There are many ways your small business can collect email addresses.

From printable sign-up sheets to embeddable forms on your website, the opportunities to drive interested customers to your email list are endless.

But there’s one opportunity many small businesses are overlooking.

Video.

Video is one of the best ways to drive engagement with your audience. Here are a few statistics to keep in mind when considering the importance of video marketing:

• Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic.
• 78 percent of people watch videos online every week.
• 96 percent of B2B companies are planning to use video in their content marketing over the next 12 months.

(You can find these and more video marketing stats in this infographic from HighQ.)

How can your small business use video to collect email addresses?

If your small business is already creating videos and sharing them on social media, adding tools to collect email contacts is simple.

In this blog post, you’ll learn two ways to start collecting emails with video.

Haven’t created any videos yet? Get started with these tips.

1. Link video to a landing page

Do you have a landing page on your website with your email sign-up form?

Here at Constant Contact, we have an email newsletter called Hints & Tips. We often link to our Hints & Tips sign-up page in blog posts, social posts, and, you guessed it, videos.

If you are using a video hosting website like YouTube, you can add a link to your email sign-up form directly to your video by using the annotations feature. Below, you can see an example of an annotation link at the end of one of our YouTube videos.

Are you using Wistia for your video hosting? You can link to your sign-up form using the annotation link feature or by adding a call to action.

2. Add an email gate to your video

Gated content is content that can only be accessed by providing information.

You’ve probably seen gated content before when trying to download a PDF or eBook. Whenever you’re asked to provide information about yourself, such as your email, job title, or industry, before downloading content, that’s an example gated content.

While you probably don’t want to gate every video you create, gating long-form, high value content is a great place to start. We recommend letting the viewer watch for a couple minutes before the gate pops up — that way the viewer can preview the content to make sure they’re interested.

The best way to gate your videos is by using Wistia’s turnstile feature. Turnstile allows you to add an email gate to your video in just a few easy steps.

The best part? Wistia has a flawless integration with Constant Contact. This means that once you set up the turnstile and connect your Constant Contact account, your viewers’ contact information will automatically be added to your email list.

Once you’ve added your turnstile, it should look something like this:

Tip: If you’re interested in getting started with Wistia’s turnstile feature and would like step-by-step instructions, check out this help page.

When gating content, make it clear what the viewer will receive if they provide their information. If you are going to be adding them to your email list, tell them. The last thing you want to do is email someone without their permission.

Transform video viewers into engaged email subscribers.

The email addresses you collect from your viewers represent highly engaged customers or fans.

Keep them hooked by delivering consistent email newsletters. You can set up an autoresponder series for new subscribers to get them familiar with your business.

And since you already know they enjoy your videos, make sure to include videos in your emails when you can.

Want to learn even more list growth tips?

Join us on May 26 for our next FREE virtual workshop Grow Your Email List, Grow Your Retail Business.

Can’t attend live? Sign up and we’ll send you a free recording.

The post Want More Email Subscribers? Don’t Forget About Video appeared first on Constant Contact Blogs.