Video Demos Are More Than Just Videos

It was gratifying to read Jason Kincaid’s piece in TechCrunch this week that he thoughtfully titled: The Underutilized Power Of The Video Demo To Explain What The Hell You Actually Do. If we disregard the fact that it might have been easier to make a video than to type that heading, Kincaid makes some strong points about the power of video to deliver something between an elevator pitch and a run through of your key features.

It’s a topic that I touched on back here when I blogged about Your Video Elevator Pitch, and it’s one that continues to have legs. Kincaid’s article focuses more on the value of video to show a product demo. While I agree completely that video should be a big part of your customer education program, I would argue that video has a more fundamental role to play on your site.

Kincaid uses the video made for Dropbox.com as an example of effective video. I watched the video on the Dropbox homepage and it does a great job of explaining the service. I was a little surprised though, when at the end of the video I was directed to go to their homepage. There was a great call to action at the close of the video to download the software, but there was no correlation between the call to action in the video and the Download Dropbox button that sat below the player. I was even concerned that the download button sat partially below the fold on my laptop screen making conversion less likely for the people who watch.

I guess the point is that a great video demo is part of the solution, but you also need to concern yourself with placement and conversion to ensure that you’re getting the best return on your investment.

As always with TechCrunch one of the most valuable parts of the article is the comments section. From there I got this great link that Andrew Angus over at Switch Marketing put together of Producers of Explanatory Videos.