Video Tutorial – a Step Up Towards a Perfect Onboarding Process

Oliver Bridge

One of the biggest mistakes you can make if you’re running an online business is thinking that closing a sale is the end of the purchasing process.

While converting a visitor into a customer should always be your top priority, there are important steps you can take to create a long-lasting relationship with the customer after they’ve already completed the purchase. Those relationships can help you build a strong brand image but also get results like repeat purchases, and increased order values, which leads to higher customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Implementing an onboarding process is a popular way to connect with your customers after they sign up for your service or buy your product. Lately, one specific format of onboarding has been getting a lot of attention – tutorial videos.

In this article, we will go over everything you need to know about these videos, their most popular use cases, and we’ll give you an instruction on how to create one yourself.

First, let’s learn more about user onboarding and the role that video plays in this process.

What is user onboarding?

We can define user onboarding as guiding your users through the initial process of using your product/service for the first time. In most cases, onboarding is all about education: where the most important features are, where to find more information, how to set everything up.

And, while education and introduction are a big part of it, something else is happening behind the scene – something arguably more important.

Onboarding is a great opportunity to not only educate but demonstrate value. In your onboarding process, you need to try and highlight those features that showcase the key values of your product/service right from the start. That way, the users instantly get an overview of your main advantages against the competition and a peek into a solution to their problems.

Here is a popular example from Slack.

Source: Really Good UX

The first time a new user opens Slack, they see several important things. First, they see how the UX works – Channels are the most important feature that Slack used to almost revolutionize the team chat industry. That’s something they instantly highlighted. Then, you see how a conversation looks – where and how your messages appear. Finally, you’re introduced to the Slackbot, a helper that’s there to help guide you through the process.

In just a few moments, Slack guides you through its most valuable features and efficiently shows you exactly what makes them special. They also provide you a source which you can go to if you have more questions – the Slackbot.

Why does it matter?

Giving your users a rundown of your platform, purchasing process, or product can improve their experience and reduce the need for creating customer support tickets. This is especially true if you’re selling a tool (like Slack) that the users have to set up and customize before they start using it.

Research shows that around 70% of customers claim that understanding how to use your product or service is one of the most important things if you want to convert.

So, providing your users with a clear and quick explanation of your more complicated processes or features will mean a lot to them. Your customers will also be more engaged, which is also proven to be lucrative – engaged customers spend more money and buy more frequently.

The role of videos in user onboarding

The fact that people like to use video to learn how to do certain things is nothing new. Video allows you to use screen recording to explain the most complex actions, along with a voiceover to complement it.

In fact, “How-to” videos get the most attention out of all video categories on YouTube – gaming and music included.

When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense: videos allow you to explain more complicated concepts in a more engaging, clearer way. Video manuals are way more fun than text instructions and you can easily go back if you’ve missed a step. They are also harder to misinterpret.

The one drawback is that videos can be harder to change. If you change the UX design of your tool and you want to upgrade your “How-to” website section, all you need to do is take a new screenshot and maybe tweak the text a little bit. To change a video, you’ll need to do a new screen recording and possibly a new voiceover, both of which are a little more work.

Tutorial videos: your key goals

Now that we understand how onboarding works and how video can help, let’s get into the practical stuff.

When creating a video tutorial for your product or service, you need to think of your goals. Think of these goals as checkboxes your videos need to tick to be considered useful. Here are some of the most important ones.

Education

Your top priority for tutorial videos should be education. Depending on what you’re explaining, you’ll usually need to give your customers all the basic information they’ll need to understand your product and the steps they need to take to get everything working.

Trello did a good job of this: in their initial demo, they take only five minutes of your time to guide you through all the main options and show everything in practice. After you’re done, you’ll know how to set up a board, assign it to people, add labels, etc. The video is as practical as the tool itself!

Source: Trello YouTube

Highlight your value vs. competition

You should also use this opportunity to focus on what makes your product so special. Give your customers some use cases and fun ideas on how to use your service to make the most of it.

This can be useful if you’re selling a tool so easy to use that filming a basic tutorial isn’t necessary. You can also use this if your tool is too complicated, so you need elaborate tutorials for each feature.

