short video (partly because the Title line overlaid the special Message I had placed on the Outro.

Setting 4 – (Optional) – Change the Controls the Viewer Can Access on Your Vimeo Videos

If you click on the blue rectangle at the bottom of the screen (#1), you can turn the controls (like Volume or Full Screen)(#2) on or off (#3).

I turned off the Vimeo Logo and left the others. Be sure to leave the sound control. People get very annoyed if they can’t control the volume if they are watching where the sound would annoy others.

STEP 6 – Set the End Screen to Call to Action in Your Vimeo Videos

For a marketer, the whole point of this exercise is to move the potential customer on to the next step. That is why we pay special attention to the Call to Action that happens at the end of Vimeo Videos.

Setting 5 – Choose a Call to Action to Turn THis Video Into One of Your Vimeo Videos

Vimeo’s Default is to show some other videos when the current video ends. We don’t want that. It is a distraction when we want the viewer to focus on one thing – Yes or Yes to our Call To Action.

Turning Our Videos Into Vimeo Videos

We have the Outro image we prepared in Step 1 ready to display our Call To Action message at the end of the video. Now we insert that image into Vimeo.

The first option to get to where you can change the END SCREEN is in the PLAYER Menu. This is probably the best way since it takes you directly to the END SCREEN section.

#1 – The PLAYER Icon
#2 – The option that takes you to the section where you can change what happens at the end of the video. These options are a major part of why I call these Vimeo Videos. They are a video PLUS…

The other way is to Click the SETTINGS Icon (#1) (the gear) and then click the ADVANCED SETTINGS Button (#2) at the bottom of the screen.

#1 – Click on the SETTINGS ICON (the gear)
#2 – Click on the blue ADVANCED SETTINGS button.

Choosing either option will open a number of options on the left side of the screen.

#1 – The little arrow link at the top of the screen will take you back to the right side of the screen menu.
#2 – Interactions – It has a blue dot flashing to highlight it.
#3 – This is the END SCEEN Section. You can’t see it ln this image, but it defaults to (#4) More Videos
#4 – You must click the little pencil icon to change to a different End Screen Option.

Here are your Choices in this drop-down menu:

Call to Action
More Videos – not for marketing
Share Options – not for marketing
Custom Image
Loop – not for marketing
Thumbnail
Empty – not for marketing
Text – not for marketing well maybe 😊)

Why We Can’t Use a Free Account

The next section shows why you cannot use a free Vimeo Account. You can skip to the next box

Note: There may be a way around the issues I will mention. All I can do is show you what works for me.

The plans were very confusing to me so don’t be surprised. It originally said I had a PRO account and needed a Plus account, however, when you look at their plans there is no PLIS plan. I paid for a year and it still says I have a PRO account, but new options are available. I think my original PRO designation was left over from years ago.

You need a PRO Account or better.

Using Custom Image as a Call to Action with Free Accounts

A few years ago, we could choose Custom Image (Option 4 in the list) and put an Outro image with our Call to Action text on the Outro Image. The image would be shown in the video and the Title line and Description were rendered in a viewer’s browser as very readable text.

The thumbnail also worked. This would end the video using the same image that it started with (the optional Intro image).

Today with a Free Account that appears to work on a desktop, however, the link is dim.

The layout isn’t pretty and the link is fainter than I would like it to be, but it is useable.

Now let’s look at my phone.

Worse Than It Looks!

I had to scroll down to even see the faint link. When the screen appeared, our link was completely covered with Vimeo’s ad. The customer is not going to go searching for a link.

Considering how many people do almost all of their browsing on their phones these days, IMHO it would be a complete waste of time to use this video.

Since the free accounts don’t have access to other, more powerful, options, we have a real problem.

The Solution – Pay for a Vimeo Pro Account

Maybe this should bother me, but it doesn’t. If companies who offer free services don’t make some money somewhere, they will go out of business and we lose access to their services completely.

Once you have the Vimeo Pro account, several options open up. We covered one before where the Free account would not let you modify which video controls show up at the bottom of the video. There are two more options here; a Call to Action Button at the end of the video and an email integration that allows you to collect email addresses. Vimeo links with a number of major autoresponder companies but does not include Aweber in their list.

Collect Email Addresses

It looks like it takes a Business Account to access this feature!

Setting 6 – There are two viable options for what happens when the video ends.

Let me tell you right up front. I like option 6b – Vimeo’s internal Call to Action.

Setting 6a -CUSTOM IMAGE (AND THUMBNAIL) End Screen Option

Since the Custom Image and Thumbnail options work now, I’ll show you the Custom Image End Screen,

First, we will upload the image.

