Imagine it’s the 1980s, and you’re a record store owner trying to promote your new collection of vinyl records. You could post hundreds of flyers, hoping someone stops to read them, or you could host a listening party, letting the music speak for itself. The party wins every time because it’s engaging, memorable, and personal.
Fast forward to today—emails are the flyers, and videos are the listening party.
Your target audience most likely grapples with crowded inboxes, where every email competes for their attention. By adding a video, you can turn a standard message format they’re tired of seeing into a memorable experience. It’s the difference between saying, “We care about you,” and showing it.
Discover how to create engaging videos for email marketing and embed your video file in email, along with email video marketing ideas and best practices.
How to create a video for email marketing
Creating videos for email might sound complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Screen recorders and video marketing tools like Loom make recording and embedding videos in email a straightforward process.
You just press a few buttons to create your video within minutes. Then, you can focus solely on adding a personal touch to your explainers, tutorials, and welcome videos rather than worrying over mechanics.
Here’s a step-by-step overview of how you can use Loom’s free screen recorder to craft video emails that stand out and drive results.
Step 1: Define your message
Think back to the “Share a Coke” campaign by Coca-Cola. Replacing their iconic logo with popular names helped them appeal to their young audience more personally and establish Coca-Cola as a fun, hip, and inclusive brand.
In email marketing, defining your message will help you create a video that resonates with your audience personally, making them feel like it was made just for them rather than just another generic sales video.
Answer three critical questions to define your audience and create a message that speaks to them:
- Who is your target audience? Consider whether you’re speaking to:
- Existing customers who need updates or new features
- New leads who are exploring your brand for the first time
- Niche segments with specific pain points
- What problem are you solving? Your video should answer the question: “Why should the audience care?” by highlighting a pain point and offering a solution. For example, if your audience struggles with task and team management, your video should demonstrate how your tool can help them keep their entire team on the same page.
- How will the video fit into your email? Will it be introductory, explanatory, or testimonial? If you’re launching a new product, your video could quickly show the product in action and explain how it solves a key problem.
- What’s your call to action (CTA)? Every video needs a purpose. Define the action you want viewers to take after watching. For example:
- Sign up for a webinar.
- Download a guide.
- Purchase a product.
Pro tip: Create ideal customer personas for your audience. Imagine speaking directly to “Marketing Manager Mia” or “Entrepreneur Eric” to make your tone relatable.
Step 2: Perfect your setup
Just like you wouldn’t send an email with typos or poor formatting, you shouldn’t send a video with distracting technical issues. The right setup can make your video feel polished and engaging.
Focus on three key areas to create a professional video:
- Lighting: Use natural or ring lighting to ensure your face is well-lit. Avoid harsh overhead lighting.
- Background: Keep it simple and clean with a neutral wall or a minimalistic setting to prevent distractions.
- Script: Start by identifying the one thing you want your audience to remember after watching. Once you nail that, break it down into two or three main points supporting your message.
Pro tip: When outlining your script, think about how you’d explain the same concept to a friend. If you’re promoting a new product, focus on how it solves a problem instead of listing out jargonish technical specs. Maybe something like, “This app saves you two hours daily by automating the tasks you do every morning.”
Step 3: Set up Loom
You’ve crafted the perfect video script for your email marketing campaign, but you’re stuck when it’s time to record. Your software isn’t loading, the tools are clunky, and you don’t know where to start.
Setting up your video recording tools shouldn’t feel like rocket science. Creating a Loom video and then sending that video through email is as simple as clicking a button, hitting record, and pasting the video link to the draft—no technical hassles.
Here’s how to get started:
- Sign up. Head to the Loom website and create an account using your Google account login, or sign up with an email.
- Install the Loom app. You can use Loom directly on your browser or download the Mac, Windows, or Chrome extension app.
- Choose the right recording style. Loom offers three options:
- Screen + Camera recording: Great for tutorials or walkthroughs where a personal touch—your face—adds credibility
- Screen-only recording: Ideal for showcasing presentations, designs, or demos
- Camera-only recording: Perfect for personal introductions or storytelling
Step 4: Record your video
Once you finish your setup, hit the Start Recording button in Loom. Loom will prompt you to choose whether to record your screen, camera, or both, so pick the right option based on your video’s message and goal.
Now, the most important part is your delivery. Deliver your message as if speaking directly to a friend or colleague. Your audience will feel the distance if you sound too formal or stiff. Instead, speak clearly, smile, and try to maintain a natural pace as if it’s a friendly chat rather than a scripted monologue.
Pro tip: Use Loom’s toolbar to pause, annotate, or emphasize key points during your recording. This is especially useful if you need to clarify something or draw your audience’s attention to a specific detail.
- Pause: If you need a moment to collect your thoughts or reframe your sentence, pause and resume without worrying about interruptions.
- Annotations: Give context to your audience or draw attention to something on your screen by highlighting or circling it.