That’s what Salesforce did with their “What is Salesforce?” video. Since Salesforce is such a complex tool with so many uses, the tech giant used this video to introduce its key features and only spark the users’ imagination about all the possibilities. In this case, a tutorial video is used as a general introduction to the platform, rather than a technical, step-by-step manual.

Source: Salesforce YouTube

Boost engagement

One of the most important goals for tutorial videos is to keep the users engaged with your product. This is especially important during the first month when the users are just getting familiar with the brand.

Engaged customers represent a 23 percent higher share in relationship growth and profitability. So, make sure you share that video in a way that promotes engagement – emails could be a great idea. 

Types of video tutorials

There are several types of tutorial videos, which means you can take a different approach when it comes to showcasing your product and its features. Here are some examples that you’ve likely come across.

Welcome videos

This is one of our favorite use cases for video tutorials. In your welcome email for new customers, you can include a short tutorial to serve as a roadmap for them to find their way around your service. It usually includes the first steps like creating an account, setting up your workspace, etc. It’s also a great opportunity to show who’s behind the brand and introduce yourself to the audience (more on that later)!

Tips and tricks

These videos are typically shorter and they focus on a specific aspect of the service. You can use them to provide extra value to your customers by showing them the more advanced actions they can perform or some most interesting use cases of your product.

Troubleshooting

As your product keeps getting more popular, you’ll likely notice that some customers are having the same issues and questions. That’s a perfect opportunity to create a video addressing this issue. This will reduce the workload for your customer service agents and give your users a more convenient way of getting answers to their questions.

Learning series

If you want to take tutorials to the next level, you can have a customer support center where your users can come and watch educational videos. The possible long-term effects of this learning center are amazing – your customers will know where to look for answers and you could develop a highly engaged community around your brand.

How to make a video tutorial

Making a video tutorial isn’t that hard, even if you don’t have too much video editing experience.

If you want to do everything on your own, you’ll need some equipment – at least a microphone for voiceovers and some sort of video editing software like Premiere or After Effects. You’ll also need screen recording software if you want to demonstrate how things happen on-screen.

Alternatively, you could post a job on freelancing platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr if you want to get a professional to do it for you. This is an easier but more expensive option, as video editors and animators have their prices per hour and a tutorial video takes several hours to create.

Whether you want to do it on your own or with professional help, you’ll need to have a script. Go through all the details, including what happens on the screen and what goes on in the voiceover/subtitles. If you’re creating a video on your own, a script will be of great help. If you’re hiring a freelancer, they won’t even accept the job without a script.

At Bonjoro, we allow you to create these kinds of videos on your own, with no prior video editing knowledge. You can also use our HD webcam and screen recorder to ensure everything is top-quality!

Put all of this together to create personalized tutorial videos for your customers and send them via email. In one of our favorite use cases, the sales team from Design Pickle achieved an 85% open rate.

Best channels for video tutorials

Once you decide on how to make a tutorial video, it’s time to think about which channels to use to deliver them to your customers.

Here are some ideas.

Email

One of the most direct ways of getting in touch with your customers, email which allows you to get personal. You can address each user by their name (which you can’t use on public places like your website) and introduce yourself. Like we mentioned, one of the best ways to engage users with tutorial videos is to include them in the welcome email, as soon as the user joins your community.

Website

It’s a good idea to have a whole section on your website dedicated to tutorials, “how-to” videos and learning in general. Users intuitively know where to look for information. All you need to do is display it clearly.

YouTube

A lot of companies have entire YouTube playlists with tutorial videos. Many people will go to YouTube and search for tutorials related to your product, so it’s better to meet them with an answer then let someone else (like a YouTuber that makes tutorials) do it for you.

Social media

Chances are people will come to you on social media with questions about your product. If you have a video on your profile that answers those questions, you’ll save your customers’ and your social media manager’s time.

Onboarding with video tutorials: conclusion

Using tutorials is a fun and easy way to introduce your customers to your brand and answer their questions even before they get to ask them.

In this customer-centric age we live in, that’s crucial: being helpful to your users and providing them value throughout the entire journey. And, there is no better way to make the customer feel valued than to keep engaging them with personalized messages even after they’ve completed the purchase. It shows you care about their experience, not just their money.

If you’re ready to create tutorial videos the easy way, register for a free trial of Bonjoro and we’ll help you achieve your goals in record time!

Category
Video tips
About the author
Oliver Bridge
Growth Grizzly
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