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How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

blog.kickofflabs.com

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Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#31

Post by jfdimark »

JoshLedgard wrote: post #4
jfdimark wrote: post #2

Thanks, I've been looking a good, economical, way of creating an intro video, this looks like a really solid option. Can I ask, do you think it has advantages over, say, recording your screen while you record yourself taking someone through a demo? Then maybe replacing your voice with a voicebunny voiceover? I imagine cartoon v screen demo is dependent on your audience and objectives, but intrigued as to why you went…

When we first launched we had a screen recording with a voice over. Our problem with that is that, as a startup, our UI was changing every couple of months. The premise/goal doesn't change for the user... but we keep making it better. So that video got old too quick. And editing screen recordings every couple of months got tiring. We are also looking to do some how-to videos with voice-bunny instead of our voices tho…

Thanks - that makes a lot of sense actually. Good advice!

Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#33

Post by JoshTriplett »

JonLim wrote: post #9

I posted this in the comments of OP's blog post, but I figure some other HNers could use the clarification around YouTube. --- Hey Scott, Simple video and it works - definitely better than many other product promo videos I've seen in my time (as a videographer.) Just wanted to clarify something about YouTube: ads do not run before, during, or after if you don't allow them. Ads will only run if a video is "monetized,"…

> Just wanted to clarify something about YouTube: ads do not run before, during, or after if you don't allow them. Ads will only run if a video is "monetized," which is a setting that the uploader controls.

Not entirely true; by uploading to YouTube, you run the risk of a content provider claiming that your video contains their content, which will allow them to run ads on your video involuntarily. If your promotional video includes music (even if you have a license to that music), this seems quite likely.

Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#36

Post by trevorcreech »

swatermasysk wrote: post #8
JoshLedgard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 8 hours. It was basically two half days to get it to what you see there. So, to your point, our time was probably the most costly part. :)

Background music of some kind is on the short list. We wanted to get it out there and see what it does for conversions as is (we are testing it against an image on our home page. we will probably blog those results as well).

Check out vidyard.com to get analytics on the video directly.

Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#37

Post by JoshLedgard »

keeptrying wrote: post #35

Thats not a great video. I stopped after 10 seconds. Its grating, boring and needs me to read words. I guess thats why the good ones charge so much. The content is pretty important.

The real verdict of the video success has much more to do with analytics than individual opinions.

Of course, since we just posted it, we won't have good results of our A/B test (against a static image slideshow) for a week or so.

Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#38

Post by bunkat »

Another option for voice actors that I discovered is http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/forum.php. They are mostly amateurs but many of them do it as a pretty serious hobby and have high end equipment. We posted an ad and had 4 auditions in a week. We selected the best one and then worked with them over the course of a couple of weeks to get the results we wanted. Best of all, it was absolutely free.

Fortunately we also have an amazing designer in house so we could do the rest of the video ourselves. You can see the results at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siDTau6Rvg (note that we went with YouTube since you can't use Vimeo for commercial purposes).

Re: How to do a great product promo video for less than $200

#40

Post by keeptrying »

JoshLedgard wrote: post #37
keeptrying wrote: post #35

Thats not a great video. I stopped after 10 seconds. Its grating, boring and needs me to read words. I guess thats why the good ones charge so much. The content is pretty important.

The real verdict of the video success has much more to do with analytics than individual opinions. Of course, since we just posted it, we won't have good results of our A/B test (against a static image slideshow) for a week or so.

I would never ever put any of my friends through the pain of watching that thing - no offense.

I also really need an unbounce alternative. I'll have a look at your site when I get some downtime.

The big problem is you put every feature tahat you have in your app into the video. Thats why its kind of blah. Focus on one tihng you do based on which suorce the user comes from.

If he's coming from HN then just test your business should be enough. The user will find the other features as he explores.

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