How To Create Demo Videos In 12 Easy Steps (+ 7 Reasons Why They Convert So Well)
Have you ever come across an article, read it, and thought “this content is great! I’m going to use it later to grow my business” but… never actually did?
No worries, that happens.
I bet you always have the best intentions when it comes to growing your business and converting more leads. You’re always searching for that magic formula that’ll get your company right where it should be—at the top!
But you simply can’t keep up with all the blogs you read every day on how to grow your business. There are just too many.
I was talking to Matt, the founder of Growbo and he shared how he was reading a very interesting conversion rate article the other day, and wanted to use it to help grow the company.
But unlike most people, he actually did take action.
And you know why? Because the blog he was reading included a demo video.
Videos are super popular today and for good reason. They’re wide-reaching and when done well, they convert leads like crazy—it’s happened to us =).
And when it comes to lead magnets, they make a great bribe for your prospects.
But how do you create one? Why do they convert so well?
In this article, I’ll tell you why demo videos are necessary for your business (and website), I’ll share 7 reasons why they convert leads, and I’ll show you how to create yours in 12 simple and easy steps!
Let’s dive into it right now…
What Is A Demo Video?
A demo video is usually a short video overview of a company’s product or service. It can go from 1-2 minutes to even 1-hour long.
Demo videos are also highly visual.
They can be created in different ways. Some will use professional animations and special effects like the ones you see in movies, and others will create them in PowerPoint presentations or add only text to communicate their message.
Compared to other text-based lead magnets, videos can contain humor, emotion, animation, a host, two hosts, voice-over, audio, music, or anything that catches the audience’s attention.
High quality demo videos produced in-house can cost as little as $30. But if you outsource it, it can cost $10,000 – $50,000 and higher. The reason why the price can vary is because the skillset, time, and quality of design or animation are also often higher.
If you’re planning on hiring someone to produce a professional demo video for your company, then, be prepared to budget a fair amount of money.
However, if for you time is cheaper than money, then go ahead and do it yourself. Invest 8-20 hours of it into writing a script for the video.
Why Create Demo Videos For Your Lead Magnet Offer?
You already know what lead magnets are, right?
In case you forgot, a lead magnet is a free offer that gives your website visitors some relevant value in exchange for their contact information. This is the incentive to get prospective customers to visit your website and to eventually become customers. They’re opt-in bribes or sign-up incentives.
However, most people won’t freely volunteer their email address—mainly for the fear of being spammed. But, if they get something valuable—and FREE—in return, they’ll gladly give you their contact information.
And that’s where demo videos come in.
Videos are a lot easier for people to consume. Let’s face it, what would you prefer, reading or watching something?
Videos provide faster gratification and stimulate more senses. Compared to other text-based lead magnets types, videos appeal to more learning styles.
People love videos because it’s easy for them to watch and absorb the content. And your audience is much more captivated when you broadcast your message through video. This is why savvy marketers can leverage videos to put out any kind of high quality content that’ll speak on behalf of their brand.
But you’ll have to be careful when making your demo video. Your audience may not tolerate a technical mistake. And some most likely will leave your website and never come back because of it. So it’s critical that you nail your video production from the start to convert more website visitors into leads and improve your sales funnel strategy.
7 Reasons Why Demo Videos Work
1. Highly Visual: Demo videos are a different way of absorbing information than the conventional text-based style. They can be created with animation, colors, logos, audio, and any other highly-visual elements that keep your prospects focused in.
2. Easy To Digest: Videos can be consumed quickly and easily. As you watch a demo video, you consume the information without lifting a finger. In general, people are lazier than you think. They aren’t looking to invest energy or effort combing through a tedious text. They prefer consuming videos without having to really do much work. Videos make your audience’s experience through your site more pleasant.
In fact, Hubspot’s data shows that most people pay close attention to videos and that 45% of the people surveyed watch one hour or more a week of video content on different platforms like Facebook and YouTube.
And most importantly, people tend to thoroughly consume more and skim less with video content compared to text-based content.
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/news-trends/the-future-of-content-marketing
3. Friendly: Part of the pleasure that comes from watching a video is that the content can be presented in different visually attractive ways. Graphics, design, animation, audio, colors—they all make the watching experience more friendly, fun, and less boring. And that translates into better engagement with your audience.
4. Practical: You’re in a hurry and can’t watch the video right now?... refer back to it later. You’re tired and don’t feel like watching the whole video at the moment?... Pause it, visit the website again, and watch it later. You can save them on your computer or bookmark them. You can rewind them and fast forward them if you don’t want to watch the whole thing. They’re very practical because they don’t take away so much time from your prospects.
5. Easy To Create: It may not take you a massive amount of time to create a demo video but it’ll certainly take some time to do so. If you want to do it right, take your time to write the script and define the production process. If you don’t have stage fright and love talking in front of a camera or a crowd of people, it’ll be a piece of cake for you. Write down your script, get in front of the microphone, and hit record.
