Demo Videos

Make a video demo and prominently promote it somewhere where new visitors can find it. One that shows off the core function of your product without making people think they’re watching an ad or a pitch. And answer, as thoroughly as possible in 2-3 minutes, what it is that you’re bringing to the table.

Here’s a sad truth: a lot of reporters really are quite lazy. Not in the sense that they don’t want to find and cover a cool new company (in which case they should consider a new career path), but in that they don’t like to spend time wading through marketing material trying to figure out what your company actually does. After all, we’ve got inboxes stuffed with pitches from companies vying for coverage. If it takes more than a minute or two to figure out what problem you’re trying to solve, we’re probably more likely to simply skip to the next message than to try to make sense of your feature set.

Consumers are even lazier. If you don’t have some kind of bite-sized hook that introduces them to your product, there’s a good chance they’ll stare quizzically at the screen, shrug their shoulders, and head back to Google to find something else that fixes their problem. Walls of descriptive text definitely are not the answer. Images can help, but they can also become overwhelming. Video, especially in an age when people are so used to consuming it online, is often a good solution.

But just making a video isn’t enough – you need to make sure that the video actually conveys what the hell you actually do. This is apparently much harder than it sounds, because I’ve seen plenty of video demos loaded with screenshots, walkthroughs, and pretty graphics but still leave me scratching my head. The truth is, you don’t need a single screenshot to make an effective video. You just need to show how people will actually use what you’ve built, not a sales pitch.

Take Dropbox for example. I use the service every day and love it, but every time I try to describe it in a sentence I’m left with something that makes me retch a bit — “intuitive and deeply integrated file synchronization service” just doesn’t come close to capturing just how damn cool Dropbox really is. Apparently the Dropbox team didn’t have much luck describing themselves in text either, so they’ve gone another route: visit their homepage, and you’ll see a polished, easy-to-follow video demo front and center that perfectly describes what the service actually does.

An explainer video is usually a 1-2 minute video used to introduce a new product or company, and it should answer a few fundamental questions. It explains what problem the product is trying to solve, and why the viewer should want to use this. It is similar to a 30 second elevator pitch, but with visuals, and a more casual, fun vibe. Sometimes, these videos are even distributed before the product is fully formed. It is used to pique the viewer’s interest, and be informative and clear without taking up too much time. Explainer videos have several advantages over traditional text explanations and descriptions. First of all, videos are much more engaging than just text; if a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what a minute of video is worth? Due to high speed connections and vast amounts of content, users are not willing to be patient and stay on any one page for a long time. The average user has an attention span of around 8 seconds, if they’re not engaged in those 8 seconds, they will move on to the next site right away. A well-made explainer video consolidates all of the important details into one place in a minute or two.

Using an explainer video may also increase the chance that your product will be covered in other media. Reporters routinely have to sift through endless amounts of material; an explainer video helps you in this regard in three ways. First, the video format will give you an advantage in getting noticed over the other materials sent in. Second, the reporters will want to report on your company because your informative video will make it less work for them. Third, your explainer video will leave very little room for the reporter’s interpretation, so the viewers won’t end up getting the wrong message.

Another important reason for using a video is that a well-made explainer video can increase your conversion rates by around 15 to 50%

(1). For example, Work.com, a work performance management company has increased conversion rates by 20% with the introduction of their explainer video

(2). Shoeline.com saw a conversion rate increase of over 40% when they started showcasing their products using videos instead of just pictures

(3). It’s also important to note that explainer videos can have effects on in-store sales as well. According to Google, 79% of smartphone owners do research on their phones before making a purchase

(4). Best Buy is taking advantage of this trend by putting instructional explainer videos on their website to educate the shopper on various technological goods.

Explainer videos also have a place in non-tech companies. Here is a video used by Virgin America to explain the safety precautions in an airplane. This example shows that the explainer video can be effective in functions other than explaining a company’s core product. Another non-tech example is this video by Red Cross. It encourages people to worry less about buying un-needed Christmas gifts, and donating those resources to a charity like Red Cross instead.

