How to create a Personalized Video

A Personalized Video has two main advantages:

1.
It allows us to include 1-to-1 relevant information directed to specific audiences, which improves engagement significantly, increases the view-rate and hence, the conversion rates or achieving the video goals as well (understand a message correctly, learn about a product, buy the product, or service, etc.)

2.
These videos are created 100% automatically. Using a database or form as input, Wideo’s Video Personalization Solution takes a video template to create automatically -and in a few seconds- videos with variable information.

This is how you can create huge amounts of personalized videos (we are talking about hundreds or even thousands) for different segmented audiences or even videos with singular content for each person in particular.

What kind of information can be variable and personalized?

A Personalized video can contain 3 kinds of variables: texts, images, and/or colors.

A. Texts

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language”
Dale Carnegie

When creating a personalized video, it’s key to include the person or company’s name if you have access to a database with that information.

By doing that, you gain the viewer’s attention immediately, involving him/her in the video.

It’s important to use the name, or any other personalized data, in an integrated way with the video and not simply overprint it above the animations or images.
As you can see in the example above, the viewer will see his/her name written on a street sign inside the video, and this is what increases the generated impact.

If you use a video footage background and you want to recreate this effect, you can do it as long as the cámara is not in movement. So consider using a tripod to record in case you’re using your own material.
Otherwise, you can overprint the text or use another kind of style using good animations.

B. Images

Other elements that you can personalize automatically are the images or videos.
You can include the viewer’s company logo, his/her photograph, specific footage, etc.

Any kind of image or video file you can access through the input database in the allowed Wideo formats (JPG, PNG, or MP4)

C. Colors

Thanks to the Wideo automation technology, you can personalize colors in the videos as well.
This increases the impact over the person viewing the video as his/her company branding colors will be present through all the video.

When you create a video template thought for automatic personalization -as long as it’s possible- you should define an accurate color palette composed of a primary color, a secondary color, plus the black and white colors (which may apply to any branding style guide)

Primary color
This is the main company branding color. Generally is the one that covers more surface on its logo. You should use it strategically in the video for backgrounds or shapes used as text container backgrounds to assure a better presence.

Secondary color
Some brands have another color with a less visual presence in the branding or used for secondary elements.
In those cases with no secondary color, you can use a derived color from the primary, darker or lighter (for example, blue primary color, white blue secondary color)

You can use the secondary color in the video for backgrounds that need to be lighter or softer to make text readable or other secondary elements in the composition.

Black and white
Any color palette can include these two colors as a compliment. You can use white for scenes, backgrounds, or details and black for texts to assure their readability.

Contrasts
When creating a personalized video for several clients, It’s essential to consider that you probably don’t know exactly which colors will be applied to those videos.
If you create just 10-20 videos, you could do an initial manual check to include all the possible cases. But if we are talking about hundreds or thousands of videos for different clients, that would be impossible.
That’s why you need to design these videos testing edge contrast cases to avoid the possibility that a text has a similar color to the background, which would make it unreadable.

Include variable information in the storytelling

Thinking and creating a personalized video is clearly not the same as doing it for a video with static information.

You need to consider the variable information in the script and storytelling creation process to integrate the elements visually and conceptually.

Before beginning, you need to find information about the people you are going to personalize the videos for. (For example, name, residence city, profile picture, etc.)

Show personalized info as soon as possible

Let’s think about a simple and short experiment. Let’s say we create an A-B test, showing two different people the same video, but one of them (who is called John) is in front of a video that shows this text in the second 2 “Hi John”, which one of them would you think will be more engaged with the rest of the video?

On any kind of video, one of the main goals is to generate the viewer a good impact during the first 5 seconds, as people continuously receive tons of other videos, messages, and information that will compete with ours. Besides, our time and attention gap are lower every day.

The time limit we have to get the viewers’ attention could be measured as the time between one piece of content and the other while they swipe the phone screen with their fingers.

That’s why the sooner the personalized and relevant information appears in the video, the bigger the impact we will generate.

