Mastering Learning & Training Videos: A Guide to Engaging and Effective L&T Content

THE LEARNING AND TRAINING VIDEO CHALLENGE

If you’ve been tasked with creating Learning and Training Videos for your company but you’re not sure where to start, we hope this article helps you get started on the right foot. We’ve created a ton of L&T content for our clients (some of it award-winning) with videos ranging from expert interviews to demonstration videos, and from animated explainers to live-action videos with actors, props and locations. There’s so much you can do to create effective training videos and we know that it can be a little overwhelming. Let’s look at some of the options and some examples below. You can also see more about our L&T services here.

TYPES OF LEARNING AND TRAINING VIDEOS

Animated Videos use animation, graphics, voice overs, music, on-screen text and typography, and visual storytelling to explain concepts, processes, or skills in an engaging and easy-to-understand way. Instead of relying on live-action footage, these videos use characters, icons, and motion graphics to simplify complex ideas, making them more digestible and entertaining for the viewer. Animated training videos are great for breaking down tricky topics, adding a fun element to learning, and helping to keep viewers' attention. They’re also highly versatile, as you can create animations for a wide range of subjects, from technical training to soft skills development.

With custom graphics your video(s) can match the branding of your company completely. We use colors, fonts, icons and anything else we can identify to make sure the content fits your brand’s identity.

Something to think about: If your team or audience is diverse, or if you have locations in multiple countries, you should consider adding closed captioning to your videos. This way you can use the same exact video content for multiple languages.

Expert Interviews/Talking Head Interviews are on-camera conversations with someone who has specialized knowledge, information or experience in a particular topic area. The goal with these interviews is to deliver insights, advice, or unique perspectives from the expert that can be valuable to the audience. Whether the focus of your content is new hires or current employees, this type of video is personal and speaks directly to your team. They’re very useful to deliver information about policies, compliance measures, procedures and customer service.

Demonstration Videos are perfect for explaining how to use a product, how to access a service, and how to complete processes found in the workplace. You can be as simple or as creative as you want to be with these videos. Simplicity may mean that you have one of your team members on-camera showing how to use your product. A creative demonstration video can have multiple team members, a built-in storyline, and even actors brought to play parts of customers, buyers or users.

Interactive Videos are a little like role-playing. While your audience watches your video they are given questions or options to choose from resulting in a correct, or incorrect, answer. The video jumps to a new scene based on their answers. These videos are sort of “gamified” and are similar to the “choose your next step” books you might have read. It’s a great way to keep people interested, and it’s a great way to train your workforce. Not only do viewers learn what the right answers are, they learn which answer are wrong and that’s really helpful.

New Hire Orientation/Recruitment Videos typically feature people from your team speaking on camera. The motive here is to introduce your new hires to the culture, policies and processes of your company. You can also include shots of your location (office, shop floor, warehouse, customer service areas, etc.) to give viewers a flavor of where they’ll be working and what’s it like to work at your brand. Orientation videos can be as creative as you want. For example, if you consider your company to be a fun place to work, have fun with your video and use humor and quirky music. To use a very specific example of being creative, if you’re a book publisher make your orientation video a story about a new person coming to work for you and the amazing things that happen to them along the way. There’s no limit on what you can do.

These videos can be used for both an internal-facing audience (employees, new hires), but they can also be used to show off your company and culture to the general public. If you want to create video content that speaks to both audiences, make sure there isn’t any proprietary information included that you don’t want the public to know.

Workplace Compliance Videos are usually very straight-forward. They involve a person, most often in some type of management role, speaking on camera to inform your employees about things like policies, procedures, emergency management, data protection and more. We help out by providing teleprompters during filming to make it very easy for the people who are on camera.

Compliance videos are almost always internal-facing because they contain proprietary and/or company-specific information.

Animated Explainer Video

Orientation Video

Product Demonstration Video

Workforce Recruitment Video

HOW TO GET STARTED?

One of the first things you need to do (any maybe the easiest one) is to ask “is your video content is going to be internal- or external-facing, or both?” A video can be both internal- and external-facing. For example, New Hire Videos are great to show new employees. But if they’re done right, they can also be used to introduce the public to your brand’s culture. Creating video content that works for both your team and the public is a great way to get the most bang out of your buck.

What is your budget? Each type of Learning and Training video requires its own budget size. An animated video using custom graphics that match your brand style will be more expensive than an animated video using stock assets. And a demonstration video using one team member is going to be more cost-effective than a demonstration video that used actors and locations. And while the type of video you create may be more costly, it pays off with branded elements, engaging content, creativity and sets your brand apart as unique, professional and trust-worthy.

