Most cold emails get ignored. Yours probably do too. A wall of text hits the inbox and the prospect scrolls past before reading a single line. But when we started embedding personalized videos in our outreach, replies went up and so did booked calls. We landed 40+ sales meetings a week using this tactic. Campaign Monitor reports that adding video to an email lifts click-through rates by 65%, and we saw those numbers play out firsthand.

In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly how we use video in cold email, share three real templates you can copy today, and show you how to scale personalized video across a multichannel sequence so you’re not filming a new clip for every lead.

By the end of this article you’ll:

Before we get to the “how to make sales videos” phase, let’s step back and understand why this template worked so well.

It’s important to make a strong reference in your intro line to break the ice from the very beginning. In this case Nadja mentioned the prospect’s content on LinkedIn and that this person is a growth hacker.

People find it hard to prepare a pitch in a cold email. Name the problem and tease the fix. That’s the whole pitch. Nadja prepared a short story about her previous job at a start-up, and since she was reaching out to growth hackers (who live in that world), it landed.

A personalized thumbnail with the prospect’s name or company logo grabs attention the instant they open the email. It signals this message was made for them, not blasted to a list. It’s the same idea as a strong Youtube thumbnail, tuned for one reader.

After people clicked the video, they landed on a highly personalized landing page with a short video pitch. If you’re looking for a way to stand out in the inbox and increase engagement, adding personalized videos to your cold emails is one of your best bets.

We’re fans of this tactic, but sending a personalized video to every single lead isn’t scalable, and it can waste your time if you use it the wrong way. So how do you make sure you’re only sending videos to the right leads?

You’ve got two options:

For the first option, you create a unique video for each lead. Here’s the catch: you only want to do that for your tier 1 leads, the ones that bring you the most value. You’re still sending a different video to every lead, but only to the leads with the highest need for your product.

For the second option, you send a more general video and personalize it by “buckets”, or common factors. The sequence above was personalized to growth managers working at startups that had raised funds.

Quick tip: record one video per bucket of similar leads, such as same industry or same role, and reuse it so you’re not filming for every single prospect.

That way your leads still get a message that resonates, but you aren’t spending hours creating a unique video for each one. Send these bucketed videos to your tier 2 leads, the ones who still get a lot of value from what you offer.

Now you know who to send your videos to, it’s time to get the camera ready. To send cold emails with personalized sales videos, we’ll use lemlist to personalize emails at scale.

Record a short video, 30-60 seconds max. Get straight to the point and share why you’re connecting. You can film yourself with a facecam or record a screenshare using whatever browser-based screen recorder you already have installed.

A good sales video opens with a personalized hook that proves you did your homework, delivers a concise story pitch that names the problem and teases the solution, gives the prospect a clear next step, and ties the outreach to a relevant moment or reason so the timing feels intentional.

Once it’s recorded, upload it to Youtube and set the visibility to unlisted. Here’s the example of video we used, selling to web designers and marketing agencies.

Whichever type you choose, include your face somewhere in the video so prospects can put a name to a face and connect with you personally.

Now that the recording is ready, add it to your outbound campaign. Since I can add video to a cold email easily, I’ll drop it right after a LinkedIn profile visit to give the lead some context.

What are my tags about?

Pro tip: build the whole sequence around the video so every follow-up, call, and LinkedIn touch points back to it.

This was just the email step. I also added multichannel sequences like LinkedIn profile visits and a DM, and connected the dots between channels by mentioning the video directly in the LinkedIn message.

Now you might be wondering, “How do I embed a video in an email?” Charlie’s got your back with a quick walkthrough.

First, add a custom thumbnail that entices your lead to watch. Click the “templates” button, then select “Video in emails” from the list. lemlist adds a personalized thumbnail automatically, and you can swap it with the “edit image” option.

lemlist auto-personalizes the landing page for each recipient, pulling in their first name, company logo, and brand colors. You can embed your calendar directly on the page so leads book a call the moment they finish watching. The end result is a personalized email with a dynamic landing page where every part is tailored to the reader.

And that’s a beautiful video sales email template ready to send.

Some inspiration for what to do with your sales videos, based on real examples that got results.

We took this idea from one of our lemlisters of the week, Jeff Wenzel, CEO at Woodshed Agency. It’s like a recording of a Zoom meeting with the prospect’s website on screen, which grabs attention from the first second the email opens.

If you’re referencing someone’s website, use a screenshot of it as the video thumbnail. This is what Chris from Content Mavericks did, and he shared how he generated $10k for his agency with a simple cold email campaign.

Pro tip: set the campaign goal before you hit record so your messaging and CTA line up from the first frame.

This is the template Guillaume shared for standing out in a crowded inbox. It works because people see not only the company logo but also their name written on paper. Since it’s hard to automate, it grabs attention.

A sales video works best as one touch inside a multichannel sequence, not a standalone trick you send once and hope for the best.

Yes, filming a unique video for every lead does not scale. That’s why we built Smart Messaging. Record your voice once and let lemlist clone it into thousands of custom audio notes, each personalized to the recipient. You get the warmth of a real voice without spending your day in front of a camera.

When you’re ready to build the campaign around that video, let lemAgent build the sequence. Describe your goal and ICP in a chat and it drafts the full multichannel sequence for you: timing, branching, messages. Review it, tweak what you need, and launch.

From there, run the video alongside LinkedIn messages, calls, WhatsApp, and SMS from a single synced sequence. Every reply lands in one unified inbox, no matter the channel.

Over 20,000 sales teams run outbound in lemlist. If you want personalized video to actually move pipeline, this is how you scale it.

Video email works when you personalize for the right prospects and lead with a message that resonates. Start with your tier 1 leads, reuse one video per bucket for everyone else, and build the whole sequence around it. For more outreach examples that got real results, check out the lemlist hub, full of top-performing campaigns from our team and users.

Now go make those sales videos.

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