Have you ever sent an important email that went entirely unanswered? Or found out later from a colleague that your email was never received? 

Whether you are conversing with a team member or reaching out to a prospective client, it is imperative that your message is actually delivered and received. 

With the modern increase in email volume comes the resulting necessity to filter and sort emails. No one wants irrelevant emails clouding their inboxes, so email service providers make an effort to filter out junk mail. However, this filtration system is not perfect. When not written or designed correctly, emails may get stuck in a spam or junk folder, despite your intention for it to reach an inbox. 

There are ways to avoid the dreaded spam folder, and your best bet is by sending a video email. 

Why is Email Deliverability Important?

If you want anything to happen from your email, the most important thing that needs to happen is for it to land in your inbox. 

This sounds pretty straightforward in theory, but many different factors of your email’s content impact the likelihood of it actually showing up in an inbox. Everything comes through email nowadays, and our emails are designed to filter out unwanted clutter in order to streamline the day’s information.

 If your email ends up in a spam or junk folder upon arrival, it will likely never be seen. Only about 58% of email users actually check their spam folders daily (OptinMonster). If you have an important message, you don’t want to run the risk of it ending up lost in a sea of spam. 

What Factors Matter for Email Deliverability?

• How engaging are your emails? Email services pattern-match the types of emails you’re sending with other emails that look similar (either sent from you or from other people) to identify if this email looks like it’s something viewers typically engage with, or delete.  
• Has your domain been blacklisted? If your domain or IP has been blacklisted from an account, all of the emails you send will reach the spam folder, instead of the main inbox. Obviously, this is not good. To ensure that this does not happen, or to fix it if it has, here’s how to check if your domain has been blacklisted. 
• Are your emails bouncing? If your emails are bouncing, you are likely sending messages to a bad address. You always want to be careful with emails bouncing, because if you send too many emails to accounts that do not exist, you may begin to see dips in deliverability. To avoid this, it’s best to verify your email contacts. 
• Email volume is another key factor in email deliverability. The more emails you send from the same address, the more scrutinized your emails will be by the recipient’s mailbox. Mass messaging in a short amount of time is a great way to get your emails tossed in the spam folder. It’s ok to increase your message frequency, but it’s important to do so gradually over time.
• One of the most powerful influences on email deliverability is a spam complaint. If your email recipient receives a mass of emails from one account, they may lodge a spam complaint. Spam complaints are calculated, so it is imperative that you keep your spam complaint rates as low as possible. A high spam complaint rate (more than 0.1%) will lead to an increase in junking of your messages. 

How Video Email Impacts Deliverability

It turns out, the simple answer to the pesky question of how to avoid a spam folder and increase deliverability is to send a video email. When video emails are formatted correctly, they are significantly less likely to end up in a spam folder than other types of emails. 

Video emails typically perform about 2-3 times better than text-based emails. The main factor contributing to video email success is their appeal to viewer engagement. Recipients are much more likely to engage with a video email over an image or text-based message. As a result, video emails do a fantastic job of landing safely in the inbox. 

Granted, there are risks and benefits to video email:

Risks

• File size
  • If the video file is too big, the email may not be deliverable, or it may not render properly in the targeted inbox. However, there are ways to send a video as an image in order to avoid this issue. 

• Html to text ratio or image to text ratio
  • Email service providers tend to look at HTML-to-text ratios or image-to-text ratios in the messages they receive. Sometimes a video email may appear unbalanced in regard to this ratio. Because of this, it is helpful to add some text to your message in order to balance out the email. 
• Might be blocked as an image
  • Depending on the email client, a video message may get blocked as an image on arrival. To make sure your message is still heard, you can add a link to a landing page, so that your email can be viewed outside of the inbox. 

Benefits

• Higher Engagement
  • When formatted properly, emails containing videos can see up to a 300% increase in engagement compared to their text based counterparts. This is a huge help for deliverability, as email services are able to recognize that these are emails that recipients want to receive, and therefore should be delivered. 

How to Safely Send Video Emails

Using a video email platform like Sendspark can circumvent the risks, so you improve deliverability. Sendspark generates an email embed code that neatly displays video messages in email format. You can easily record or upload a video using Sendspark, generate an email embed code, and promptly send your beautifully curated video email off to its intended recipient. It’s fast, simple, high-performing, and it’s free!

Wrapping Up

Despite the small pitfalls that can occur when sending video emails, the pros vastly outweigh the cons. The engagement security and increased deliverability that comes with video emails essentially guarantees your message will land in an inbox and receive a click. So, when sending a video email, consider the pros and cons and think about utilizing a platform like Sendspark to assist in a seamless video email experience.