That’s what Matt, the founder of Growbo, and Chris, our Funnel Strategist did a couple of days ago when they decided to record a more complete, new demo video about our Done-For-You sales funnel service to better qualify leads. It’s perfect for filtering out the bad ones who book a call with us but aren’t really a fit.
Recording this new demo video didn’t take Matt and Chris much time either. They just planned it, recorded it, and published it. And that demo video has worked so well that since it was published on November 2nd in our homepage, we have seen 129 people so far opting in to watch it. And 3 of those people have actually booked a call to learn more about our Done-For-You service.
Our demo video was so easy to create and has converted so well that Matt and Chris will actually be hosting Growbo’s live demo video webinars every Wednesday starting tomorrow! I’ll definitely keep you posted after the event takes place.
6. Saves Time: Compared to video training courses that are meant to be completed in weeks (or even months) and long ebooks that no one expects to ever read, demo videos work better as your lead magnet because they save your prospects time. When you watch a video, you spend less time doing so than reading a long ebook that can take hours. You just watch and listen for as long as the video’s playing. So your prospects appreciate the fact that they don’t have to put so much time to consume your lead magnet.
7. They Answer Questions: Demo videos are in a way like an interactive FAQ section from your website. They guide your site’s visitors and answer all of their questions. After watching your demo, your prospect should have zero questions and should be ready to buy from you, book a call, or be ready for whatever step comes next in your funnel.
Do you have any questions so far? Don’t worry, you already know how to create a killer lead magnet and tripwire. Now it’s time to create a demo video!
In the next section I’ll tell you how to create yours in 12 easy steps.
How To Create A Demo Video
The majority of people go wrong in the process of creating a demo video by trying to jump right into storyboarding. They focus on the visuals and on how beautiful and perfect the video will look like when it’s done. But they forget about the most important thing: content.
You can have the most amazing web design, but if you don’t have clear copy, prospects will leave your site…
You can have the most interesting topic for your blog article, but if you don’t write great content that adds value to the reader, they will simply close the tab…
Same thing with your demo video. You can have the most amazing special effects and even the greatest product or service, but if you don’t properly communicate what you’re selling, no one will buy from you.
So it’s better to be more strategic about the video by focusing on the script first, rather than on the aesthetics of it.
Now, if you want your demo video to actually convert leads, follow the formula below to start seeing your site’s visitors convert and sales coming in.
1. Define The Problem: You already know that for offering your lead magnet you need to find the common problems that your site’s visitors struggle with and provide the quick solution they’ve been looking for. So when creating your demo video, spend at least 20% of the time defining the problem. If you pace your prospects by showing that you understand them, you empathize with their problem. Describe their pain points and show them how your product or service addresses them. The clearer you explain how your products or services will solve money, time, and efficiency problems for your prospects, the more likely they’ll be to buy from you.
2. Introduce Your Solution: After defining the problem and agitating the pain points, introduce the solution that your prospects have been waiting for. Think of it like a drum roll sounding... and then “Presto! Here’s the solution you’ve been looking for.” Show them how your product or service makes their life better. How will this product add value to their business? List down all the benefits your products provides them. And also, be transparent, don’t try hooking prospects with false promises.
3. Explain Your Product: Explain what your product or service is about. Give a brief overview of it. You might want to consider telling a story for this to create empathy with the audience. But no hard selling (at least not at this point). That’ll only scare prospects off.
4. Use Call To Action Buttons: If you want to guide people to take action—to actually buy something from you—you must add clear and outstanding call to action buttons in the demo video and landing page where you’re advertising it. Based on the law of repetition, consider adding more than one button. Say it again, and again (but don’t be uncool or desperate in the way you do it).
5. Include Social Proof: Be sure to include social proof in the form of logos, testimonials, statistics, quotes, and/or case studies stats in your video. Include a couple of testimonials, a compelling statistic, logos of former and current clients of your service, and logos of recent press. This will make people trust your brand and give them peace of mind if they buy from you.
6. Be Clear: Depending on how complex your services are, you might want to record a longer or shorter video. Regardless of length, be clear with your message. No one’s going to buy something they don’t understand. If you think you can keep your video short and concise and say everything you need to say about your products or services in 5 minutes, or 20 minutes, that’s great! Just make sure that your key message and value proposition are included in the first minutes of the video.
According to Wistia, beyond the 12-minute mark of videos, you may start losing people. Still, we at Growbo, actually offer a 40-minute demo video because we want to make sure our site’s visitors learn more about our Done-For-You sales funnel service, how our soon-to-be-launched app works, and see if our sales funnels are a good fit for their business.
People may be less willing to commit their time based on the length of the video, but if it’s something that’ll give them a lot of value, they’ll stay until the end. You can always create multiple versions of your demo video too and AB test which ones are actually seen until the end.
7. Use Empathetic Tone: Speak in the second person, your audience will love that. Often use words like “you” and “your.” Also, use simple language. You don’t want your prospects to “work” watching your demo video. And avoid using technical terms they won’t understand.
Keep a casual, conversational tone.
8. Use humor: Who doesn’t like humor and jokes? Watching a video where there’s some humor and subtle laughs will be more enjoyable for your prospects. So put a little effort into adding some humor.
