Made a promo video (what I learned)

I made my first promotional video for my SaaS! It's for Sidemail email marketing update we recently launched. A lot of new features were added, so making a video felt like the best way to show it all.

It's short (50 seconds), no fancy animations, but apart from that, I'd say it turned out pretty good. I loved the music at first, but now, I'm having nightmares from it, lol.

👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkzxvxvFyIM

How I made it:

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For windows users, like me, the trickiest part is the screen recording. I tried almost everything I could find:

• ❌Windows Xbox capture (won't record browser built-in select inputs, alert windows, etc.)
• ❌OBS (black screen issues, too complicated)
• ❌whatever I could find on Github...

✔️ What I found out to be the best is Captura, an open-source, totally free, no watermarks, no sign-up, just a superb piece of software. The only issue I had was, I desperately wanted to record in 4k. However, my laptop couldn't handle it. Looking back, I should accept my defeat sooner because editing 4k footage would be a total nightmare, anyway.

I should also mention loom.com, I used it a few years back and didn't like it, but seems like it's getting popular and might be even a solid option if you get the $10/mo plan.

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For video editing, I used Adobe Premiere Pro because I had some previous experience with it, but I would not recommend it if you never used it before. It's too complicated and overwhelming at first.

• If you're in a hurry, use whatever you know or have access to - iMovie or Win10 pre-installed video editor or for Linux here is a list on askubuntu
• If you're planning to make a lot of videos in the future, learning Premiere Pro might be your best bet - it won't go anywhere as it's industry standard and there's a tone of tutorials on YouTube. I recommend this 5-minute tutorial.

A big inspiration for my video was this Launchaco's video - I remember seeing it on ProductHunt and it just stuck with me. What I like about it is how simple and cleverly it's done (the way they move the logo at 35 seconds is the best part).

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The music and sound effects (mouse click, keyboard typing, "woosh") are from SoundCloud.

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Made a video for your product? Please share in the comments! :) About to make one? Good luck!

👉 And here's the Sidemail page with the video.

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