Create onboarding videos your customers will love watching!

Do not index

When a new customer signs up for your service, how you welcome and guide them can make all the difference in their experience. That's where onboarding videos come in. These engaging, informative, and often entertaining videos can transform a daunting learning curve into a smooth, enjoyable journey.

In this article, we'll explore what onboarding videos are, why they're so effective, and how to create ones that your customers will love watching :) Let's dive in!

What’s an onboarding video?

The goal of your onboarding journey is to get your users to realize the value of your service as fast as possible. A successful onboarding sets the stage for a successful user experience, which leads to higher customer satisfaction and retention.

An onboarding video is a powerful tool in your customer's onboarding journey. It serves as an engaging and informative way to introduce your service, demonstrating how it can be used and the benefits it provides. Think of it as a visual tour of your service.

In other words, an onboarding video is an opportunity to make a strong first impression and help your users understand the value of your product right from the start. While onboarding videos are just one tactic among many in the onboarding process (like product tours, tool tips or help center documentation…), they significantly enhance your overall onboarding experience.

Why add video in your onboarding?

Effective learning

Studies show that people retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. This makes video a highly effective learning tool.

Memorable experience

Videos are more memorable, helping your service stand out in the minds of your users.

Fast track user activation

The goal of your onboarding is to get your users to the "aha" moment as quickly as possible. Videos accelerate this process by providing clear, concise, and engaging instructions. Faster than speaking with a representative or reading a lengthy article.

User autonomy

Users become more autonomous as videos allow them to learn at their own pace without needing to contact a representative. This can lead to higher satisfaction and better support outcomes.

Fun and engaging

Let's face it – watching a video is more fun than reading a manual. When users enjoy the onboarding process, they're more likely to stick around and explore further.

In short: include them in multiple places and all the places where they can be most effective.

Product Prompts/Pop-ups: Display a video immediately after a user signs up or performs a significant action. This timely nudge can help guide them through the next steps.

Onboarding Emails: Send a welcome email with an embedded video. It’s a great way to introduce key features and get users excited about your service.

Your Help Center: Make your videos available in the help center for easy reference. Users will appreciate having a visual guide they can return to whenever they need. They will also be available to be picked up by AI chatbots.

Best practices to create your onboarding video

1. Understand your customers and user personas' objectives

This step is crucial. Know what your customers hope to achieve with your service. Tailor your videos to address these goals specifically and directly.

This will allow you to speak more about use cases and business challenges they want to solve as opposed to pure features. This will also help you translate their objective into a clear aha moment for them. Your video should lead them to that moment.

If you have multiple user personas, define objectives for each. It’s a good practice to ask a few onboarding questions after they create their account to identify their persona and provide relevant onboarding content as a result. This ensures that the content is relevant and engaging for them.

2. Personalize your video content

First, even before the video, you can personalise the support where it’s shared - a landing page or an email for example - and its preview/thumbnail. Include a logo, a first name or company name. This personalization will entice users to actually play the video and not skip it.

Include the user's first name or company name in the audio make them feel special and encourage them to continue watching.

Localize the audio and add substitles in their preferred language for better accessibility.

Adapt the video content to fit their specific needs and interests, based on their persona.

3. Professional video editing

Edit your video to look professional. You can record your video with studio equipment or simply a screen recorder. But seek to use an online video editor to enhance your recording.

Concretely:

Use AI voiceover to have a clean audio, without filler words, clean spelling and writing each sentences the voice reads for greater impact and brievity easily.

Add zoom effects to make your video more accessible and allow your users to identify clicks.

Change speed where needed so your video shows key points but doesn’t last more than a few minutes.

Get started!

By following these guidelines, you can create onboarding videos that not only educate but also delight your users, setting them on the path to success with your service!

Gluetrail is a chrome extension that allows you to create personalized onboarding videos 10x faster. Here’s a brief step by step on how you can apply all these tips quickly and produce your first onboarding video in no time.