We worked directly with their product lead and script writer to create four screencasts from 2 minutes to 5 minutes that show various aspects of their product.  The videos are now hosted on their main landing page and component list page.  Here’s an example:

The process included prototyping the initial screencasts, iterating with the scripter and working with a new American narrator.  Much of the material was static so we developed ways of calling out and zooming in to the material to focus on the key visuals.

The four videos are also available in our YouTube account:

• mindOnline demo video (deleted at client’s request as it is now out of date)
• openMind Students Book demo video
• openMind Teachers Edition demo video
• openMind Workbook demo video

If you are interested in having demo videos like these for your product just get in contact.

I’m also rather pleased with the 289 positive scores and lovely comments.  Ok, ok, I’ll stop feeling so pleased!

We created the screencast with Wladimir Palant (AdblockPlus’ maintainer), the goal was to show how useful the plug-in is everyday and to show even Firefox newbies just how easy it is to get started.  In the meantime we won a few awards with TechSmith and YouTube which is rather nice too:

They’re listing a $99USD price (1/3 off of the standard price) during the launch period.  I was running it on my MacBook, it seems to be as solid and useful as ScreenFlow (the main competitor).

I didn’t use it so much as we were forbidden under the terms of the NDA from releasing anything we recorded – as a professional of course I like to share my work   Now that I have a full license I suspect I’ll be playing with it some more.

“I needed a screencast for my product for quite some time, but actually doing it always got too complicated somehow. Then along came Ian and he helped me to get both the message right and the beautiful screencast online. I’m still fascinated by the ideas Ian and his team came up with to avoid any issues that arose during the making of the screencast.” – Igor Jese, CEO of MockupScreens

For this production we’ve taken a new approach:

• Richard and Ian tell the story of a Client and Consultant (this is our first 2-voice narration) working together on a new prototype
• We use a speeded-up section to build a part of the interface in just 15 seconds (this bit is very pretty!)

We’re very happy with the result – rather than just spelling out the features instead we take you on a relevant, context-laden tour of the package showing you all the tools that satisfy a prototyper’s needs.

The speeding-up with animated stop-watch is a nice mechanism to convey a time-consuming scene quickly, whilst still showing you that we start from the basics and build to the final product.

Kudos where it is due – our idea for the two narrators comes from Joel Spolsky’s wonderful FogBugz 6.0 tour where two of them lead us through a chatty tour of their bug-management tool.

Richard has a write-up too.

We’ve just finished working on the following screencast for Andy (CEO) at Orchestrate to demonstrate their workforce scheduling software.  This screencast replaces Andy’s earlier screencast that we’d critiqued, the new version appears on their Tour page.

“Working with Ian was a pleasure from beginning to end. He has a fantastic understanding of the steps involved in shooting a compelling screencast, combined with the ability to communicate with our target audience.

His approach was methodical and focused reflecting his extensive experience in this field.

I was very impressed with the new video, and we have received many compliments on how well it demonstrates the features of Orchestrate” – Andy Wright (CEO)

Our solution shows you ‘a day in the life of Orchestrate’, it shows you how easy it is to schedule jobs and see that they’re completed.

The goals are to show Operation’s Managers:

• It is very easy to learn
• Everything runs in the web-browser with no additional software
• Scheduling and rescheduling are easy
• There are no start-up fees or lock-ins
• Operatives provide a write-up after the job for Compliance
• Clients can see the status of all their jobs

The ultimate goal is to convince more visitors to the website to try Orchestrate, improving their conversion rate so they acquire new paying users without having to spend more on advertising.

Given the number of software solutions available to Operation’s Managers it was necessary for us to design the right screencast to convince them that this tool is the one they need.  Our process involved:

• Profiling the intended viewers
• Analysing the needs of these viewers
• Dropping Andy’s approach of the Feature Tour
• Adopting the idea of a story
• Story-boarding to create the right story
• Creating a script that fulfills the story’s objectives
• Recording a prototype for critique
• Creating a finished screencast
• Providing YouTube, .flv and .mp4 versions

Now we are monitoring the results to see what kind of improvement the new screencast brings to Andy’s sign-up rate.  Details on this will follow.  Richard has blogged an entry from his point of view as the animator and co-creative and client-Andy has blogged a superb entry:

“I didn’t understand how to tell an engaging story about labour scheduling software, but the team at ProCasts did.”

If you want to more effectively convert your visitors into signed-up paying users, get in Contact to talk about our Examples and how we can help you.

The previous poll showed that the majority of you use Camtasia, followed by Screenflow and CamStudio respectively.  I’ll be using this feedback when drafting our first eBook on ‘how to screencast’.

