February 23, 2012

Video has become an essential marketing tool. It’s a great way to tell your story, show the human side of your business and communicate highly complex ideas in an easy to digest manner. But while video has the power to deeply engage, it also has the power to bore the viewer to tears—and creating compelling video is different than writing, say, a compelling blog post.

Starting a camera and spouting out a thousand words of brilliant prose does not make a compelling video. There are proven techniques and tools that can help make your videos engage, hold attention and wow the viewer. Here are 10 tools that can help you get started.

1. Prezi. This is a interesting take on the slide presentation as it allows you to create one giant and more easily connected idea and then use the tool to zoom, pan and fly all around the presentation to create a really dynamic feel. It’s not the easiest tool to master, but check out some of the incredible examples on the site to get inspiration.

2. YouTube Editor. I like this tool because it’s free, and because you’re using YouTube to host and stream your videos anyway, it gives you some nice editing capability right in YouTube. You can also add annotations and transcripts to your videos making them more SEO friendly.

3. Camtasia. This PC and Mac desktop software is the market leader in the screencapture video world. Screencast videos are a great way to demonstrate how something online works. Camtasia has some nice features that allow you to add focus to areas on your screen as well as annotations and URLs.

4. Animoto. This automatically produces beautifully orchestrated, completely unique video pieces from your photos, video clips and music. It takes a little trial and error to get right, but adds surprisingly professional touch when you do.

5. Stoome. This is a really unique tool as it adds a crowdsourced element. You upload video clips and borrow from other users. You can then work on your project alone or with others. This is an awesome tool for creating videos when you attend a big event or conference.

6. GoAnimate. This tool allows you to make full-featured animated movies using characters and sets of your choosing. Animation can be a really powerful way to tell your story in a unique manner.

7. Magistro. This tool takes your raw footage and goes through and picks out what it thinks is the best of the best to create a short video. The tool then lets you add music and titles. Again, this is one that is awesome when it gets it right, but a little clunky with it doesn’t.

8. Sellamations. This service will create doodle videos where a hand draws out your story with a marker in high-speed capture. It’s not the cheapest route, but it’s certainly one of the best ways to create a one of a kind video that’s simply hard not to watch.

9. Common Craft. This is another really unique way to tell your story using video. Common Craft uses paper cutouts moved around or white boards to tell your story. This is probably one of the best ways to take a complex idea and really make it easy to understand. Again, hard not keep glued to this format.

10. ReelSEO. This one actually isn’t a tool, it’s just the best place to learn about tools like this as well as how to more effectively use video to build your business in general.

John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.

Related Topics

• Marketing

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John Jantsch, Article, marketing tools, marketing strategies, video, Prezi, YouTube Editor, Camtasia, Animoto, Stoome

Join the conversation ( 8 )

• Sally O'Connor 2 months ago

  

  Great list John! I've used many of these services on that list. There is one more that I feel deserves an honorable mention, and that is fiverr. You can get explosive intros, video reviews, and all kinds of crazy little snippets ... all for only FIVE BUCKS! We even got this guy who writes on a hand sign under water to jot down "next time I'm shopping at Waterbeds Canada"! LOL Its now featured on their website and YouTube. It was a great hit with the client and it only cost us 5 bucks! CheersSally O'Connorhttp://sweetspottraining.com

• Lori Ann Robinson 2 months ago

  

  Loved this information. Thank you so much for saving me time with video research. It is all right here

• Kelly Marsh 3 months ago

  

  Another great tool is Wistia.com Fantastic for hosting videos and tracking user interaction, adding SEO, and google rich snippets.Kelly Marshhttp://kellymarsh.org

• Jean-Pierre Khoueiri 3 months ago

  

  John, absouultely fantastic information. Thank you very much, Why didn't you write this article a month ago I would saved thousands =) I'm going to share this with my brother who charged me an arm and a leg to do an animated video which took a month. Maybe he can lower his costs and mine =) by outsourcing to some of the service vendors you suggest. Thanks again and keep up the great work.

• Lori Berson 3 months ago

  

  Thanks for the list. Some great tools.I've been using VMakers.com, a new service from a group of Hollywood studio peeps.They create professional quality videos from scratch and/or incorporate existing photos/footage, for much less than traditional production companies.

• Volusion 3 months ago

  

  With the recent redesign of YouTube, sharing video is now easier than ever. The YouTube editor is has a ton of great features, especially considering that it's free. It provides a quick and easy way to annotate, adjust and create effects, which makes it suitable for most any type of video. It even assists with adding audio - a great set of tools for the entrepreneur on a budget. Thanks for the list!Lauren at Volusionwww.volusion.com

• Jim Bryant 3 months ago

  

  Another good one is Flixpress for making eye popping intro'shttp://www.flixpress.com/

  • John Jantsch 3 months ago

    

    Thanks Jim I'll have a look at that one.