More Email Marketers Using Video

Small and medium-sized business (SMB) marketers are becoming increasingly convinced of the positive results of video email, social media and personalization, according to a new report from GetResponse.

Over 80 percent of respondents plan to use video emails in 2010 and over 90 percent of SMB marketers who use video emails report it delivers significant conversion rates.

More than half of respondents said video emails can increase click-through rates. One in three marketers believes video can improve brand image and increase customer loyalty. Over 20 percent of marketers believe that video emails can also reduce support and training costs. Only 4.7 percent of email marketers do no see any benefits from using video email.

"Today's marketers are mindful of the importance of delivering relevant content and one-to-one messaging based on preferences and behaviors," said Simon Grabowski, founder of

GetResponse

.

"It's all about putting the 'human element' back into marketing through the use of video and social media conversations."

Other highlights from the survey include:

 

•   Social media: A 113.2 percent increase in use of links to new messages on social media pages; a 109.1 percent increase in use of sign-up forms on Facebook, etc. fan pages; 88.8 percent will increase share options and 71.6 percent  more will place "follow us" links in email messages.
•   Personalization: 53.80 percent of SMB respondents said they intend to increase targeting and personalization in 2010; 52.40 percent will try to improve email title and subject line personalization.
•   Behavioral targeting: Nearly 75 percent of marketers claim that behavioral targeting can result in significant or moderate increases in email marketing effectiveness. Only 2.8 percent did not consider behavioral targeting an effective practice.

Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

The desire to integrate products is strong at Google; it’s not hard to imagine that the company would eventually like to offer one great, big search/video/email/advertising ball.  And today, it took a tiny step along that path by rolling together some analytics products.

A post on the AdSense for Feeds blog announced, “If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site.”

The post then continued, “Specifically, we will help you classify your links by tagging the Source as ‘feedburner,’ the Medium as the channel in which we sent out your feed such as ‘feed’ or ‘email,’ and the Content as the actual endpoint application in which the user viewed your feed content such as ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Yahoo! Mail.’”

More distribution endpoint labels are on the way, too.

Hopefully this update will help people earn a little extra money heading into the holidays.  At the least, it may simplify FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds users’ lives a little, which would also represent a nice treat this time of year.

Have You Read This?

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> FeedBurner/Google Alum Goes To Twitter

YouTube Readies Friend-Finder Feature

It looks like Conan O'Brien's imaginary YouTwitFace site is coming one step closer to reality.  Last night, YouTube announced that it's introducing a new "You may know these people" feature, which of course sounds quite similar to Facebook's "People you may know" offering. 

As stated on the YouTube Blog, the "You may know these people" box will appear on the homepage when you're logged in.  It then "shows you the YouTube channels of people who might be your acquaintances, and lets you easily connect and subscribe to them."

Next, the post explained, "How will we make the suggestions?  If you've logged in to YouTube and sent a video to a friend's email address, or if you have your YouTube account linked to a Gmail account, we will use this information to help identify your friends who already have YouTube channels."

This feature may make people a lot more fond of YouTube; trading music videos and comedy clips with pals promises to be fun.  But if, on the other hand, you'd rather not have all of your Gmail contacts (think coworkers, family members) know that you gawk at bikini-clad amateur guitarists, it's also possible to opt out.  Just sign into YouTube, head to the "Privacy" section under "My Account," and uncheck the "Let others find my channel on YouTube if they have my email address" box.

The "You may know these people" feature is supposed to launch "over the next few weeks," so you should have a bit of time to decide which approach to adopt.