One of the most popular ways mobile marketers are doing to spice up their SMS campaigns involves around embedding video(s) into their messages.
Thankfully, you can do this easily by using existing online tools for free.
Bringing your video online
Once you have created the video, you can host it for free on one of the online video platforms. YouTube or Vimeo are the ideal choices as they have extensive CDN's (Content Delivery Networks) and they optimise their video's for the widest number of mobile devices available. We are going to use YouTube as example here.
Linking your video to campaigns
After uploading the YouTube video, you can easily grab a direct link from your video manager section and viewing the info and settings section as outlined below:
The example link (http://youtu.be/nkzZvapqhIY) is shortened by YouTube automatically and is ideal for SMS. When recipients tap on the link in a text message, they will be directed to your video via the YouTube mobile page or the YouTube app. Alternatively, you can create custom web addresses through services like Bitly.
This is a benefit over sending videos via MMS as it doesn't force the recipients to open the video immediately. Moreover, YouTube and Vimeo provides analytics so you can better track and measure your campaign results.
Adding mobile video to your SMS campaigns is simple and cost effective for improving engagement and brand impact.