If you've been looking for a way to spice up that boring email newsletter, why not try video?  I know what you're thinking:  videos are too big to email without irritating your customers.  Well according to an Internet Retailer story, the technology to compress and send videos by email in a non-irritating size already exists… and is helping several companies increase the click-through on their email marketing campaigns.

The patent-pending technology, created by EmailFilm Technologies, has helped Outsell LLC increase click-through on email newsletter it sends out for automobile dealerships.  In fact, the company says the EmailFilm videos are the second-most clicked parts of their emails.

Traditionally, the problem with sending video through email has been two-fold:

1. Sending videos through email isn't feasible due to the large size of video files
2. Sending links to videos don't really get much better click-through than other links

EmailFilm's technology solves both problems.  Videos can be emailed to users and those users don't have to click anything to watch the video.  Moreover, the videos generally start playing as soon as the customer opens the email.

According to EmailFilm's website, their compression technology can deliver 800×440 videos in HD quality that are small enough to email, start automatically, and hosted by "outside sources" so that the email itself isn't much bigger than a traditional email message.  And the company says that increases in CTR of between 5 - 20% are not unheard of.  They offer a free sample on their website that can be sent to your inbox to preview the service.

Finally!  A good use for online video!