Yes, emailing is a must-have to promote your videos. With the worldwide rise of mobile devices, it has even become one of the most powerful tools of communication, and here is why.

5 reasons to use emailing for your VOD offer or videos:

# 1 Because it costs (almost) nothing

Sending an email is free. If you need to send thousands or millions of them every month, you’d probably need to use some specialized SAAS services that process bulk mailing via secure servers. But compared to advertising, it’s nothing.

# 2 Because it’s immediate

Everyone can check his/her emails everywhere. With mobile, everyone has access to his/her emails all the time and everywhere. It is just part of our everyday life.

# 3 Because we have the full attention of our recipient

Your recipient is not distracted like on social networks by ads, other articles, comments etc …

# 4 Because it’s universal

Almost everyone has at least one email address. And a connection to access it.

# 5 Because it is particularly suitable in direct communication with your fans

If you are the creator of your video content, imagine how impactful it is for people who follow and love your work to receive an email directly from you. The direct link is what makes the success of new web artists, especially youtubers. Be close to those who support you. Results are often incredible.
Social networks are perfect tools to interact with your fans, because they are “social” by nature, but an email has this unique, intimate and confidential conversational dimension. This sensation of being in a one-to-one relationship changes everything.

Powerful, right?

 

When using emailing for your video or VOD offer?

That being said, do not send emailing for a yes or a no. Here are some examples of how to use emailing in the right way:

  • Communicating on your upcoming projects: upcoming movies, videos in preparation, upcoming VOD offer
  • Send exclusive content
  • Give information to explain your project and your direct-to-consumer approach
  • Ask questions to get feedback on your content, ask for a review
  • Announce the launch of your online offer: e-cinema, release of a web-series, launch date of your SVOD service
  • Send a specific discount code for your fans, a free trial period
  • Retain or engage if you have an SVOD service: the retention of your users is crucial (we will see that in a future post)
  • Also, this can be incredibly powerful if you use it to solicit your fans: need an help, testimony, material, or even a relay for your crowdfunding campaigns

Really: use emailing. You will be surprised at the beneficial effects you can get from it.

 

Best practices for sending emails to your audience

– Be simple: keep a single goal per emailing campaign. The rule : 1 email = 1 message.
Example: If you want your recipients to share and speak about your VOD offer, ask them right away and make it the subject of your message. Want feedback on your videos? Do a specific email with a poll included.
Be concise and clear in order to not discourage your recipients!

– have a light graphic design, not too overloaded, and which reads easily on mobile (responsive)

– add a video in the email, this increases drastically engagement of your users

– be close and human, nobody will ever blame you for that

– send an email only to those who have authorized you to do so (opt in). In the last part of this article we will give you some tips to grow your own email lists

– like all good things: you have to use it with caution, otherwise your users might decide to place you unwisely in spam…

Of course at OKAST, we cover you : we propose you a tool to publish news and send them by email to your subscriber base, which allow you to respect these good practices.
The service is simple, the emails read easily on mobiles. And you will not have to pay for an external emailing service. Some food for thought !

Last question: yes but how to get email addresses from your audience?

No email addresses, no emailing! Without going into too much details now, just be sure to complete the following steps, which help you grow your email base:
1- Get an online page ready with a field to capture your visitors emails. Services like Sumome can do the job. Otherwise with OKAST you can use field in the footer of your site

 

2- Prepare something to offer in exchange for their email address. Nothing is free in this World, you must have something valuable to give in exchange. It could be a free video, a discount coupon, the possibility to join a community, the right to have exclusive access to a video offer etc …

 

3- And once you have completed these 2 steps, you need to have a strategy to drive audience to the page where you collect your email addresses. Social networks are perfect for that (try to highlight contents that has viral potential on FB or Twitter, via Youtube or Pinterest ). Get also help from influencers. If you need more inspirations, you can also subscribe to this blog (yes we offer you value in exchange of your email, you get our point, right?).

Now that all is said. We hope to receive an email from you very quickly 🙂

Love,

The OKAST Team.