Creating an engaging and effective training video might feel like an impossible task. Training videos are notorious for being boring and droning on and on. Your employees are likely going into a training session with this expectation, so it’s essential that you create a training video that keeps their attention and helps them learn!
So if you’re wondering how to make training videos more engaging, then you’ve come to the right place! Read on to find our top tips for how to create training videos that your employees will actually pay attention to and learn from.
Determine Key Takeaways
Before you begin the journey of creating employee training videos, it’s important to determine the main purpose of your training video. What are the main things that you want your employees to walk away with? These are your key takeaways.
Your key takeaways are going to help you craft your video – what order do you want to cover the key takeaways? What is the best way to describe each topic? What visuals should you include with each topic? Once you’ve answered these questions and have a general idea of what your video will look like, you can move forward with writing your script!
Create a Script
The next step in answering the question of how to make a training video is writing out a script. You have a general idea of what you want to include in your video, but now is the time to get more specific with how you want to say it.
As you’re writing your script, it’s important to note that you’re going to go through multiple drafts. You don’t need to get it exactly right on the first pass. In fact, the script is often an ever-changing document even throughout filming. While you should be ready to make changes in real-time, it’s also important to have a good base script to work off of.
Use Professional Equipment
One way to take your training video from good to great is to use professional equipment to film your video. If your video looks like it was filmed with an old school camcorder in poor lighting and with terrible sound, you will lose your employees’ attention immediately. The quality of your video matters more than you think!
Use Engaging Visuals
The best way to make training videos is by using a combination of different shots. If you’re interviewing a subject, it may be more engaging to show the person speaking and then switch to a shot reenacting what they are describing. You may also want to utilize animation or graphics to keep things interesting. Whatever types of shots you use, just be sure to switch things up every so often without changing it up too much.
Include Onscreen Text
When creating training videos, it is imperative that you include onscreen text. Whether your employees will be viewing the training videos in a conference room altogether or at their desks individually, there will always be distractions. The best way to keep viewers focused is by providing the message audibly and visually. It is more likely that employees will retain the information if they are both seeing and hearing the messaging.
Keep It Short
One of the top tips for how to make a training video is to keep your video short. Don’t try to fit too many topics into one video – when in doubt split topics up into multiple videos. If a video is too long, you will lose the attention of your employees and the key takeaways will be lost.
So what is the right length for a training video? Unfortunately, it’s not one size fits all. The optimal length of your video will depend on the topic. Unless the topic of your video requires an in-depth explanation, try to keep the video under 10 minutes.
Include Other Activities
One way to ensure that your employees retain the information that is presented in the video, it can be helpful to include accompanying materials. This can be a complimentary quiz or a handout. Whatever other activity you choose to add to your video, just be sure that it’s something that will be engaging and not detract from the effectiveness of the video.
Now that you’ve got a handle on how to create training videos, it’s time to get started! Just be sure to keep in mind all the tips listed here so that you can create an engaging training video that is also going to train your employees. If you’ve got ideas but are a bit unsure how to execute them, we would be happy to help. Our team of experts can turn your vision into reality and have your video ad up and running in no time. Send us a message or give us a call at 831-824-9660 to get started today!