Become a better screencaster – read The Screencasting Handbook.  We’re distilling 4 years of experience into our book, the book will tell you everything you need to know to screencast faster, better and more efficiently.

This was one of the first screencasts I’d seen uploaded to YouTube using HD, even though it is mute and with annotations you still get a lot of information on how the product works:

The Good:

• Short, just 27 seconds long
• High Def so the visuals are crystal-clear
• Easy to follow – the Windows are joined and separated, it all looks very easy
• Easy embedding – YouTube is used so I, as a reviewer, can easily embed the screencast here (great for wider exposure)
• Public statistics – over 1,080 views at YouTube in under 2 months so Mo is obviously getting exposure (the fact that others are paying attention gives me confidence)

The Bad:

• No narration – so no explanation of what’s going on and the benefits to the end user
• No music – music is nice to set the scene on a marketing screencast
• No call to action – I get to the end of screencast and I’m interested…but what should I do next? What if I have a question?

Improvements:

• Add narration! Tell a useful story, explain the benefits, tell the user why this is great for them
• Add a call-to-action – you’ve got their interest, tell them how to get started right now and what to do if they have a question
• Answer any fears – remind the user about the money-back guarantee (this could just be in a text call-out) and the fact that it is both easily tried and easily removed
• Add testimonials into the video – let me see Social Proof that other people are using WindowTabs and that they find it beneficial

Our screencast tutorial series gives tips on all the above points.

If you’d like a private review of your own screencasts and advice on improving their quality, we offer this as a service, just get in Contact.

The Good:

• The video is short (2:30) and moves along at an OK pace
• The demo works fine and the product looks easy enough to use
• The video is hosted by YouTube in HD so the visual aspects are very clear
• YouTube is used so external sites can embed the video to drive extra traffic like this one.

The Bad:

• Background hum, probably from the mains electricity, this is really distracting.  There’s also some street noise near the end
• Non-native English narration – I can understand it but I’d imagine other international users might have trouble which will reduce the audience
• No call-to-action – if your viewer watches right to the end then they’re probably interested – tell them how to try your tool and how to get their questions answered
• The videos aren’t embedded in the product page but are hidden behind a red ‘Watch Product Video’ link

Possible Improvements:

• The audio must be fixed, I’ve written about how bad audio can really reduce a viewer’s perception of the quality of your product.  Always use a good mic in a quiet environment and perform an audio clean-up step in post-production if necessary
• Many frames could have been cut in post-production to cut out 15-30 seconds of dead footage
• A call-to-action at the end will remind interested users how they too can try your product (remember: Don’t Make Me Think!)
• Embed the videos on the Product page, possibly using a javascript pop-up box (like here in ProCasts), so the user doesn’t have to visit other pages to find the videos

If you’d like a private review of your own screencasts and advice on improving their quality, we offer this as a service, just get in Contact.

Andy wanted to demonstrate the app to his site’s visitors so he created his own screencast.  Currently it is shown here (YouTube), Andy has engaged us to work on a replacement, now shown here (also see our write-up for the new screencast).  Here’s the original:

The Good

• Short video (1:42)
• Clear and well paced audio
• Even without zooms the video is very clear (thanks to YouTube’s HD option)
• Clear demo, the app looks easy-to-use
• Shareable (thanks to YouTube player)
• Transcript provided for extra Google Juice and accessibility

The Bad

• Andy sounds bored!  This leaves the viewer unengaged
• The video forgets to sell the main USPs of the product
• Lots of wiggly-mouse action when a zoom and highlight would make the point more clearly

The use of YouTube is interesting – the HD option keeps the video’s quality high and Andy has access to the Insigh analytics that YouTube provides.

I spoke to Andy about the audio, this was his first screencast and he narrated whilst recording the screencast which made it difficult to concentrate on the tone of what was being said.  A Twitter user remarked along the lines of “Could this guy sound any less interested?” (tweet since deleted), thankfully Andy saw the tweet and was able to start a conversation:

@nicepaul – I appreciate your candor regarding my voice-over at http://orchestrateapp.com/tour, I’m working on an improved track (twitter)

@andykiteman hope i wasn’t too frank! just seemed not to do the site (which is great, btw) justice. (twitter)

@nicepaul No, your honesty is greatly appreciated and was echoed by others. I was screen-casting & reading the script at the same time – v. bad idea (twitter)

The fact that the video doesn’t mention the Unique Selling Points (qualifications are constraints, locations are integrated, write-ups are required for Compliance reporting) is a big mistake.  From the inside, it is easy to forget that you have to spell everything out to the first-time visitor.

We are working on an improved screencast for Andy that addresses these issues and walks you through A Day In The Life of Orchestrate, I’ll link to the result once it is ready.

