Email Grabber?
 

Does anyone have any experience having a video on your website that requires viewers to input there email address in order to view the video whether it be embedded or hosted?
Thanks
JDL

Re: Email Grabber?
 

I don't, but may I ask why you'd do that?

Re: Email Grabber?
 

I've not done it, but it's not going to be that hard, a little javascript, AJAX and PHP.

The question is how will you validate the email prior to letting them view the video? They could enter any email address, real or fake.

Re: Email Grabber?
 

A friend of mine has a video that showcases his education services. It a short 2 minutes video he intends to post on his site. What he wants to do is get email address from those who watch it so that he can add them to his mailing list.
I image he could simply ask those who watch it to sign up for the mailer, but he really wants it to be automated by having to enter their address in order to watch the video.
But anyways, its not for me I was just thinking someone here may have has some experience attempting to do the same.
Thanks
JDL

Re: Email Grabber?
 

OK - well, get them to fill in an email box, formatted over (say) a video thumbnail (not the actual embedded video, which isn't there yet - read on....) then when they click submit you send the event to some javascript (it's much easier with jQuery) that sends the address entered to the server.

On the server side the address gets added to the database, probably using PHP or ASP code, then the server returns some HTML back to the browser as part of the AJAX response, and that HTML is used to replace the original email box with the embedded video.

If the video is set to auto play then the user should have a relatively clean experience and they never left the original page.... shouldn't take more than a few minutes to code up if they know what they are doing ;)

Re: Email Grabber?
 

Thanks Dave. I will talk to my friend about that and see if I can find him someone local (Daytona, FL) who can help him out. My friend is a talented Hearing Aid Specialist that also trains others in that field. When I use to live in Orlando we met and I filmed his training class for him and it turned out so well that he expanded the program and has done very well and the training program has help many people with the exams.
He was in Jackson, MS this weekend so I drove over to meet up with him and we talked a lot about revamping his website and social media marketing.

Re: Email Grabber?
 

Dave, you're not verifying the email address. Viewers can enter anything so long as it passes simple verify. Savvy users will enter a link, say, to the Vatican. So the usual way this is done is to email a link to video or whatever to the provided address. But it's nasty. Once you've got the email you can spam the addressee, which however you dress it up or justify it to yourself is what this is about. Of course, savvy users just use a temporary fake email address from one of the numerous sites that make these available, then if they still want the spam use their real address. My advice, do it legitimately up front, let the merely curious watch the video and let viewers who want the service or more info enter their email.

Re: Email Grabber?
 

I did ask if he wanted to do that in a post above and didn't get a positive response.

Personally, I would want to verify the address also, but if he doesn't then this is a simple solution.

Verifying addresses and making them wait for access is more secure and slows them down. You can't have it both ways ;)

Re: Email Grabber?
 

Wouldn't it be far more productive to just ask them it they would like some more information ? The last thing you want would be a bunch of fake emails that bounce!

I would rather have a simple form submit below the video and let anyone watch it. If you do get any forms back at least you know they are likely to be far more genuine rather than just grabbing email addresses and then maybe annoying people who just might be prospective clients.

Rather have 10 interested people who take the time to fill in a query form than snag 100 emails that will end up as spam.

Chris

Re: Email Grabber?
 

I would skip watching a video that asked me to enter my email address. I thinks the concept is very bad.

Re: Email Grabber?
 

+1

Ditto.

It's not a concept I would implement, but I guess I was answering his question on how to do it ;)

I think I'd let them watch the video and then decide if they want to sign up or not....