Landing page feedback for a product that creates landing page explainer videos
I'm working on a desktop app that will let you record explainer videos for your app. I got inspired after reading a Baremetrics post about rolling out your own gifs for your feature. Unfortunately, it required the use of a few different pieces of software. I thought that there must be an easier way to create explainer videos for your features. Here is a comparison with the alternatives that are out there:
While free, Quicktime videos don't do a great job showing off a feature. Most videos capture a large viewport, which makes it difficult to follow the actual feature.
Marketing agencies can create explainer videos, but the price is steep. I've seen quotes for $x,000s.
Screenflow is software that people can use to create explainer videos, but I liken that software to Photoshop, while this desktop app will be more like Sketch.
Would you pay for a desktop app that lets you easily create explainer videos for your landing page?
Hi @flowrecord, great landing page! I love the concept.
I was a product manager who did lots of demos for new features. I have been looking for a similar product and even have considered building one.
The challenge, though, is that the key pain-points that I have when making demo videos are not about "enhancement effects" such as adding panning and zooming. Here are some examples of the biggest issues:
Normaly, I used Camtasia and spend lots of time cropping and overlaying clips. But this is time consuming.
@flowrecord, have you encountered any products that solve for the problems I described above?
Have you encountered any other potential users who have shared similar feedback?
Hey @ryanh1, that is really interesting insight! I haven't stumbled across anything like that before. This post has really helped with my validation process.
For bullet points one and two, assuming this is a webapp, you want to be able to easily manipulate elements on the page.
For bullet point three, can you explain what you mean by the edits not being obvious to the user? Do you mean that the edits don't connect well to each other?
This is the first time that I'm validating the product, so I haven't really received much feedback about the product.
Hi @flowrecord, glad this is helpful.
This is what I mean by edits not being obvious. Suppose that I want to make a 3-minute screen recording that includes 20 mouse clicks, 4 parts where I type some data, 2 periods where the app takes 15 seconds or more to load, and swipes between different apps on the device.
Ordinarily I would record this in multiple takes. I might record the first 5 clicks, then the second 5 clips, etc. I might further chop of these clips in editing -- for instance -- if I update the talk track, maybe I want my mouse to hover over different buttons. Maybe if I release a new version of the product, I will re-record the portion of the demo that shows the feature update and leave the rest as-is. I also might shorten those long loading times from 15 seconds to 3 seconds so the audience is not waiting so long.
However, I want it to look like 1 seamless take. I need to edit the clips in a way that my mouse is not jumping from 1 section of the screen to the other. If the demo includes swipes between apps, I need to hide the edit between apps so that it looks like a true swipe, all in one take. If one section of the video is showing a new version of the software, I need to edit the transition together so it's not noticeable to the user.
Thank you for the explanation! Would you say that you would like a tool that can detect these "choppy" bits (loading bar or transitions between apps) and remove them automatically for you?
Yes, but removing those choppy bits is far more important than detecting them. When I'm making the video, I can tell that those choppy bits are in there. I have gone to some pretty extreme lengths to remove them. For example, in Camtasia, I'll layer several frames over top of each other. Some of those frames may have white space only. Sometimes I will create a custom image that is a plain box with the color of my background and strategically place that in different parts of the app. Mostly, I know where the choppy bits are. The hard part -- and valuable part -- would be to have a tool that lets me clean them up really easily, without the hours of layering frames on top of each other in a video editing software.
This feedback has been super helpful! I know you originally asked me if I knew any users that shared the same issue. I wonder if you have encountered other PMs that spend so many hours editing video. Also, let me know if you need help with feedback on anything.
Unfortunately none come to mind. Wishing you good luck with this, and feel free to keep me posted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4HLHqoRDMk
Hey @orliesaurus! Wow, thank you for recording that video. I really appreciate it. I'll work on that feedback.