Don’t abuse

Even though what we said is a key to include personalized and relevant information in these kinds of videos, we must choose strategically which data we will use and not abuse them.

On the one hand, including a lot of data could give as a result a nonsense message or a video without a concrete story. The main goal is not to demonstrate that we actually have a lot of users’ information, but to send them relevant information in an easy-to-understand, entertaining and interesting way.

On the other hand, we must have special care with which kind of information we include. Sensitive data such as bank accounts, phones, addresses, etc can generate the opposite effect we are looking for. Such as insecurity, persecution, and mistrust in the brand.

It’s better to use less information well integrated into the story in a fluent way, than including lots of data that doesn’t make sense in the main message.

Now that we covered the main aspects to take on account when thinking about a personalized video, let’s see which are the basic steps to follow for its creation:

1. Define the video goal

As in any other marketing actions, you must define the success case for the piece you are creating. Which main goal are you looking to achieve with the personalized video? It could be for instance to direct the audience to a landing page, increase a product or service sales, get more followers in a social network, etc.

2. Define the distribution of the video

The video could reach its audience through different channels such as a simple link; social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.; it can be embedded in a landing page as an explainer or welcome video; showcased in a live presentation, among others.

Each channel has its own language and behavior, as well as different technical limitations and specifications.
For example, if you are going to distribute the video in a Facebook or Instagram feed, it’s convenient to create it in a square format (1:1) to optimize its visualization in mobile devices.

Also, every channel has a particular development and set-up complexity that you should analyze with the Wideo Automation Technical Team.

3. Define the variables

Once we’ve analyzed the information we have access from an input database, we can define which variables we are going to use in the video (name, logo, branding colors, city, products for specific cohorts, etc)

When using texts, we must include those which are variable between brackets, to make them easily findable by the Wideo Automation Technical Team, which will do the setup work.
For example: {UserName}

4. Write the video template script

Now is the moment to think about the video story based on the goal and variables you will use.
There is no need to write something extremely complex, it could be a simple structure.

To create the script you can use a simple Google Doc divided into two columns, one to write the texts or voiceover (if needed) for each scene or screen, and on the other column, you can write what is going to happen visually for each scene.

Example:

5. Create the video template with Wideo Editor

Personalized videos are based on a wideo template like those you can find in the Wideo Templates Gallery.
It’s all about the main video that the Wideo automation technology will automatically edit to replace the variables (texts, colors, images) for specific information for each audience or individual.

That’s why you need to create the wideo template using Wideo Editor, which is very easy to do.
And if you need to have the wideo template created for you, just contact us, and our team will take care of this part of the process.

You can find video tutorials to learn the first steps on how to use Wideo to create your templates.

Important note about texts variables 

Any text that is used as a variable text will need to be created with an independent text box. This is because the whole text box will be used as a variable and automatically replaced later.

In this example, the text {UserName} is a variable that will be replaced with different names from a database input.

If you are using a more complex text that needs to have a variable word or words, you will need to break the text apart, to isolate the variable, as you see in the following example.

Always consider that a name or any variable text could be replaced with values with different amounts of characters. That’s why the variable text needs to be a bit wider just in case and strategically located in the scene design to avoid being cut.

NOTE: If your video has subtitles, be careful with personalizing them. It can be better to leave the personalization off the subtitles and just into the text displayed on the video. If you don’t know whether you should add subtitles to your videos, read this info.

6. Hire a Wideo Automation Solution; our team will take care of the rest

After creating the wideo template, you won’t need to worry about anything else.

Once you’ve hired Wideo Automation Solution, our dedicated team will take care of the rest of the process., which includes:

• (If you create the wideo template) Creative revisions and general suggestions.
• Parametrization and variables set up.
• Programming and integration with the database, form, or input information source.
• Programming, integration, and output setup to configure the personalized video delivery.
• Dedicated maintenance and support.

Now your business is ready to add personalized videos to your marketing actions and enjoy the amazing benefits of this great technology.
We look forward to your contact!

