How to Create Onboarding Videos That Foster Engagement and Retention

Introduction

The use of onboarding videos is essential when welcoming new customers and showing them how to start best using the product. The videos also assist in breaking down complicated activities, enhancing user experiences as well as motivating customers to maintain their engagement.

If you are asking yourself how to create onboarding videos that are effective, this blog attempts to not only emphasize their importance but also how to create onboarding videos as well as the practices to employ for maximum viewer engagement and retention.

The Importance of Onboarding Videos

• Enhances Engagement: Onboarding videos engage new users because they are visually stimulating and encourage them to interact with the product as soon as possible. Instead of reading long manual content, onboarding video allows the customers to learn in a much easier way and provides entertainment value, so the customers do not get bored and want to dig deeper.
• Reduces Costs: Videos target a lot of anticipated customer's questions and issues and provide answers to them which eliminates the requirement of excessive customer support. This helps in cutting down training costs and allows the customers to be independent users of the product.
• Boosts Retention: Clients are more inclined to remain customers once they are aware of the correct method to utilize your product. A more general summary that is created using real-life cases helps in trusting the product even more that they have made the correct decision.
• Eliminates Confusion: It is uncontested that audiences are fond of procedure-based visuals which are step-by-step and can also eliminate smoking-gun confusions that may occur when new clients are making first contact with the brand after purchasing their first unit thus minimizing their disappointment and improving their overall first impressions.
• Educates New Customers: A SaaS onboarding video is also useful in providing fast comprehension of your product's attributes and advantages for customers. A good overview is important to help users improve their learning curve regardless of the level of their proficiency.
• Improves Accessibility: Onboarding videos can also be made global through captions, translations, and other modifications so that customers with different levels of language can be included.
• Customization: A SaaS onboarding video with various functionalities appeals to individual users expectations making them feel more appreciated. Such targeted followers can know their specific problems or questions directly.
• Saves Time: Onboarding videos offer information that is both quick to learn and sufficient, so the customers don't have to take so long looking for the necessary information. This encourages quicker adjustment and improves satisfaction overall.

Steps to Create Engaging Onboarding Videos

• Define Clear Objectives: Establishing the goals for the videos beforehand will increase effectiveness - whether they are meant to show the functionality of the item, explain certain features, or resolve an issue. Having a definitive vision will help the video remain focused and useful.
• Find Your Target Customers: Quite simply try to learn about the expectations, likes, and difficulties of your audience. Define and specify the type of content you can create so that it meets your audience's expectations while bearing in mind their level of operation and their problems for effective engagement.
• Select the Best Hosting Platform: Select a channel that provides convenience to your typical customer, which can be your website, an app, or a video-sharing site. The channel should also allow optimization and smooth running of the video, as well as give insights on how the video is performing.
• Make a Content Plan: Define the major topics that your video will address. Make every effort to keep the dialogue short and, most importantly, ensure there is a logical connection between words and the action. A detailed outline reduces repetition and stresses key points.
• Demonstrate with Visuals: Employ visuals, animations, and screen recordings to simplify complex concepts for the audience. Demonstrations are the best way to illustrate procedures, and all steps will be comprehended and retained by the customers.
• Personalization: Add the audience's or customer's name in the video or narrate a scenario related to what they will be watching so the video is more personal. Personalized video messages are more interactive and make the video appealing to individual customers.
• Include CTAs: Go a step further to include good calls to action like 'learn more features' or 'reach out to support'. CTAs assist the actual voicing of the next steps to be taken aiding in user engagement and understanding.
• Optimization: You should also ensure a SaaS onboarding video does not take time to load and ensure it can be watched on a mobile phone. Subtitles should also be applied to cater to different audiences. The audiovisual content should be modified according to the device being used and the bandwidth.
• Promotion: Encourage customers to go through your onboarding video by sharing the promotion link through various channels like email and social networks to increase the chances of reaching out to them effectively. Targeted advertisements and promotional offers enhance visibility through the customer's interaction.
• Track and Measure Performance: Make use of video analytics for engagement, video views, and feedback from the customers. Realize the modification for the following hyper personalized video messages based on the previously mentioned video's messages so that there will be nothing more to deliver to the consumers in the future.

Best Practices for Effective Onboarding Videos

• Decide the Type of Onboarding Video You Need: You should identify which type of SaaS onboarding video you need from videos for explaining 'how to' and 'step by step' tutorials, short animated videos for conveying some complex themes, real-life videos for dramatic and narrative audiences, or video interactivity for the highly engaging on-screen contents. Each type is advantageous in a different situation, allowing you to more closely match your onboarding video to the audience's preferences and ultimately helping the users remember what was done and why.
• Personalize Your Onboarding Videos: Make sure to include names, actual use throughout the video, and targeting industry in the onboard video. Making videos that are relevant to the audience makes them more relatable in the eyes of the customers. This makes people feel seen and there are no blind spots in the videos. Issues or goals that these videos bring to the audience instill trust and brand loyalty and as a result, users are more likely to explore and use your product more efficiently.
• Use Onboarding Videos on the Website Home Page: To immediately engage visitors, place videos that walk through a product's usage prominently on the homepage. Such videos give a fair preview of the main aspects of the product. They urge the users to dig deeper, making sure that their first attempt towards interacting with the platform is useful and pleasant, improving the engagement and conversion rates in the process.
• Include Videos on Product Use Tip Pages: Incorporate videos in the tip pages to demonstrate how to perform certain tasks or use some features in video format. This would make everything more precise and allow the users to ease into using the features of your product. The use of videos together with the texts covers two fronts addressing various learners and enhancing the overall experience of the users.
• Add Videos to the FAQ Section: FAQ videos address and give quick, visual answers to the questions posed by the frequently visited customers thus making it easy for them to resolve their problems. The advantages of a SaaS onboarding video in this situation are not only for ease of use but cater for the temper of customers who would rather watch than read. It increases the usability and efficiency of the platform without too much customer dependence on the actual customer service team.
• Send Videos in Personalized Emails: Sending personalized emails to customers with a SaaS onboarding video placed strategically would give the customers a direct interaction with the video. Such emails can portray potential solutions and thus make the receiver appreciated. Additionally, introducing customers through videos enhances email open rates. Therefore, videos are great because they introduce customers to features without being too formal.
• Show the Video During Free Trials: Utilize free trials and showcase customer onboarding videos enhancing the features that are likely to be missed. The purpose of these videos is not just to advocate for your product, but to help as well. The test is that trial users should be more inclined to convert after this as it puts them focused on what they want to achieve and builds confidence in the brand for the future.

Conclusion

Onboarding videos in the form of presentations can play a critical role in engagement, and retention, and the fact that it can help customers onboard your product with minimal hassle.

Onboarding videos can be done exactly how they are supposed to be done, by creating a comprehensive brief that outlines key focus areas, the intended audience, and relevant guidelines.

Lastly, effective onboarding is what would achieve the objectives of the company and the customers to be achieved in the long term. Consider all the information if you don't know how to create onboarding videos to boost customer engagement rapidly.