We decided to do our own testing with a list of 50,000 names. We sent the exact same email to both groups, but tested these two subject lines:

1. “President Bush jokes about paying more taxes”
2. “Video: President Bush jokes about paying more taxes”

• The subject line with the word “video” had a 35% higher open rate.
• Not only did more people open the email with the “video” subject line, more of them clicked through to the video itself: 32% v. 27%. We have seen this phenomenon over and over - a good subject line increases open rate, but can also increase click-throughs and conversion.

In another test, we used a visual representation of the video in the email body against a version with just copy links.

• 28% of those who opened an email with a visual representation of the video clicked through to the video itself, compared to only 23% of those who opened the same email with only text links to the video.

Tips to take advantage of this phenomenon:

1. Get video of your programs in action. Don’t worry about creating a staged, professional, expensive video. A hand-held digital camera video of your animal shelter, feed-the-hungry program, or advocacy event by a volunteer, posted to your website this week, beats a slick, professionally shot video that isn’t produced because it’s not in this year’s budget.
2. Post them to YouTube in your nonprofit account there.
3. Embed them in your web site (YouTube gives you the code, and there’s even a simple Joomla patch that embeds YouTube videos like an HTML command).
4. Wrap the video in your web page with supporting content and a call to action, preferably right on that page.
5. Feature the video in an email to your supporters.
6. In the email, include a still shot of the video (or the video itself).

Need help improving the results of your email campaign, or even measuring them meaningfully? It’s part of what we do. Call or email to discuss a project.

February 2008