You can get started by trying Wideo marketing video maker today.

Facundo Romei

Wideo Marketing & Growth 

Top Content Marketing Tools

In today’s world, companies compete for people’s attention. Especially online, where there is this exchange of values. Brands get attention and in return, they provide information, entertainment, education, resources, etc. At the end of the day, it is up to you to identify what your target audience wants from you, and give it to them. Enter Content Marketing.

Content Marketing is the production and distribution of content with the purpose of adding the previously mentioned value to your audience. A properly executed content strategy will help you with:

1. Lead Generation 
2. Improved Conversions
3. Increased Customer Retention

You have a few options when it comes to the type of content you can make. Which one you use will depend on your brand, and your audience’s interest, among other things.

Not all content is created equal. There is:

1. Written content (blogs, reports, case studies, email, social media copy,  SMS Marketing, etc)
2. Visual content (images, videos, infographics)
3. Audio content (Podcasts, blog narrations, etc)

In a perfect world, you could focus on all of them, but you are better off picking the ones that make the most sense to you right now. You should also consider mixing them. For example, You can add a video to your blog, or your email marketing campaigns. This is encouraged since using video has proved to improve conversions in blogs and click-through rates in email marketing.
Now that you know what types of content you could be producing, check out the tools that will help you to do so.

1. Grammarly
   Nobody likes reading a text with spelling errors and grammar mistakes. This writing software will help you to avoid these. You can write the text on their website or add it as an extension to your browser, and it can also be integrated with Gmail. FOR FREE. There are some paid options if you need more. But the free version is a must-have.
   Price: Free

    

    

2. Paraphraser.io
   Paraphraser.io is an efficient AI-based tool that helps you paraphrase your marketing content without affecting its actual intent. This online tool will help you to get an improved and readable version of your marketing content in an effective yet simple way.
   Price: Freemium
   
3. Google Docs
   The beauty of this free resource provided by Google is that: You can share your work with your team and give feedback on the same document. And it automatically saves your work on the cloud. There is nothing worse than forgetting to save your work and losing it.
   Price: Free 
4. Ahrefs keyword research tool
   Keywords are the terms or phrases people type in a search engine like google to find the information they are looking forEx: ¨Animated video maker¨
   
   Keyword research is important because it helps you to understand what topics and questions people are searching for. Which will help you to plan your content strategy from an audience need´s perspective. Increasing your chances of people finding your website. Ahrefs also helps you assess your website´s SEO and conduct competitor research.
   Price: $99month. 
5. Google Keyword Planner: If you need to do keyword research on a budget, this free resource offered by Google is your best option. It is not as accurate as a paid tool like Ahrefs but is still effective.

1. Canva
It is a very easy-to-use editing software with a freemium model, so if you are starting from scratch or have basic editing skills it is a great tool for you.
Price: Free (upgrade available)

2. Vsco
Great if you are editing from your smartphone. Very helpful for pictures meant to be used in your social media.
Price: Free

3. Wideo
It is an easy-to-use animated video editor that helps you save time and money on your video content strategy with a simple interface and ready-to-use templates created by professionals. Great for someone who needs high-quality videos but is not an expert graphic designer or an experienced video editor.

1. Text To Speech
   This software will help you to add audio to any of your written content for free. Just copy and paste the text on the converter and download it as an MP3.
   Price: Free

    

    

2. Adobe Audition
   Is a great audio recording and editing software. It also has several tutorials to help you get the hang of it.
   Price: $20.99 per Month 

At the end of the day, it is all a matter of how you are gonna add value to your target audience. Get to know them, be genuine and then say what you have to say.

   Agus Esperón

    Wideo Co-Founder & Head of UX/Design

    @agustinesperon

Free online resources for creating digital content in quarantine

Following the global pandemic caused by the spread of the virus known as COVID-19, business, educational institutions, and the whole world were abruptly forced to change their routines.

The need to quarantine in order to prevent massive contagion forced the vast majority of businesses and educational institutions to implement ways of work and educating remotely. While some industries are already accustomed to remote work, an increasingly popular trend, the vast majority of organizations had to completely adapt their processes and tools.