Andy White of Wire World Media interviewed me for the Internet Marketing Podcast episode 48 Ink, Paper and Screencasts a couple of weeks back, we’re the last 12 minutes of the hour-long marketing podcast.

Topics covered include how screencasts convince more first-time visitors to try a product, how screencasts reduce support-costs by letting the viewer solve their own issue and how to get started using free and commercial software.  Also discussed is my plan to start revealing the positive statistics of using screencasts on conversions from A/B tests.

This podcast is listed with others and useful articles in our screencast interviews post.

Full transcript:

Andy:  So here we are on a rather windy day outside in Pavilion Gardens in Brighton, and I am sitting with Ian Ozsvald.

Ian:  Hello Andy.

Andy:  Hello there.  Now Ian, let’s just do a little bit of transparency at the front.  Ian does own a business called ShowMeDo, is that correct Ian?

Ian:    Yes, co-founder in the business, ShowMeDo, and I run a screencasting company called Procasts.

Andy:  And Procasts do screencasts for people, screencasts being ?

Ian:    A screencast is a video showing software in action.  It can show a web app or desktop software running in a video.  If you go the Apple site and you see their videos, those are screencasts.

Andy:  Brilliant.  So, what we want to talk about today in this brief interview is the reason why doing a screencast to promote your business or your product is a good idea.

Ian:    Thanks Andy.

I run a screencasting company and I’ve got a big thing about education.  I love teaching people how products and how skills work.  So, what I want to do in this interview is explain to you why you should be using screencasts in your Website.

Now, a screencast is a demo of software.  You have a 2 or 3-minute video showing the software in action.  This means that your first-time web visitor who’s never seen your product before, rather than forcing them to wade through screens of pictures and text trying to figure out if your product does what they need, instead they see it in action.  They get a nice, comfortable voice walking them through the product, they see it solving the problem that they’ve got, and at the end of it, they know whether your solution solves their problem.  And if it does, fabulous, they can get involved.

Andy:  Now, I’m guessing that this type of approach is particularly good for people whose product is actually software.  Would that be right?

Ian:  Absolutely.  If you’ve got a desktop software product on any platform, or if you’ve got a web application, then this is ideally suited for you.  Of course, if you’ve got a real-world product, you’ve got a physical product somebody uses in their hands, then you can’t use screencasting.  You’re going to need to use a real-world video, and we see that advertised on the tellie all the time, so we know that technique works.

But with software products, pretty much nobody is exploiting the technique of screencasting, except perhaps for Google and Apple and I’m really pushing for everyone to get involved with screencasting and try it out.  You can get started with paying no money at all, and the results really can be quite dramatic.

Andy:  Now, how does somebody, perhaps who is not technical, Ian, make a screencast?

Ian:  Now, a couple of years ago, you would have to download a piece of software to your machine, and it was software for Windows and for Mac machine.  You would install and you would run it, and it would capture the entire screen and the audio feed coming in from a microphone.  So, it’s a bit like using an editing piece of software on your PC.  You have to have some savvy using video editing software.  It would record your screen.  You would have scripted your presentation beforehand.  You’re going to run through your presentation, showing your user ñ just like having a demo with a friend sitting next to you, showing them what’s going on, clicking around, and at the end of it, you’ve got a nice video, which can you put onto the web.

Now, in the last six months, there’s been some interesting developments.  Three companies are now offering free web-based softwares.  One of them is Jing by Techsmith.  Another one is Screen Toaster.  And, the third one is Screencaster.

Each of these, they’re free services.  You go to their Website, you say “start recording,” it downloads a small applet, and it just starts recording your desktop and the audio feed from your microphone.  So, you can get started with no money at all.

Andy:  Now, I’ve heard of Screen Toaster.  Do they all work in pretty much the same way; basically, you download a small, sort of, client that runs on your machine, and then it uploads it to the mother ship, as it were?

Ian:  Absolutely.  From what I remember, with Jing you download an applet, which you install on your machine, then that runs locally.  So, every time you use a new machine, you have to install this bit of software.  Screen Toaster and Screencaster, they’re using a Java applet inside the browser, so you just click “record” and it just download what it needs.  You haven’t got to install anything, and it just starts recording off the bat.

Andy:  And do you get a chance to edit if you make a mistake, or do you have to redo it from the beginning?

Ian:  That’s the interesting thing, showing the immaturity at the moment of the online recording software.  With the online tools, you can’t edit your video.  You have to download what you’ve recorded and edit it offline, so on a Mac using iMovie perhaps, and on Windows, using one of the many editing tools.

