Think about the last time you took notice of an email signature. Now that it’s no longer socially acceptable to put ‘witty’ quotes in them (beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder… anyone?) you might think there’s not much you can do to spice up the humble email signature.
That’s where video comes in. There are some great benefits to adding a video to your email signature. A video showing people who you are and what you do is far more personable than just a name and job title. Despite being in a disconnected, digital world we still like to know who we’re doing business with, and this is a great opportunity to do that. Also, if you’ve invested in an ‘about us’ video (learn what that is here) then it’s also another way you can ensure it get’s more views.
Using the method I’m going to show you, you won’t physically be sending everyone an actual video each time you send them an email. That would be a disaster for your email server and your IT team (if you have one) will probably murder you. The method I’ll show you is embedding a clickable link into your email that will direct people to your video. The clickable link will appear in the form of an image with a play button, making it look like a video.
How to set it up
Step 1:
First you’ll need an image to use as your video link. I’ve chosen one we made for TXM to be used in an e-newsletter. It’s the exact same concept, just not being applied to an email signature. Notice how it looks like a video you could click on and play?
Step 2:
Now you need the url of the actual video you want to link. Copy this.
Step 3:
Import your image into a pages or word document and then right click on it. You’ll see a dropdown menu, you want to choose ‘hyperlink’.
Step 4:
After clicking hyperlink you’ll be presented with a space to type or paste your video url. Paste in the url from step 2.
Step 5:
Now you can jump over to Outlook. Once in outlook, create a new email. Then click on the ‘signature’ button. This will bring up a blank box where you can type in your details. Copy the image from word into this box. Done!
So you can see that it’s a pretty simple process. Hyperlinking images is a great way to share a video without having to send it physically or embed it. Like our earlier example from TXM, you can get creative with how you do it too. It certainly isn’t limited to email.
If you’d like to get started creating video for your email signature then get in contact with Dream Engine here today.
Ryan Spanger is one of Melbourne’s most respected and sought-after video production professionals. Ryan founded Dream Engine in 2002, and specialises in helping medium to large corporates, government departments, and the non-profit sector to connect with their audience more effectively by using video.