Communication between colleagues, students, and teachers, which before occurred without a second thought, turned into a challenge. What was previously communicated in a meeting in the office lobby or school must today be communicated through videos, images, teleconferences, etc.

Conducting effective digital communication that conveys a clear message and captures the attention of the audience is best done with video. Because unlike other alternatives such as images or voice messages, video conveys the message by using the senses of sight and hearing, making it much more powerful. The challenge here is that the vast majority of people do not have prior knowledge when it comes to creating and editing videos.

That’s why in this article we wanted to share some free online resources to help people who do not have prior knowledge with creating digital content. It’ll give you an easy way to surpass any obstacles you might find during the creation process:

1. Online video creator

Wideo is an online video maker for creating different types of video: explainer, promotional, tutorials, educational, internal communication, etc. You do not need previous experience. You can create videos from scratch or use pre-animated templates. There is a free version that will simplify your life when it comes to creating digital content.

2. Storyboard Creator

Our brains love stories. To capture the attention of the audience, you’ll need to tell a story that connects with their emotions. So, before you start designing your digital communication (which includes video) you should take the time to think about the story you want to tell and write it down. Thinking about which texts, images, and voiceover should go in each scene. This is a storyboard. We also want to share with you a free online storyboard creator.

3. Color Palette Generator

If you don’t have any previous design experience and need to create digital content, one of the problems you might have is combining colors. The right combination of colors is essential for your piece. You can find a free color palette generator here. You only need to upload an image from your computer and the tool will automatically return the color palette that best matches the image.

4. Text-to-Speech

We understand if you don’t want to record your own voice. I don’t like to hear my own voice either – it’s uncomfortable. I have not been lucky enough to have a voice fir for the radio. Luckily, with this text-to-speech tool, you can create a voiceover for your videos that sounds professional, meaning no more embarrassing recordings!

5. Screen Recording Software

Share a demo with a client or team member instantly. Record your screen without having to download any software to your PC. You can create a video and share it in just seconds. And it’s free!

6. Useful Video Templates

COVID-19 Awareness Video

Free Webinar Invitation Template

Company Weekly News Video Template

Webinar Slides Presentation Template

7. Videvo

Create virtual Zoom background videos with our easy-to-use animated video maker. No designing skills required. In less than 5 minutes, create animated video backgrounds for Zoom. You can include your logo and it’s 100% online.

8. Zoom Virtual Background Video Maker

Create virtual Zoom background videos without any editing skills. In less than 5 minutes, create animated video backgrounds for Zoom. You can include your logo and it’s 100% online. Here is one of our templates for Zoom:

9. Add watermark to video online

Create a personalized watermark for any video in seconds. Use Wideo’s online video editor as a watermark maker and add your watermark easily!

Conclusion

Digital communication, with video as its main component, has become more important than ever before. Thanks to the existence of free and affordable tools, all companies and educational institutions, regardless of their budgets, can create video content to improve their communication and marketing strategies.
From Wideo, we hope to help you in any way we can. We hope you and your loved ones stay well throughout this pandemic. Be safe!

Is your business ready to discover the power of video? Try Wideo and create your own videos today. 

   Agus Esperón

    Wideo Co-Founder & Head of UX/Design

    @agustinesperon

The ultimate (ever-growing) list of content marketing video tools and resources for 2021

Have you ever struggled to try and find useful tools and resources for creating your videos?

When you are making your videos, finding the perfect means to edit them can be challenging.

Video content can be one of the most powerful marketing tools to communicate effectively with your audience and increase your company’s trustworthiness and credibility.

Companies have found video to be their favorite tool for persuading people and improving their conversion rates.

At Wideo, we are convinced of the importance of video content, which is why we’ve decided to create this list.

It doesn’t matter if you are an expert on the subject or just a beginner. You will find intuitive and easy-to-use tools that anyone can find beneficial.

So, here’s our ultimate list of content marketing video tools and resources for 2021.

