3 Ways You Can Use Video to Grow Your Email List Fast

Here’s the deal: video is huge right now, and it’s only going to get bigger.

But don’t just believe me on that, check out these facts:

• Snapchat (an app for making and consuming video) is only 5 years old and valued at $20B
• Facebook-owned Instagram recently copied Snapchat video features almost one-to-one
• Facebook VP Nicola Mendelsohn said that in 5 years, our Facebook feeds will be “all video”

Now here are a few email + video stats:

• The word “video” in subject line increases open rate by 19% (source)
• A video inside email increases click-through rate by 60% (source)
• Video can increases web conversion rates by 100% (lots of examples here)

You might be wondering ….

Why is video so effective for businesses?

Well, there are a few reasons. As Alex Khambir, the founder of a kick-ass video production company writes on his blog, video is so powerful because it leverages the oldest medium known to humanity — a story to build powerful emotional connection in seconds.

Video provides the most rewards to the viewer (effectively explains ideas, entertains and engages) and requires minimum cognitive effort (apparently our brains process video 60,000 times faster than text).

It’s only natural that you should take this powerful (and popular) medium and use it to engage your target audience and convert them into email subscribers.

I also provide 3 free list building boosts at the end of this post, so be sure to check them out.

How to use video to grow your email list

Here are two very effective approaches for converting your blog readers and website visitors into email subscribers.

1. Collect emails directly in video

You can include video directly on your website (either in a blog post or on a homepage) and collect emails with Wistia’s turnstile.

Wistia is a cool video-hosting website (an alternative to YouTube and Vimeo). One of its features that you as a marketer will love is the turnstile. Watch the video below to see it in action (it’s only 20 seconds long):

Turnstile Example / 100 Subs in 2 Hrs

Normally, you add turnstile as a gate viewers need to pass to continue watching the video. With a few hacks and integrations on the backend, I used it a bit differently. (I share email marketing experiments and their results with my email subscribers. If you want an in, subscribe using the turnstile in the video above.)

Wistia’s got data on where in the video your turnstile is likely to get the most conversions:

Here’s something else to consider: do you want to make that email signup optional or required? Here’s Wistia’s data on that:

Once you start implementing this strategy, you’ll realize there are many things to test and consider. It gets more exciting the more you think about details such as:

• What is the copy in your Turnstile? Can it be stronger?
• What are you offering in return for your viewer’s email? How valuable is it? How soon will your viewers receive it?
• What’s happening in your video directly before the Turnstile? It’s especially important to give your viewers a reason to continue watching if you’re planning on using a required Turnstile.

2. Offer video as a lead magnet or content upgrade

The second approach to growing your email list with video is offering video-based lead magnets or content upgrades.

The lead magnet video can be a recording of your webinar, a short video tutorial, or a Q&A with you on a particular topic.

For example:

Allison Marshall of Wonderlass offers a recording of her webinar as a lead magnet on her homepage:

And here’s how I offer a video tutorial as a content upgrade in one of my posts:

Video tutorials are perfect content upgrades for posts that include step-by-step instructions. Nothing is more satisfying than seeing instructions applied in action after reading the theory.

To deliver such video optin bribes, link your button/text/image to the optin form, and once a person signs up, email them the link to the private video. I use LeadPages to make this lead magnet delivery process effortless.

If you use video as the lead magnet on your homepage, make sure it answers the #1 question for people in your niche. If you’re using video as a content upgrade, make sure it’s highly relevant to the content of your post. Then grab some popcorn and watch the optins roll in (or, grab your scientist goggles and test, iterate, repeat).

3. Optimize your YouTube channel for email signups

If you have videos on YouTube, you should turn them into email collectors. YouTube provides two tools for that:

• Cards
• Annotations

Before you can link to your site in cards or annotations, you’ll need to associate your site with your YouTube account. Google will offer you a few different ways to verify that you’re indeed the owner of your website, and in 10-15 minutes, you should be done and ready to add links to your videos.

Be clear on what your ultimate goal with videos is. Do you want YouTube subscribers more than you want email subscribers? Then use annotations to encourage people to subscribe to your channel instead of your email list.

Are email signups more important to you? I’m in your camp. Then use every opportunity to link to a place where it would be the easiest for people to sign up.

The best way is to create a custom page on your site, such as http://ift.tt/2fkqBUO, and link to that page vs. your homepage.

Make this landing page super simple. In most cases, it will convert best if it doesn’t have a scroll option and there is only one thing you can do on the page — subscribe. It should also have a strong and clear incentive. For example, don’t just say “subscribe to my newsletter.” I’m seriously the only person who still finds newsletters hot. Tell people what they’ll get if they sign up for your list. Showcase benefits.

If you already have a lot of videos on YouTube and dread the thought of going through all of them to add captions, use Tube Buddy to bulk update your video annotations and links.

Another cool tool for YouTube is VidIQ, which provides video analytics that help break down all the attributes that make each video rank where it is in YouTube.

Don’t have any YouTube videos but would like to have some? Here are a few ideas for YouTube content you can start putting out right now:

• In-depth tutorials
• Interviews with experts in your niche
• Recordings of offline events you host in your community (like this one)
• Video reports on challenges or experiments you’re running (i.e. “How I went gluten free for 30 days”, 60-day running challenge, 30-day retention drip content, etc)

Remember, people like video because it builds trust by actually showing your face and your personality, so be authentic and add value. When you invite people to join your list, they’ll be happy to!

Want to grow your list even faster?

Here’s a special bonus package I prepared for you:

1. A private recording of my webinar: how to create and deliver content upgrades that convert in 2016. None of my webinars are publicly available after I host them, but below is an exclusive link.
2. Video tutorial on how to create a video-based content upgrade (tools to use plus my exact process, start to finish).
3. A list of 15 lead magnet ideas to help you grow your email list faster.

To get access to the bonuses, sign up here (it’s completely free).

Guest Author: Kasey Luck runs Bold & Zesty, a free newsletter & blog about email marketing. Previously she did marketing at the most active venture fund in the world, 500 Startups, where she grew email list by 25,000 subscribers in one year. Say hi to Kasey here.

The post 3 Ways You Can Use Video to Grow Your Email List Fast appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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