Of course! You absolutely can make software demo videos yourself. Many people and organisations do. There are many software packages that you can use to make your own software demo videos for IT systems, Apps and platforms. For example, Camtasia Studio, Adobe Captivate, Screenflow.
These video software packages tend to be marketed with messages like “Create videos quickly and easily”.
However, in my opinion, it does take time to learn how to use the video software. These types of video software are jam packed with editing and production features. So making these videos “easily and quickly” doesn’t happen immediately.
It didn’t for me. It is a steep learning curve.
So before you download a trial of the software, ask yourself the following questions to help you decide whether you should make the software demo videos yourself:
- Have you created software demo videos before?
- Do you learn new software quickly?
- Have you really got the time to learn the video software?
- Do you actually want to learn the software or, do you just want to get high quality software demo videos created quickly?
- Is it worth investing that time learning the software when you may only need a few videos creating for your business?
- Do you have experience of writing video scripts for software demo? It’s a very different style of writing to writing for the screen or print.
- Do you have a strong eye for detail? In any video editing software you will have to be comfortable fine tuning and synchronising videos to the hundredth of a second!
It’s also important to know that producing software demo videos is only one part of the process. You still need to complete other tasks which the video software will not do for you. For example:
- Planning the tasks you want to teach
- Script writing
- Thinking of graphical ideas to support the software demo videos
- Finding and paying for a professional voiceover artist to record your script
Taking all this into account, the question IS NOT:
Can I make animated software videos myself?.
The question IS:
Should I make software demo videos myself?
If you’re serious about using on-boarding videos in your business, then I strongly advise using a professional video production company with a track record of producing high quality software demo videos. And you should definitely NOT be making your software demo video if you answered “No” to any of the above 7 questions.
A DIY job could result in poor quality and frankly – a crap video where people do not learn effectively how to use your system.
We work closely with all our clients and take them through every step of the video production process. We do all the hard work for them which includes:
- Writing and refining the video script
- Getting to know the software from a user’s perspective
- Creating a storyboard
- Recording the voiceover using a professional voiceover actor
- Producing the whole video