9. Add Images: This is what will actually appear on the screen while you’re talking to your audience. The inclusion of images, emojis, and/or symbols can make the watching experience more pleasant. The easiest way to plan this part of the production of your demo video is to break your script into sections and add the draft for the visuals you want to include. But one section should flow into the next. Without that flow, less people will comprehend your video’s message. Don’t just add filler images.
The right use of visuals can help create a cohesive theme and achieve a desired goal or success. For example, in Growbo’s demo video, we include fun icons like in the screenshot below to create empathy with the reader.
10. Choose The Demo Video Type: Choose what type of video will be the best for your sales funnel and your prospects’ journey.
11. Write The Script: Don’t forget to write down the script. Put together all your ideas and elements from the points above and write a super clear and easy-to-follow script. When you do so, you’ll be able to determine the length of your video prior to actually recording it. When you have it ready, try reading the script out loud and set a timer. Also, take notes that you can refer to when reading the script.
12. Produce The Video: People get exposed to tons of videos every day. In fact, Facebook revealed that its users watch 8 billion videos per day. Are you still skeptical about using demo videos for your site?
You shouldn’t be.
But you still have to make sure you produce your video right. Avoid having audio issues. A badly produced video can damage your brand message, so make sure you put some decent budget towards your video production and marketing strategy. Think about all the details—even your thumbnail. Remember, quality always wins. Your thumbnail should be eye-catching and informative. Consider creating a custom thumbnail, rather than just pulling one from the video.
And since I know you’ve been enjoying this article and getting good use out of it, here are some tools for recording and editing your demo video:
Most Useful Types Of Demo Videos
If your company’s lead generation isn’t bringing in leads, here are 4 types of demo videos that will help you attract more.
1. “How-To” Videos: These are some of the most useful videos that people search for online. They get millions of views on YouTube every day. In fact, YouTube users are 3x more likely to watch a YouTube tutorial video compared to reading products’ instructions.
“How-to” demo videos show your visitors, in detail, how to solve a problem. They can go step by step through the process and give your viewer the specific guidelines they need to follow in order to accomplish something.
This type of video doesn’t require a big expensive production either. It can be something simple but clear enough so people can consume it within 5 minutes.
2. Case Studies: Not everyone wants to know how to solve a particular problem they have or how to create a specific thing. Other people want to know (and see) how other people or companies solved those similar problems. So, for prospects who are looking to find out how a certain multimillionaire company did X to achieve Z, give them a verified, credible case study where you can show them how that company achieved Z.
Case studies are sort of a blend of “how-to” information and customers’ testimonials. So stay focused on the result that X company achieved and the process they went through to achieve it. People will opt in to find out how they can recreate the same result.
3. Webinars: Webinars demo videos are great for lead generation and you know why?... because even if people don’t attend the live webinar, they will opt in for the recordings later.
Got a webinar recording? Just offer it as your lead magnet. It’ll be the easiest lead magnet you’ve ever made.
Show your site’s visitors a sneak peek of a recent webinar that gives them value, and they’ll gladly give you their email address to see the full video.
4. Autoplay Demo Videos: Autoplay videos are the ones that play automatically while prospects visit a landing page. These can be frustrating for a lot of web users. Let’s say you’re halfway down an interesting page or are concentrating on reading an interesting article when a video starts to play out of nowhere. Wouldn’t you be annoyed? I bet you would! Your focus would be interrupted.
So this type of video not only distracts your prospects from the interesting content they were reading but our automatic reaction if we can’t find the “mute” option is... to close the page, OBVIOUSLY. As a result, your prospects not only stop receiving the benefit of the content they were reading but they also vanish, and the opportunity of them being potential customers, simply fades away.
That being said, autoplay demo videos have some benefits from a marketing perspective. They draw the eye. A video that plays while everything else is standing still is going to grab the attention of your visitors and encourage them to click on it. An example of this is Facebook. They allow videos on people’s homepage to autoplay but only when they scroll over them.
CONCLUSION
So now you know why demo videos are so popular and why they make such great lead magnets. You also know the 7 reasons why they convert your website’s visitors into leads.
And last but not least, you learned how to create yours in 12 easy steps:
- Define The Problem
- Introduce Your Solution
- Explain Your Product
- Use Call To Action Buttons
- Include Social Proof
- Be Clear
- Use Empathetic Tone
- Use humor
- Add Images:
- Choose The Demo Video Type
- Write The Script
- Produce The Video
If done well, your demo video will help you boost your conversion rate and will bring in more leads and sales to your business.
Make sure you take care of the production of the video from the start (even the thumbnail you show is important), record it, and offer it as your lead magnet on your landing page.
When you start doing so, you’ll see hot leads coming in non-stop, and all thanks to a video!
And if you need help creating your demo video or any other lead magnet, just reach out to Growbo and we’ll do it for you.
Now tell me something, have you ever created a demo video as your lead magnet? How well has it converted?
Let me know in the comments below.
Keep funnelin', stay focused,
Mariana