But, if you’re using the desktop-based software like Camtasia on Windows and ScreenFlow on a Mac, they always come with an editor built in, so you can do all your editing there after you’ve recorded your video.

Andy:  Brilliant.  Now on your site, on Procasts, your exposing some steps, aren’t you, that show how effective having a screencast is?

Ian:  Well actually, what I’m intending to do is show the stats from ShowMeDo, because I am a co-founder of that site.  I’ve worked with clients and demonstrated some pretty interesting numbers.  For one of the clients, we’ve double his sign-up rate just by putting a video on the front page, and for another client, we decreased their support emails by 25%, and basically freed up one day of a guy’s time per week by making him not go through the same steps on a support query.  So these are pretty good numbers.

But, because their stats are private, I can’t expose those.  And really, to fulfill my aims of education, I want to expose real good, analytic data, and so I’m doing an experiment with ShowMeDo at the moment where I’m using videos on the sales page to increase the conversion rate, and I’m recording the stats.  I’ll be exposing those stats in their raw form on my blog, and then going through a number of A/V tests trying out different video styles, presentations, different ways of including the video, all to demonstrate exactly the right ways to increase your conversation rates using screencasts.

Andy:  So, where do people need to go to look at your blog, Ian?

Ian:  You need to come to my blog.  That’s blog.procasts.co.uk.

Andy:  Now, do you have any tips for people that are just about to embark on doing some screencasting, do’s and don’ts, Ian?

Ian:  Absolutely.  One of the first things you should do is think about who your audience is, first of all.  You want to isolate one group of people that you’re presenting to, and then you want to craft a script up front.  If you sit down and you just blather away for 10 minutes trying to come up with things on the fly, you’re going to have lots of um’s and er’s and gaps, and the video’s not going to be very well targeted.  No one’s really going to want to watch it.

But, if you know who you’re presenting to, what you’re teaching them, and you keep your script to 2 to 3 minutes (I always try and aim for 2 minutes), then you’ve got a really snappy, nice presentation, you’ll get your message across, and 80% of the viewers then will understand what you’re trying to explain and they’ll move on straight away.

If you go and start with the online free software, like Screen Toaster, then you can get up and running without paying any money, and you can just experiment for free.

Andy:  Do things like Screen Toaster make it easy to embed the video on your site?

Ian:  With Screen Toaster, you get a download link and they embed the video in their site, and I believe you can embed that video into your site.  Certainly, you can upload to YouTube, and you get some analytics out of that for free, and then you just take the video and you embed it into your site.  Alternatively, and I’m including this in my screencasting tutorial that I’m running on the blog at the moment, you can download the video, put it into your own site,  (6:55 unintelligible) based, and then using free JavaScript tools, embed that video; no adverts, no YouTube related video links, just your video in your site and play it to your users.

Andy:  You touched on something really interesting there, because when I first started this conversation with you, I was thinking, “Oh crikey, yes, this would be really good for people that perhaps have some software that they’ve developed, or maybe they’re a consultant and they want to show people how to do basic stuff.”  But, you mentioned support, and I had forgotten completely about support.  I mean, commonly asked questions; how do you do ABC where ABC’s a very commonly asked thing.

Andy:  Absolutely, yes.  One of my clients here in Brighton, they came to me and said that one of their guys was basically losing a day a week answering a query for users to their subscription service.  How did they stop paying every month?  And, they would be a bit confused about the process.  Commonly, they weren’t terribly web savvy user, they needed handholding, they wanted reassurance that they weren’t going to get their credit card cancelled by going through the cancellation process, so they kept on phoning up and sending in emails.

So, I created a video, just a very slow, well-paced video, 5 minutes long, going through all of the steps, lots of reassurance, and then overnight, this chap stop receiving support requests, and one day a week was freed up.  So, that’s a fantastic way just to stop spending your time and money repeating the same questions and answering them, and instead, get on with developing your product.

Andy:  So Ian, thanks so much for talking to us.

Now of course, your Website for the Procasts is

Ian:  Procasts.co.uk.

Andy:  And if anybody wants to, then obviously, go visit us.

Ian, what are your plans for the next few weeks?  I know you’ve got some requests, haven’t you?

Ian:  My big plan is to run a campaign to help everyone get a screencast into every Website.  I really want to see more people adopting the technique of screencasting.  So, once I finish the 9-part tutorial – I’ve got a few episodes to publish in the next few weeks – once that’s finished, I’ll be publishing a new series on the blog discussing how to get a screencast into your Website, why you need it, and how it will increase your conversations, and everything you need to do to get those screencasts in there.

Andy:  Well, some great tips there.

Ian Ozsvald of Procasts.co.uk, thank you very, very much indeed.

Ian:  Thanks very much Andy.