What We Learned about Product Release Videos from WordPress Businesses
We asked the WP product community for their favorite product release videos and they delivered. Here’s what we learned.
For years, video as a marketing tool was expensive and challenging. But recently, advances in video technology and more budget-friendly and powerful software tools has made video production far more affordable and accessible.
This means making powerful and persuasive product release videos is not only possible, it’s quickly becoming the norm for WordPress product companies. If you don’t have an exciting and visually appealing launch video, will anyone really actually pay attention at all?
So we asked you, the WordPress creator community, what are you doing with WordPress product release videos?
Here’s a few “do’s” and “don’ts” that we learned from all your videos.
Always Clearly Define the Problem you are Solving
A couple of the examples did a great job of introducing the video by defining a problem.
The Barn2 Discount Manager video really drives home the pain-point that you’re going to have to spend many tedious hours if you’re trying to implement discounts across dozens of products in WooCommerce. Once you clearly feel that pain (and after the first minute of that video – you will!) they show you how to avoid that pain with their product.
Similarly, the Plugin Republic Variation Swatches video shows how unimpressive the default WooCommerce variation swatches are, and how much more visually appealing their product will make them.
This technique has a great “before and after” effect when done well.
Using Real People Makes a Real Difference
I know AI voice techniques are really interesting and getting better every day, but the videos that used real people with their real voices just had a better overall deliverability of the message.
My video showcasing the Classic template for GiveWP is very up-close-and-personal. I’ll tell you that I really wanted people to feel like I was chatting with them, and showing them my own experience with this new template.
Mike Stott also walks his viewers through What’s New in Jetpack. It’s a great example of succinct and actionable product updates. Mike is relatively new at these types of videos and his production quality and engagement has increased continually. I’d keep an eye on this channel and take some notes for your next product release video.
Don’t stick only to YouTube. Get Creative with Video Options Native to the Platform
Not every product release needs to be a YouTube video. Video is available on virtually every social media platform now and posting natively can be much more powerful than routing them over to YouTube.
Rich Tabor did an in-depth post thread on X.com showcasing what was new in the WordPress 6.4 release. While this isn’t a tradition “product release” I think it’s a great model and example that product shops should try to emulate, particularly if you know a lot of your audience is on X.
Matt Medeiros posted his video natively to X, rather than posting a YouTube link. This allows the viewers to stay right where they are at, which I’m guessing results in longer watch times.
The best advice when choosing where to post your videos is to focus where you believe your audience is the most. But nowadays, our audiences are everywhere! YouTube, X, Instagram, TikTok, they all have native video options which have unique feature offerings and can drive engagement with your brand in different ways. We recommend posting in several platforms and experiment to find what works best for you.
Use Music and Animations to Create Energy
Some of the videos users provided us didn’t grab our attention as well. Perhaps they were a little slow-paced, or maybe just a tad too long. That negative effect though is compensated for a little with energetic music that makes you just that much more excited to be watching. Music can be really supportive of driving your message – but no matter how great the music is, it can’t compensate for a weak script. So use music to amplify your script, not compensate for weak or unengaging content.
A few of the submitted videos do a great job of zooming in or using animated transitions to draw the eye to the most important actions or visuals.
Comment with your Favorite Product Release Video
Just for you, we made a YouTube playlist of all these product release videos. If you have one that you’re particularly proud of, comment below or on our X thread above, and we’ll add it to the playlist.
As always, let us know what tips or insights you have experienced in making your own product release videos. Democratize the Business Insights!