How many videos do you need to create? If you want to show viewers how to use your product, one video usually suffices. But what if you have a long list of policies you need to discuss? A module of videos may be the way you need to go. Modules separate videos by topic and each module can build upon the previous one. They’re also a great way to make your content more engaging as your employees can watch videos one at a time and take their time watching each one. With a module system you can also track views, time on site and more. If you do go the route of video modules, you’ll need a back-end system to host your videos. This isn’t a big deal and the costs are pretty low considering that this is where you’ll host such important content.

Once you’ve answered the above items, the script is the very first step in the actual pre-production process and is the foundation of all videos. Nothing can happen without it. It’s so important that you may need to make it a group effort on the part of your company, or hire copy writers or your video production company to create it. The important thing is to make sure you are writing the script to be engaging but also informative. The information in your video is very important and you want to make sure viewers stay engaged.

At this point, you’re ready to take-off. But before the cameras roll or the animations get created it’s time to:

• Choose the team members who are going to be on camera, or find and hire actors to take part in your videos.

• Find locations for your videos (your office, a conference room, an outdoor space, etc.) that match the dialogue that viewers will be listening to.

• If you’re doing live-action videos (not animation) it’s time to schedule dates for filming.

WHY STORYBOARD MEDIA GROUP IS YOUR PERFECT L&T VIDEO PARTNER

We’ve worked with clients in all types of industries to create L&T content: tech, healthcare, education, lifestyle. We’ve created L&T content for include Raymour & Flanigan, Chelsea Piers, Port Authority of NY/NJ, Mercedes, United Technical Institute and The State Bar of California in Los Angeles and San Francisco. We’ve created content that has helped our clients win Brandon Hall Awards for Excellence in learning and training programs. And we’ve partnered with one of the largest L&T development brands in the world to produce live-action training videos for their clients.

We provide full-service including script writing, concept creation, finding and hiring actors, finding locations, production teams, storyboarding, editing and more. If you want to be sure your video production company can tick all the boxes on your list and create the content you need, look no further than Storyboard Media Group.

Is Your Company Missing Out? The Importance of Recruitment Videos

What Exactly Is a Recruitment Video?

A good recruitment video is a multi-purpose video content tool your organization can use to attract potential candidates for current and future job openings. This type of video showcases the company culture, values, and benefits of working on your team. Recruitment videos often highlight sincere employee testimonials, office environments, and key responsibilities associated with the roles being advertised.

When you create a recruitment video you’ve already set yourself apart from your competitors who may be going for the same potential candidates. Your video can help make your brand shine as candidates weigh their options.

In addition, you can use this same video content to showcase your brand to potential clients. It can be used on your website, on social channels, and anywhere else your customers may find you.

What Do You Need For a Good Recruitment Video?

First, you need to have employees on camera talking about their work, the company and the culture. Like any good testimonial video (a recruitment video is essentially an internal testimonial video) the interviews should be lite, sincere and done by team members who genuinely want to be on camera and are happy to talk about their jobs. Let them be honest and real, but give them guidelines about the goal of the video and the boundaries of what they should be talking about.

And don’t forget to have a range of employees from different backgrounds and different departments. You should showcase employees from the management team and your general workforce. This shows potential candidates that you are all on the same team, and that the messaging is consistent from top to bottom in your organization.

Ensure brand recognition and a sense of location with products or branding in the background of your recruitment video.

Second, you need to showcase the facility or location where the job is taking place. Set up your interviews to take place in an interesting (but quiet) location in your building. Show employees at work. If they interact with clients on a daily basis, make sure to include this in the video. If one of your interviewees works in the warehouse, film them in that environment.

Third, include footage of employees interacting with each other whether that’s during work or during lunch. Capture honest interactions and conversations. Recruitment videos need a high level of genuine footage to attract the right candidate. People are smart and will see through anything that is highly constructed to look a certain way.

What Is the Best Kind of Recruitment Video?

If your team is customer-facing, make sure to include some footage of them working with clients. One of our clients runs the largest personal fitness company in New York City and a huge portion of their work deals directly with the public.

The answer to this really depends on the type of business and team you have. Some of our clients pride themselves on being a fun team. So for those clients we highlight people having fun at work (not a bad idea for any recruitment video actually). Other clients see themselves as more technical or technology-forward. So we make sure to capture those scenes for them, and the interviews focus on that important fact. And still others are just straight out over-the-top different. In that instance we used puppets that acted as employees and shot them in the location doing routing jobs and giving puppet testimonials.

It’s extremely important for you to decide, in advance, what you want your message to be and how you want that message to come across. Don’t be afraid to be honest, serious, silly or technical based on your company’s culture and identity.

The overall aim is to provide a vision that resonates with prospective employees and enhances your brand image. By effectively communicating what sets your organization apart, your recruitment video can significantly improve the quality and the quantity of applications your business receives.