Guest post by Selena Narayanasamy

The hybrid of watching videos and reading emails, arguably the two biggest ways to spend time on the Internet, seems like a match made in heaven. After all, what’s not to love about combining these two powerful means of communication? And video email is on the rise. What was once a tech-lover fantasy may now be a blossoming reality for the masses. This is thanks to both creative applications of old technologies and some emerging technologies.

Click-on-This: The Classic Approach

YouTube became popular because countless people sent emails to all their friends with links to funny videos. These simple links take people to a video site where the content is played. Revolutionary, right?

How to Use Video Links

There are several great tips you can use when following the traditional method of sharing videos.

1) Link using a picture. Instead of linking text, link an image that’s relevant to the video in question. This is shown to significantly improve click-through.

2) Use a call to action. Rather than simply providing a link, use phrasing such as “click here to see our product in action.” Do this even if you’re linking with an image.

3) Explain the relevance and value. Prior to dropping the link, let people know why it’s worthwhile to watch.

Animated Gifs: They’re Not Just for Forum Signatures Anymore

It’s nearly impossible to imagine that these disreputable animations would have anything to offer a new web trend–proof that reality sometimes exceeds our imagination. Big names in marketing like Chad White, Anna Yeaman, and Justin Foster all contributed to the recognition of what has been named “animated image video.”

While these moving images are lacking in sound, animated gifs, nonetheless, make for an excellent presentation. The technology for making high quality images with this medium has progressed with time, and the end result is a great marketing tool.

How to Use Animated Image Videos

There are many types of software that can allow you to create animated gifs, and some of them are even free to use. The more professional software types (such as the Adobe Creative Suite) are also pricey, but do come with a free trial. Once created, these images can be embedded into emails and sent out. The only real downfall is that some email hosting groups block images, which includes your mini-video.

Embedding: Why Videos Will Take Over Emailing

The new horizon of video emailing is embedding videos directly into the message itself. Big breakthroughs from third-party companies, who are now pitching their video mail products to the email hosting industry leaders, seem imminent. In the meantime, Google has released a quick solution for watching videos directly from your inbox.

How to Use Video Embedding

To use Gmail’s option, simply sending a linked video based in YouTube is sufficient. Once available as a labs feature, Gmail now allows all users to play videos while reading the message itself.

Video emailing has seemed inevitable for a long time. While there are certainly still kinks to work out in current video mail systems, solutions and new functionality are just around the bend.

About the author

Selena Narayanasamy loves everything having to do with technology, social media, internet marketing and blogging. You can find her quirky ramblings on Twitter, or her personal site Esvienne.

Sometimes work is purely fun and I feel bad getting paid for it. Like being there when this fun ad was created for one of the Mirror Communications clients, CoSoSys, vendor of leading endpoint security and data loss prevention solutions.

The ad is meant to emphasize how a company can simply not worry about thieves coming in and trying to steal their sensitive data. More on data loss and theft, how to prevent it and how serious it can be here.

Hope you enjoy the ad! Oh, and I challenge you to find me in the ad

What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Welcome to the 14th editon of WOBM’s reading roundup! Hope you enjoy it and find something useful to help 2009 will be the year of increased interaction between brands and their targets. This is what Shannon Nelson of Pierce Mattie Public Relations believes will happen in next year’s business world.

Marketing and Sales, two deparments for which lots of virtual ink has flown, especially when it comes to them collaborating more effectively. Kyle Flaherty of EngageInPR has published an interesting article on what marketing should learn from sales.

There’s been quite a lot said on bad blogger pitches and they still happen. Here’s a nice list of the biggest 5 mistakes ever made when approaching a blogger, from the other side of the email – PR Meets Marketing. I’m guilty for more than half, not necessarily with bloggers.

Chris Brogan, just like yours truly, is not a big fan of Facebook. Yet he wrote an amazing guide on how not to be a jerk over there.

Our education is something we need to keep improving. Here are 5 free ways to do just that spotted by Women on Business.

What do do if your clients don’t read blogs? And a lot of people don’t or don’t know what they’re reading is a blog. Telling them won’t help, as they might get irritated. So here are five ways to approach those who are not blog lovers from Michael Martine of Remarkablogger.

If you’re wondering which are the do’s and don’ts of video, Benjamin Wayne has published a extremely insightful guest post on this topic on Drew’s Marketing Minute.

And to end this week’s edition in a cheerful way, here’s a funny and easy html guide for copywriters from Conversational Marketing.

Did I miss something really important? Please share it in the comment box!