Make A Marketing Video With Animoto - Part 1
There are quite a few free video making software applications available but Animoto is one of my favorite. It’s web based, easy to use and you can create fun and exciting videos with simple images, a little text and some music. The concept is simple:
1. Upload your images
2. Add some text descriptions
3. Select your music track
4. Create your video
I’m going to walk you through the process in a little more detail so that your videos really represent what you want them to. You will see a completed video at the end of this article.
First you need to gather some images. This will be the “hardest” part.
Step 1: Gather some images that apply to your niche. For example, if I was promoting a dog training product or website I would gather images of dogs sitting, rolling over, happy people with happy dogs, etc. I may even include an image of the website logo or ecover of the product.
If you don’t already have these images on your computer then do a search on free image sharing sites like Flickr for royalty free images you can use. Clipart images work well for this purpose too. If you have a hard time finding enough good images for your video then you may have to resort to purchasing professional images from places like iStock Photo. It may cost you a few bucks but the images you can find there are outstanding.
Be sure you save all images in .jpg or .gif format.
Note: Animoto has three account options — Free, All-Access-Pass and Business. If you want to just try things out first then go for the free option. You can make an unlimited number of 30 second videos. If you like the service and plan on making a lot of videos then, by all means, go for the All-Access-Pass. Then you can make an unlimited number of videos of any length you want. The Business version isn’t necessary to do what we want to do here. Click the image below to sign up and get a $5 discount.
With the free version you will need 12 - 20 images. With the paid version you can have as many as you want, but I usually stick with 30 - 40. The final length of the video will depend on how much text you decide to add and how many images you use.
Step 2: Organize your images in the order in which you want them to appear. I find that creating a new folder on my desktop and saving the images with a number (01.jpg, 02.jpg, 03.jpg) in that folder helps me organize them easier.
Step 3: Write a script for your video. Use the copywriting principle of AIDA to come up with a few sentences that will draw your viewer in and get them to click on your link to the website or product you are promoting. You want to grab their Attention, Keep their Interest, Build the Desire for them to visit your site then give them an Action to take by visiting. Here is an example:
“Does your dog have trouble behaving?” “Put an end to the stress and embarrasement of your dog’s behavior problems!” “. . . And slash you dog obedience training time in half. . . ” “by using techniques that give you immediate results!” “Go to TrainYourDogWell.com for my secret dog training tips.”
If your video will be longer than 30 seconds then you will need a longer script than that, but you get the idea. You can even use a few sentences or bullet points from the sales page of the product to get you going.
Step 4: Add text to your images. You have two option for adding text to your video in Animoto. First, you can add text directly to your images using any graphics program you have access to. Windows users should have Paint installed on their computer. Or you can download a free graphics editing program like Paint.net or Gimp. With these programs you just need to open each image that you want to add text to and type. You can format the text in any way that looks appealing to you, just don’t use a font that is hard to read. Make the text centered on the image and use a font size of 16 to 20 so the text shows up well in the final product.
Here is an example video I found using this method.
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