#1 – Click the pencil and choose Custom Image (#2)

Once we have chosen Custom Image, the system needs to know which image it should display. Clicking on Background Image (#3) adds the section where it asks you to find the image you want at the end of the video (#4). Clicking the Upload Image link opens a standard File Explorer upload screen. A thumbnail of the image you chose is added to any you might already have uploaded. Click on the one you want. There is a red x at the top right corner of each image so you can delete them if they didn’t work well for you.

#5 lets you enter a URL for the viewer to be directed to.

The final few steps are to optionally fill out some text that a blind person’s screen reader would read out loud to describe the process and finally press the ADD button.

NOTE: once you press the ADD button, the fields you just filled out will disappear and there will be a few more questions.

Click ADD Button and scroll down to a SAVE button in Vimeo until you see the SAVE button. You must press that button.

Here is what the Custom Field option looks like on my desktop:

Like the version we saw with the FREE account, this works, but Vimeo has deliverables that make our link very dim.

Here is how it looks on a smartphone:

Again, the link is dim, however, this is FAR better than the version where Vimeo put their link on top of ours.

Since we are required to have the Pro Vimeo plan, we might as well use their Call to Action End Screen option.

At the same time, I’ll reduce the font size of my message that starts with “PPP Wasn’t …” since it is slightly too large to fit.

This section uses Vimeo’s Internal Call to Action using a paid Vimeo account

Setting 6b – Vimeo’s “Call to Action” End Screen

I’ll start here at the point we chose “Custom Image” as the End Screen type before.

#1- We start by clicking on the pencil and then choosing Call to Action (#2)
#3 – a Title for the Call to Action overlay. This overlay will be placed in the middle of your Outro image.
#4 – A short description,

Next, we enter a few works for the customer to see, like ‘Click Here.” and a URL for a button and one for a Link.

The customer is going to see a button AND a link on the last screen. Think about reasons a customer might want to click on something and move forward. These only allow 20 characters so you need to work on it some. For example:

Button Text -“Talk to a Specialist”
Link Text: “Book a Call With Me.”

In my case, the button would send the customer to the ERTC Express website. They fill out a very simple form and start a conversation with the Specialists there.

The Link text would go to my Calendly link where they can pick a time when we can meet online.

of course, both links could go to the same place. Different words work with different people.

There are two pairs here. The button needs text that goes on the button and a URL that defines where the viewer’s browser will go when the button is clicked. Then you fill out the same pair of fields for a Link.

#1 – Be sure to set the Background Image toggle to ON.

The last is just like the Custom Image fields. You see a list of thumbnails for images you can tack on the end of the video. You can upload (#4) new ones, delete older ones and click on the one you want Vimeo to use. ($2)

Click the ADD button and you are done here, There is a SAVE button a little further in that you must click.

DESKTOP Version

A couple of things to note here/

It is off-center because of the title – I could shorten the title.
It is busy. Vimeo blurs and lowers the brightness of the original Outro image. but it is still busy.
My extra message about PPP is totally obscured, so don’t bother. The message is still a good idea for the Intro image.
The profile Image, the title, and my name are totally gone from the top left.
The LINK field we filled in gives another place to throw in 20 characters more of a teaser. It could also be used for a “Book a Call With Me” link to your Online calendar(like Callendly.)
There are three places to put links. The button, the LINK line right below the button, and the link I added to the top of the Description field.
The description field is hard to get to. Maybe replacing the link on the top line with a “Click here for More Info” and putting a link at the bottom of the description would work better.

Mobile Version of Vimeo’s Call to Action End Screen

This is FAR better than the first version where Vimeo’s Ad overwrote our link.
You can’t see it here, but on the live version there is a gray button at the bottom of the screen (right beside the Show More.) The button says: “Go to Website.”
The Show More does not work on the phone.
When you do get to the website version of this image, (where you can read the description), it is not dimmed out.

STEP 7 – (also Setting 7) Set the Screen That Shows Before our Vimeo Videos Start – the Intro

This is the INTRO image you created in Step 1.

You can use this for a lot of things, like showing your name or some other message

Go to Advanced Settings→General→Thumbnail. That is where you can upload an image.

Setting 8 -TURN COMMENTS OFF – Protect You Marketing with Vimeo Videos

Right Below the Thumbnail, I turn the Comments off.

One nasty comment can ruin a campaign.

Again, Be Sure to Click the SAVE Button

Setting 9 – REMOVE THE “.MP4” FROM THE TITLES OF OUR VIMEO VIDEOS

While we are in the GENERAL section, we can make one small change and check our Title and Description. These are the Title and the Description that is shown under the video. The Description should have a link in it.

STEP 8- Always Check That Your Vimeo Videos Work Correctly

You ALWAYS need to check that your edits work.

That is it. Your video is ready to go. with a Call to Action.

DONE! – SETTING UP ONE OF YOUR VIMEO VIDEOS IS DONE!!

Now comes the fun part!

USING YOUR VIMEO VIDEOS

Here are some ways you can use the video.

