From the course: Time Management Tips

When and how to use video in email

From the course: Time Management Tips

Start my 1-month free trial

When and how to use video in email

- Many of my clients have found that using video and email is a much more productive way of communicating with their team and sometimes with customers. By using a video in an email, I mean inserting a link within the email that connects to a video that you recorded personally for someone, or using an extension that embeds a video directly into the email. This allows you to communicate much more information to someone than you normally would and also allows you to convey more emotion. Because of these things, a video email is most useful in two situations, although you could probably think of more. The first situation is where you need to train someone on a detailed process. Number two is where you're trying to persuade someone or convey information that is perhaps emotionally charged, and you don't want your meaning to get lost in the faceless text of normal email. There are a variety of tools that you can use to do this. A simple search for video email will show you a lot of options. I'll refer to two of my favorites that I'm currently using. Number one is Snagit. Snagit is a small app for your computer that's particularly effective for recording screenshot training. For example, I use it when I need to explain to one of my team members how to input a contact into our CRM database. Rather than typing out all of the steps, I can select a portion of my screen, hit record, show them how to do it while I'm talking into the microphone, and end the recording. Then I generate a link that contains the video and paste it into the email. The second tool that I like to use is BombBomb. This allows me to quickly and easily record more of a webcam-style video where someone's looking at my face and I'm talking to them. I used this recently to invite many of my closest friends and clients to a birthday event. I found that the response rate was much higher than if I just sent a plain email saying, "Please come to my birthday." If you choose to use video in your email, keep this rule in mind. It's the same rule that applies to normal email: the shorter, the better. People will only have an attention span of a couple of minutes, maybe one or two more, when it comes to video email. Don't be afraid to practice a few times until you get the message right and get it concise. Then you can add video email to your arsenal of effective and productive communication.

Contents