Depending on which research you believe, including video within your campaign can increase click through rates by 300%. If you want to correspond with a company’s senior executives, you had better include a video link as 60% of them prefer receiving video to text. Yet click through only generates traffic. In order to be successful you really need to convert this into sales. That means generating compelling content. Whilst I could write a book on the subject, let’s break it down into three steps.

To find out more on video statistics, watch this:

Step 1: Know your audience

This is your starting point; it steers the whole production in a single, clear direction informing not only how the video looks and sounds, but also how it’s filmed, edited and presented.

In broadcast media it’s standard practice to have a profile of a typical viewer or listener. We give them a name, we know how old they are, where they live, how many kids they have, what car they drive, the newspaper they read and what other programmes they are watching.

You may think being too specific could lose you business; it won’t. The more specific you are the greater the clarity of your production.

Step 2: Know what outcome you want

It doesn’t take long in business to realise that nearly every marketing message your company puts out must have a clearly defined objective. If the aim is to make a sale then everything you do should point the viewer in that direction. If it’s to raise awareness you’ll need a mechanism for measuring that too.

Step 3: Know how you are going to get a response from your video

Now we have to determine how we’re going to achieve the final step – the all-important conversion. This is where a significant number of people are lost. Imagine promoting a holiday destination with an enticing video of the hotel. The pool looks inviting and there are lots of happy people saying what a great time they’ve had. The video ends on a call to action to visit the website to book. That’s another hoop, more typing and more effort. To increase conversions include directions in the video to a simple tracking link included in the email. Autoresponders such as Aweber and GetResponse allow you to manage your campaign.

Even with a compelling video, the maxims of email marketing still hold true – a captivating subject header, personalisation, call to action and tracking.

Alan Coote’s career spans 35 Years in Creative and Digital Media including the BBC, BAE Systems and numerous Independent broadcasters. He is the MD of 5 Digital and broadcasts weekly on the national business radio programme Let’s Talk Business. Follow him on Twitter @TheAlanCoote