Whiteboard videos are an informal and strangely captivating way of explaining concepts or systems. Simply put, a whiteboard video consists of nothing more than a person standing in front of a whiteboard and sketching a visualization of what he or she is trying to explain, without the help of expensive animation or CGI.

You’ve probably seen several variations online or on TV: A good public speaker takes their audience on a journey, leaving them feeling inspired and motivated. But structuring your speech to get your ideas across and keep your audience engaged all the way through is tricky. Try these eight storytelling techniques for a presentation that wows.

You’re doing a presentation, so you start with the facts you want to get across. Wrong! Humans are hardwired for stories. They love heroes, journeys, surprises, layers and happy endings.

Deliver a presentation that captures the hearts and heads of your audience by stealing one of these classic storytelling techniques. Start with the story – the rest will be history.

When it comes to communication, there are few mediums more powerful than video. Video is now the most shared type of content on Twitter–no surprise, since it’s so engaging. Video is especially powerful in a business context. It lets companies market their products concisely and express their brand identities in a rich way.

As a consumer myself, I prefer seeing a product in action, rather than reading about it. Video just feels more compelling than the alternatives. But the advantages of video go even further and can drive serious business growth. Let’s take a look at why video can impact your bottom line. Video can really boost your site’s SEO.

Keep in mind that there’s less competition in the video SEO world. Because there are fewer video results than there are regular (non-video) results, you’ll rank higher for your videos. Google likes seeing video on websites, so make sure they can find it! Your robots.txt file (which is what the Google bots use to index your pages) should include a sitemap entry for your video. Hosting companies like Wistia make it easy to set up and implement your robots.txt file.

Video will help you gain and keep site traffic.

There’s plenty of data showing that people will spend more time on your page if you have video. Video is also a good way of getting people to visit your website. If you’re sending emails, consider sending one with a video call to action. We’ve found that people are more likely to click on your call to action and visit your site than if you’d sent an email without video. We found a 3x difference when we A/B tested different emails!

Video helps you scale your people.

For many companies, salaries and benefits represent the largest cost category. Get more out of your people by scaling their efforts. If sales people spend an average of one hour talking with new prospects, make a video where the sales team covers the main points. If this allows them to spend just 30 minutes with each prospect, they can talk to twice as many people! The same holds true for the support team: if the onboarding process takes an hour, try covering the FAQs in video format and cut your onboarding time in half.

Video drives more sales.

At Wistia, we found that a video on our pricing page increased conversion by 15%. For physical products, especially, a video makes people more comfortable buying because they get a more complete picture of how the product works. By putting video directly on their product pages, medical device company Universal Medical increased product sales 300%. The videos showed how a given product works and allowed customers to envision how they might use the product themselves.

Video builds rapport, trust, and an emotional connection with your audience.

Research suggests that when people experience a positive emotion, they think in terms of “we”, rather than “me”, which makes them more likely to accept a deal from you, and more likely to act as evangelists for your company.

When you have products that are in the cloud or accessed through a website (such as reports), demonstrations on how they work can be a key differentiator to landing a deal. You can also lend credit to your expertise with a “how to” video.

Showing a bunch of static screen shots won’t cut it, but really good screen capture video software can be expensive (and sometimes with free software, you get what you pay for). Not to mention the time you’d have to spend learning a new program or the cost of outsourcing the project

No matter what you’re working on, we can help you create great looking iscreen capture videos. We can easily customize your screen captures with effects, or show off what’s important with cool ideas. You can also create quick videos by recording your screen. Show your ideas, spread the word, or share knowledge with a video. From quick video demos to extensive video projects, we have all the editing tools to create the great video content you need to get the job done.

Engage your viewers with a variety of effects, and easily share your videos to anyone, anywhere.