A recent Forrester Research report suggests that embedding video links in email marketing messages can double or triple click-through rates.

I have started to get email messages with embedded videos in my inbox. At this point, they all come from one source, my alma mater, Princeton University. In June, I received three email-with-video messages, one from the alumni association, one from Annual Giving, and another from Princeton Project 55 a separate alumni organization that gave me a public interest fellowship the year after graduation.

I’m not sure if they’re all using the same technology. Two are hosted on Princeton’s Annual Giving campaign site. The Project 55 one is a link to a video/slideshow on YouTube. So, although they’re all from Princeton, they are different in detail.

Each of the videos is a few minutes: the Project 55 one is 4 minutes long, the Project 55 one is about 4 minutes, the Princeton pause one is 2 minutes long. For this reason, they sat in my inbox for a while, waiting for the time I have a couple minutes of idle time and want to stay in front of my computer.

My connection to my alma mater is a deep one, with fond memories and deep friendships, and so these videos are actually quite compelling reminders of that experience. Surprise, at the end there’s a request to continue my support of the University’s work, of Project 55′s work, building on the positive experience recapitulated in the brief video.

So, even though I did not watch the videos immediately, I bet these emails are worth it for Princeton. Perhaps clickthrough is less prompt because the “investment” of time to view the video is greater. But, I’m not sure how extensible this model is. For instance, if I got an email with a video link from another organization, to which I was less strongly connected, I’m not sure I’d open it. If I got a video email from a business, I’m not sure I’d open it.

I’m curious if the stats hold this up – how people respond to these video messages. Forrester’s research suggests that the videos are compelling. I wonder if it is just because they’re new? I also wonder if Forrester’s statistics will hold by the time that everyone is mailing everyone else links to their videos, if this will just saturate. And, I’m curious if your gut on this is like mine, that these videos are suited well to applications like University alumni giving, but not from strangers.

YouTube Now 25 Percent Of All Google Searches.* Link Below

Pure Visibility is getting ready to launch videos on a couple of our client’s websites as well as our own site. I have a background in film, so I have fallen into the role of “video guy” and have the task of helping clients get their videos online. Even though I am a directed and produced many independent films, creating and posting website videos is a different challenge.

Some of the questions I encountered were: How should the content differ? Where should I host the video? Where should I place it on the website? How can I measure the effectiveness? We are just getting started in the world of video and I have not answered a lot of these questions, but I am starting with what I know about online advertising by starting with identifying goals.

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Last month I attended Search Engine Strategies (SES) in Chicago and a recurring theme throughout the week was universal search/blended search and how to leverage it for your online marketing campaigns. In particular I attended 3 panel discussions on online video and in each session universal search was a hot topic. The big takeaway I got was that if you don’t have any videos online and indexed by the search engines then you are missing out on a lot of potential, qualified visitors to your site.

Universal search means the search engines show results with not only blue text links, but a blend of results from images, video, local listings, news, and text links. As you can see in the screenshot on the left, if you search for “elmo” you get image results, videos, and text links. Google, Yahoo, and MSN all have versions of the universal search results and search marketers are observing a trend of more and more people skipping over text links in favor of clicking on other rich media like video or images.

One case study that was explained in the “Video SEO” presentation was about a cosmetic dentist in Sunnyvale who sees a 16% conversion rate from people that contact him after watching his online video, compared to a 3-4% conversion rate from those who find him from a paid or organic text link. In addition this particular dentist increased his search engine visibility, when a user types “emergency cosmetic dentist sunnyvale” in Google, he owns the number 1 organic spot with his youtube video. Having the video allowed this dentist to appear 3 times above the fold because he had a paid listing, a local listing, and a video listing. This is what we mean by starting to “own page one” because he owns multiple place on the first page of search engine results which greatly increases the likelihood that potential patients will find him.

A lot of the people at SES including myself agreed that video is the wave of the future online and the fact that youtube is starting to beat Yahoo in the number of monthly searches only validates this assumption. My prediction is that in the new wave of search engine marketing you will not be able to survive only on a paid search account with text links. Companies will need to have a universal online marketing approach utilizing paid search, good search engine optimization (SEO), press releases, a social media strategy and different online media like video, images. The days of surviving on simply having good SEO and a high ranking for a few terms is over.

Video content is key part of many social media efforts, but tracking and managing the metrics can be difficult, especially as the videos start to propogate across the web. Tube Mogul has developed an integrated platform that manages the delivery, tracking, and market research of web videos in a single integrated product.

Our initial assessment of this product is that it seems a little thin, but that it could be quickly expanded to provide video sharing and metrics for a wide variety of sources, including YouTube, Google Video, etc.

The website has some nice videos and demos, as well as press data and releases. The integration of distribution and measurement makes this product very appealing, and we look forward to using it for our social media clients.

In our mind this product speaks to a larger trend which we are very excited about. If 2007 has started to emerge as the Year of the Search Engine, 2008 is starting to look like the Year of the Metric, and nothing is more fun to us as an organization than the opportunity to measure success.