Explainer Videos for Websites | Buncee from demoflick on Vimeo.
This is part 2 of a 2-part series. In part 1, “Software Demo Video: What, Why and How?” we discussed screen casting, voice over / background music, and editing and assembling. In part 2 we will discuss converting your video to different formats, uploading it to your site or YouTube, and integrating your demo video into your video marketing efforts.
Video Formats
If you’re using screen captures to create imagery for your video, depending on your editing software (some of the more popular include Pinnacle Studio, Machete, ArcSoft, Adobe Elements, VideoPad) your final output could be FLV, MOV, MP4, AVI or WMA. One quick point: when rendering your final video make sure it has a fairly high quality to compression ratio.
Once you have your final cut, you may want to convert the file into several different formats so that it is distributable to different marketing channels (i.e. YouTube, iTunes, offline presentations). There are a few of freeware tools available to you that you can use to convert your media files to different formats including Online-Convert, XMedia Recode and SUPER.
Uploading Your Video to Your Website
There’s a several ways you can upload your video to your website.
1) Convert the video into and FLV file then embed it onto your site using an FLV player.
2) Embed your video on your site in its native format using HTML5. See this article for a brief overview of what this means.
3) Upload your video to a video-sharing site like Vimeo or YouTube and embed the video on your site using the share site’s player.
Just a few notes here. A lot of websites are phasing out using Flash players because they are not compatible on all mobile devices. And while HTML5 is a viable option, it is still in its infancy. As of the time of writing, IE 7 & 8 and Firefox 3.0 lack support for HTML5 video. So if you’re using HTML5, you should include code for those users that falls back on Quicktime and Flash.
Using Your Software Demo Video for Marketing
The final step is to actually integrate your software demo video into your marketing plan – the reason you created it in the first place, right? While you might think some of the following places to showcase your video are no-brainers, you’d be surprised at how many people get tunnel vision and display their video on only a single platform or presentation. Don’t be afraid to show off your video to as many people as you can.
– Put it on your website.
– Upload it to social sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo.
– Post it on your Facebook and Tweet about it on twitter.
– Include a link to your product demo video in press releases, responses to blogs and emails to prospects. If appropriate, you could even include a link to your video in your email signature or v-card.
– Promote your video on social bookmarking sites like Delicious.com and StumbleUpon.com.
– Add it to promotional materials like CDs, DVDs or USB drives you plan to give away for publicity.
– Display it in the reception area of your office.
These days having a software or product demo video is an essential component of a successful product launch or marketing campaign. It’s one of the only ways you can show the features and benefits of your software / product in just a few minutes.
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