You can place a link on a web page.
You can embed the video on a WordPress page
You can embed the video on a Landing Page.
You can use the link in a Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn post.
You can put a short link to a video on a business card or a flier.
You can send viewers directly to the Vimeo Page/
You can use the BUTTON image and a link in an Email

Using Vimeo Videos in Marketing Emails.

AWEBER EXAMPLE

Email Step 1 – First we Think-

Decide what you are trying to do and Ask if the Video Helps

Email Step 2 Write the Email with special considerations around Vimeo Videos

Writing effective marketing emails is way beyond the scope of this already too-long post. There are a few things worth noting about using this Vimeo Video.

You need some teaser text before the video to encourage Leads to watch it. In this case, the video is only 30 seconds long. You can make a big deal out of that. No one wants to commit to an hour-long video about something they may or may not be interested in. 30 seconds is a MUCH easier sale.
Assume the Lead did not watch the video and cover the main points after the video. This is especially true for any links you had in the email. Duplicate them in your email.
Don’t be afraid to include one of your Vimeo Videos in several emails. People do not open many.
Place the video AFTER you have made most of your points. Since the Lead is sent to another site, they may not come back.

Email Step 3 – Insert the Vimeo Video into the email

We should not really insert Vimeo Videos into most emails. The email clients (the screens that users use to read their emails) just won’t play videos. To get around this, we insert the email button image. This is the image with a fake “Play Video” button on it. We created that image way back in the beginning. We insert images into the emails and link the images to our Vimeo Videos.

SPECIAL NOTE: This video is only 30 seconds long. You will overcome a major objection if you tell the reader that. Use that.

Aweber Example

I’m working on an email, so here we go.

After I’ve told the reader that the video is only 3o seconds long, it is time to drag the image icon into the body of the email. There is a video icon, but I strongly recommend that you not use it. The day is coming when viewers can see a video inside the email, but it isn’t here yet.

#1 – This is the IMAGE icon that we will drag into the email.
#2 – This is where we want to insert the image.
#3 – When we have the image icon in place there will be fields we need to fill out here.
#1 – You need to be at the end of a paragraph to drag the Image Element into your email.

The first time you use the image with the fake Play button on it, you will need to upload it into the gallery. From then on you can open the gallery and get it from there.

The Image Element you dragged into your email is shown as an empty image. Click on the Image Element = and several fields show up in the right hand column. Now we fill out those fields.

#2 – Upload the image with a fake play button into the gallery. If you have used it before, you can retrieve it from the gallery.

#3 – You could do some basic editing in Canva from here.

#4 – Enter the URL for the image 9n Vimeo, Note the video must have a privacy setting of Unlisted or Public or Aweber won’t recognize the file exists

#5 – Fill in the Alt Text. The handicapped users will appreciate you.

#6 – You can modify the shape and location of the image here.

This is what it looks like in the email.

WEBSITES AND OUR VIDEO

Websites are viewed with a browser, not an email client. Browsers handle videos very well, so we usually create links to a video player loaded with the video right on the site.

SUMMARY OF THIS POST ON USING VIMEO VIDEOS

It has taken a while and I have glossed over quite a few of the features buried in Vimeo. On the other hand, I have shown you a path through the maze that will let you turn short videos into marketing tools.

We covered the three static images that will help you create the marketing impact you want.

An Intro Image. This gets tacked onto the beginning of the video. It can be used to make use of the eye-catching, colored rectangle in the middle of a black-and-white email. The case study is presented here to make the viewer aware of the general area the video was addressing. After all, Leaving Money on the table could be referring to playing poker, or closing real estate deals.
An Outro Image– an image tacked onto the end of a video. There are lots of things you can do with this kind of screen. In my case, I was trying to encourage the viewer to take the action my Call to Action was moving them to.
An Email Button Image – a version of the INTRO Image with an image of a Play Video button on top of it. It looks like a video waiting for a reader to click on it to play the video’

Next, we went through uploading a video and going through the steps to create what I call a Video Video. The process involved adding an INTRO image at the front of the video and a Call to Action at the end of the video. The Call to Action used the OUTRO Image we created earlier.

As part of discussing what happened when the video ended, we looked at several ways you could create an effective Call to Action. My conclusion is that you need a Vimeo Pro account and to use Vimeo’s internal Call to Action system. Everything else seems to depend on links that are either very faint or totally obscured.

In the last major section, we covered some of the considerations to take into account when you use a Vimeo Video in your emails Part of that involved a walk through adding the EMAIL BUTON image into an email The fundamentals (size, shape, location, target URL, Alt Text and EMAIL BUTTON Image location) will be required by other email systems.

We also gave a lick and a promise about adding Vimeo Videos to Web pages.

We are 6,000 words into this topic. however, if you read through it, you should have a good basic understanding of how to create and use Vimeo Videos in your marketing emails.

Have a Great Day! Oh Hale Yes!

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