Send Video in Email

Occasionally you may find that you need to send a video in an email message and you'll need to know how to do it. There are a few different ways that will work, but you first must know where the video is hosted. Either you must upload the video to your own hosting account, or use a service such as YouTube. Due to the wide audience that YouTube has, hosting your videos there would make a lot of sense rather than hosting it yourself because added bonuses are the additional traffic you will pick up to your site, and that YouTube will provide the technical code necessary for viewing a video that will work properly in popular browsers (you don't have to deal with all the technical issues concerning installed video players on PC's).

Once the video is hosted, there will be a unique URL (web address) associated with the video. Either the hosting service will generate the linking code for you, or, you must use some other method to get the URL, such as using a browser to navigate to the video and copying the URL from the browser location field.

Generated code from a video hosting service can not be directly added into an email message with any real assurance. ISP's are shy about video code in email and more often than not the code will be disabled or stripped out completely. However, there are other options that you can safely use.

Option 1: Add a Text Link into Your Email Message

Adding a text link into your email message is the easiest to implement. The text link in your email message will link to a web page on your web site, or the hosted service's web page, that contains the actual video. The email message would contain a description of the video followed by the actual link to the video. For instance, if I wanted to send an email message to my subscriber list containing a link to a new video (in this case a flash movie), I would add the following text in my email message:

Here is a video I thought you might enjoy.
Learn how to expand into new markets using keyword research techniques with Wordtracker.
/downloads/expand-into-new-markets.swf

In this case, I'm hosting the video on my own hosting account so I can determine the video URL simply by navigating to the page where the video is and copying the URL from the browser's location field.

Here are the steps necessary to follow this procedure using a few different popular email client applications.

Microsoft Outlook Example

Launch Outlook
Click File->New Message from the main menu tab
Enter description of video in the body of the email message. On a new line,
Click Insert->Hyperlink from the main menu tab
On the Insert Hyperlink dialog box, add "Learn to expand..." into
the text to display field, and the URL in the address field. Click OK and then Send.

Microsoft Outlook Express Example

Launch Outlook Express
Click File->New Message
Enter description of video in the body of the email message. On a new line,
Enter "Learn to expand..."
Select the text above to convert it to a hyperlink
Click Insert->Hyperlink from the main menu tab
In the popup dialog box enter the full URL of the page and click Send.

Thunderbird Example

Launch Thunderbird
Click File->New from the main menu tab and then Message
Enter description of video in the body of the email message. On a new line,
Click Insert->Link from the main menu tab
On the Insert Link dialog box, add "Learn to expand..." into
the link text field, and the URL in the link location field. Click OK and then Send.

The email will be received with a clickable hypertext link in most email systems that receive your message. Remember to send the message to yourself first to test it, and then to your subscriber list once you verify that it works.

Option 2: Add an Image of the Video to Imitate a Video Launch Button

Another approach, although slightly more complicated, involves including an image in the email that looks like the video but is really only an image of the video starting screen. It is typically acceptable to send images in email so an ISP isn't going to be as paranoid about it. To use this approach requires that you have the ability to capture screen images from your PC and then size and crop the captured screen image to fit the dimensions of the email message. I use Paint Shop Pro for this type of work.

Use your browser to navigate to the page which displays the video and use a screen capture program to capture an image of the video in the browser. I choose to use a screen capture program because even if I use the print screen function I will still need to size and crop the image to something compatible with the email message. Therefore, I might as well just use my favorite graphic design program for everything related to image capture and manipulation.

Size and crop the image to around 300px width by 300px height and save it on your local pc (name files using hyphens instead of spaces) and then upload it with FTP to your web site into a folder that you setup specifically for this purpose. Make sure to open a browser and navigate directly to the image on the site after you upload it to make sure it is accessible, and remember the URL (copy the URL from your browser location field and paste it into a text editor so you have easy access to it later). This will be the image shown in the email message. With your graphic design program, you could even add a message such as "Click to Launch Me!".

Now, create a new email message and, like you would do for adding any image into an HTML email message, paste the image code into the body of the email message. Be sure to add the alt text description into the image code so if a subscriber is using a text only email client or they are blocking images they will see the alt text description instead. Many email systems block images by default for security reasons because if an image is allowed to be fetched from a web server, the sender of the email message can track that your IP address opened and read the email message. This is a serious invasion of your privacy if the sender is unknown so you set your email client by default to block images.

Here is what the image code looks like for my video:

<img
  src="http://www.orangetreeweb.com/web-design-tutorials/images/wordtracker-video-screen-shot.jpg"
  alt="Expand into new markets with keyword research and Wordtracker" />

When the subscriber receives the email, the video image will be displayed in the message body. Now, the last step is to make the image a link which will launch the video when clicked.

Here is what the linked image code looks like for my video:

 
<a href="http://www.orangetreeweb.com/downloads/expand-into-new-markets.swf">
  <img
    alt="Learn how to profit from keywords using Wordtracker"
    src="http://www.orangetreeweb.com/web-design-tutorials/images/wordtracker-video-screen-shot.jpg"
    height="352"
    width="350" />
</a>

I've followed these directions and sent the message to myself, and here is what the final message looks like when received. When the subscriber clicks the image in the message body, a browser window is launched into which the video will start playing.

Message Body:

Although this example uses a Flash movie, any video will work the same following these directions. Remember, never send an email to your subscriber list that you have not tested: send the email to yourself first, test it, and if it works then send it out to your subscribers.