• Audio Editing Software
• Royalty-Free Music
• Stock images sites
• Stock video websites
• Video hosting sites
• Production Resources and training courses
• Animated text generators
• Screen Recording Software

Audio Editing Software

Audacity

If you’re looking to get started with audio editing, it’s hard to go wrong with Audacity. It’s an open-source software for editing audio. It also allows you to perform basic audio editing functions that have been on the market for years. It’s of the easiest-to-use tools out there.

Reaper

When it comes to audio quality, processing power, and other technical capabilities, Reaper is a giant. It is among the most consistent and highly rated DAWS today due to its impeccable performance in audio editing and sound recording. Its popularity is increasing every year.

Royalty-Free Music

PremiumBeat

This site offers one of the most diverse and sizable collections of royalty-free music on the internet. With the help of their own music industry experts, they’ve curated over 10,000 tracks that you can sample. Exclusivity is crucial to them. If you hear something on Premium Beat, you won’t be able to find it anywhere else.

Epidemic Sound

By collaborating with some of the most talented musicians in the industry, Epidemic Sound’s tracks are featured on YouTube and Facebook videos and have racked up over 20 billion monthly views. They have been around for years, and they are passionate about what they do and the service they provide.

Stock images sites

Explore free stock photos online! Finding the perfect image can be daunting, but with stock image sites, high-quality photos are just a click away

Unsplash

This is our personal choice at Wideo, and it’s the tool you’ll find integrated in our online editor. It is a website where photographers can share high-resolution images, making them publicly available to everyone for free (including for commercial use). What we love most about this resource is the uniqueness of the photos. You won’t come across any cheesy photos.

Pexels

Pexels provides stock photos that are high quality, completely free and licensed under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and also easy to locate via their Discover pages.

Stock video websites

Pixabay

Pixabat’s videos are all submitted by their community of users and are generally under a minute in length. The website is a good option for more abstract images like clouds as well as highly specific clips. All clips are free for personal and commercial use, with no attribution necessary. The files are provided in MP4 format and in a variety of resolutions.

Videezy

Most free stock videos are provided in HD resolution, but there’s also a good selection of 4K clips – mostly landscape scenes and abstract clips rendered using Adobe After Effects. The quality is mixed but generally high. We particularly like the selection of aerial drone footage. All videos are supplied in MP4 format, and you can see the resolution below the preview on the download page.

Video hosting sites

BrigthCove

Brightcove is an enterprise video hosting solution that’s focused on integration with other marketing automation tools and server-side ad insertion. It’s a scalable solution that’s used by major publications and half of all Fortune 500 companies.

Wistia

Wistia is not just a video hosting website – it’s also a digital marketing solution. Sure, you can use it to upload your videos and embed them on your site, but that’s not their main selling point. Wistia offers advanced features like embedding lead capture forms and other CTAs within the video player itself.

Production Resources and training courses

Lynda

Lynda offers online video training and tutorials. You can learn about videography and motion graphics, including tutorials on storyboarding, color correction, lighting, and video editing.

No film school

This service is a professionally curated website hosting comprehensive knowledge regarding video production. The comments section on each post holds an active community discussion around each topic.

Animated text generators

Sculpteo

If you don’t want to get stuck at every step of the 3D printing process, you can opt for Sculpteo, the 3D animated text generator. Sculpteo analyses every element of your 3D file to point out the mistakes that can be a barrier to 3D printing. It corrects any errors both semi-automatically and automatically.

Icons8

Icons8 is an animated writing text generator that allows you to easily customize and animate text with a wide range of features. Every single week, a range of features are added and improvements are made to bring out the best in Icons8 3D animated text generator tool.

Screen Recording Software

Sendspark

Sendspark makes it easy to record professional-looking product demos in just a few clicks. You can record any webpage with their Chrome Extension for Screen Recording, and instantly embed the videos in emails, website pages, and social media posts to share with your audience.