- Live Rewind: If you’ve made a mistake or need to go back a few seconds, just rewind in real time and pick up right where you left off without redoing the entire video.
Step 5: Embed video in email
Embedding videos in emails is easier than ever, especially with a video marketing platform like Loom. Here’s a quick process to help you integrate videos into your email campaigns:
- Enable Loom for Gmail integration. Head to your Loom account settings and make sure the Gmail integration is toggled on. Install the Loom Chrome Extension to activate Gmail link expansion.
- Compose your email. Open Gmail and start drafting your email as usual.
- Paste your Loom link. Simply paste your Loom video URL into the email body. The link will automatically expand into an embedded thumbnail, giving recipients a sneak peek of your video.
Email video marketing ideas
Every email video serves a different purpose. Here are a few email marketing ideas you can use for various scenarios and use cases.
Welcome videos
Picture a scenario where a new customer who has just signed up for your service opens their inbox. Rather than receiving the same old blocks of text, they are greeted with a friendly video message.
In the video, a smiling sales team member thanks them for joining, introduces the brand, and walks them through what to expect next. It appears more personal and warm, and makes a lasting impression on your customer.
You can start your Loom recording by saying, “Hi [Name], welcome to [Brand]! We’re thrilled to have you on board. Here’s how to get started…” This small gesture makes your customers feel like they’re being welcomed by a friend rather than receiving just another automated email.
Tutorials, how-tos, and product demonstrations
Maybe a customer is exploring your product but is unsure how it works. Instead of reading through paragraphs of text, they click the “Play” button on a video in your email. Instantly, they see your product solving their exact problem, step by step.
Creating tutorials and product demonstration videos solves a tangible problem for your customers. You’re not a faceless logo anymore—you’re a real person guiding them through their first steps with your brand.
Customer testimonials and success stories
Video testimonials are the next best thing to word-of-mouth recommendations. You can collaborate with customers, encourage them to share their experiences with your brand, and create authentic, relatable videos.
When potential and new customers see real people sharing their positive experiences with your brand, it builds trust and adds authenticity. It’s like sitting across from a friend who says, “This worked for me, and it can work for you, too.”
Event invitations and recaps
Your audience gets dozens of event invites every week. But imagine opening a dynamic email invite and feeling the event’s buzz before it even starts, one that shows smiling faces, exciting details, and a sneak peek of the excitement to come.
After the event, keep the momentum alive with recap videos showing highlights, key takeaways, or a thank-you message for attendees.
Video in email best practices
Video emails are more interactive than plain text, and they’re better for your conversions and click-through rates. That said, not all videos will have the same impact on your audience—unless your video content aligns with your audience’s pain points, are of high quality, and are accessible by everyone in every scenario.
To make your video email marketing strategy actually work, follow these best practices:
- Keep it short and focused. Lengthy videos—typically those over five minutes—see a steady decline in engagement rates. When you scroll through your inbox and click on a video email, you’d most likely prefer to watch a quick explanation than a 10-minute version.
- Add captions or subtitles for better accessibility. Not everyone opens emails in environments where they can play videos with sound. Adding subtitles ensures your message gets through, even when muted. With Loom, you can auto-generate transcriptions and captions, making your videos more accessible and allowing recipients to skip to a specific part of the video.
- Optimize for mobile devices. About 46% of emails are opened on mobile devices. Ensure your email videos load quickly, display beautifully, and play smoothly on mobile devices.
- Include a clear call to action (CTA). To ensure your revenue team unlocks the ROI, guide your audience on what to do after they’ve watched the video. Do you want them to shop from your store, visit your landing page, or watch a demo? Whatever your goal is, your CTA should align with the purpose of the video.
- Test before you send. Not every email provider supports embedded videos, which could lead to playback issues for your audience. Testing ensures your video works smoothly across devices and platforms. Follow this testing checklist:
- Use video fallbacks, like animated GIFs or static images, for email clients that don’t support videos.
- Test your email’s deliverability on popular email marketing platforms (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail).
- Check load times on both desktop and mobile.
- Test your email subject lines and email content.
Remember to polish and edit your video prospecting messaging before you send it through. If you’re using Loom to record your email video, you don’t really have to do much—Loom’s AI editing features automatically remove filler words and awkward pauses.
Make your email marketing stand out with video
Think back to the last time you watched a captivating trailer for a movie—the one that made you drop everything and hit “Buy tickets.” Visually appealing videos are more capable of invoking this feeling of excitement and curiosity than mere textual explanations. The combination of audio and visuals naturally appears more authentic, unforgettable, and easier to consume.
Your emails aren’t that different from movie trailers. One way to leave a lasting impression is by leveraging a more dynamic form of content, including videos in email. Whether you want to introduce yourself to a new client or walk them through a key feature, videos are more likely to endear you to your audience than regular emails.
With Loom, you can easily record, edit, and share videos that captivate your audience and help you achieve your goals. Why stick to plain text when you can offer an experience? Make email marketing more interesting with Loom.
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