Webinar Software

Demio

Built to make marketers’ lives easier (and happier), Demio is a seamless communication platform designed to help marketers fuel growth through interactive events and webinars. By flawlessly integrating with their existing marketing stack, marketers can use Demio to engage prospects and customers while also measuring results across their campaigns. Demio is designed with marketers in mind. From the small teams who have never run a webinar before to enterprise customers looking to level up their campaigns, Demio is committed to making marketers successful.

Website Builder

Pixpa

Pixpa is your one-stop solution if you are looking for a website builder. Pixpa offers a feature reach drag and drop interface with which you can build your website, blog, galleries and online store. Beyond these big ones, there are scores of features that you would discover when you use Pixpa more intensively. Pixpa is used by 100,000+ photographers and creatives around the world.

Brand Identity

Squadhelp

Launch a naming contest to engage hundreds of naming experts as you’re guided through our agency-level naming process. Or, explore our hand-picked collection of premium names available for immediate purchase.

Is your business ready to discover the power of video? Try Wideo and create your own videos today. 

Facundo Romei

Wideo Marketing & Growth 

How to create a mobile app demo video

If you created a mobile app and are trying to promote it by creating tutorials, demos, or “video previews” for the Apple Store or Google Play, an app demo video is the best solution.

The mobile application market is increasingly competitive, seeing as customers have many choices when it comes to solving the same problem. Including an app demo video in the Apple Store will significantly increase the number of people who download your app since they’ll want to see it in action before downloading it. Showing how your app works is the best way to present it.

Luckily, app demo videos are no longer difficult to make nor do they require a big budget. There are numerous applications and resources to screen capture your app and then edit them, creating a professional app demo video in just a few steps.

Here we show you how to create a mobile app demo video using the online video creation platform Wideo.co.

1. Screen recording

The first thing you will need is to have a short video that shows your app in action.

There are different alternatives that depend on the mobile type you have.

For iPhone, the latest versions of iOS have a native screen video recorder that is very easy to use.

You can see the step by step of how it works in this link.

While Android does not have a native capturer, some apps allow you to do so. Here you can see the 10 Best Screen Recorder Apps for Android 2019.

You have to start recording and select the main features of the app you want to show.

It can be useful to record several clips or parts individually, or you can then cut the video into different pieces since you may want to show the functionalities at different times of the video.

2. Send the videos to your computer

Once you have the videos that show off your app, upload them to your desktop. If you have an iPhone, you can do this using AirDrop. If not, you can simply email them to yourself.

3. Choose a video template and upload your recorded videos

With Wideo, you can choose a professionally designed video template for creating app demo videos. You’ll have it ready in minutes!

a) Log in to Wideo and click on the “Create New Video” button on your profile.

b) Click on the Wideo template that you want to use. For this specific case, I suggest using the iPhone App Demo Video Template.

c) Click the EDIT button to open the editor with the video template, which is ready to be customized.

d) Select a scene that has a smartphone screen and click on it.

Tip: These images are “placeholders,” and you will see them in all Wideo video templates. Here you can find more information about how to edit video templates.

e) You will see a menu option that allows you to choose where you will import your video from. In this case, select “My Videos.”

f) The video menu allows you to search for thousands of library videos. Select one that you have already uploaded, or click “Upload” and select the video file you have captured from your computer’s browser.

g) Once the loading process is complete, you can scale, rotate, or move the video inside the placeholder, so that it shows correctly inside the phone screen.

Once it’s ready, click Confirm, or cancel to upload another file.

Repeat these steps to add more videos to other scenes. You can duplicate this scene and replace the video with another capture.

You can also continue to customize the video’s text, colors, and logos.

Finally, once your app demo video is ready, you can download it as .mp4 file or upload it directly to your YouTube channel.

NOTE: If your app demo is going to have a narrator, you may want to consider adding subtitles to your video

Check out some ready-to-use Mobile App Video Templates.

Is your business ready to discover the power of video? Try Wideo marketing video maker and create your own videos today. 

   Agus Esperón

    Wideo Co-Founder & Head of UX/Design

    @agustinesperon