How to do a great product promo video for less than $200 (opens in new tab)

Stop motion can be another cheap option. Though, it can take a considerable amount of time. I created a video for the launch of this product with no prior experience making professional videos. I used my wife's DLSR camera (if I didn't have one I could have cheaply rented one) and about $50 worth of props from Amazon. This was the result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRdL55iSN-Y

Was the $200 spent on Vimeo Pro? This is why I didn't host mine on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/help/guidelines

Businesses may not use basic Vimeo or Vimeo Plus accounts to host their videos. Businesses may, however, use a Vimeo PRO account to host their videos so long as they comply with the Vimeo PRO guidelines.

I posted this in the comments of OP's blog post, but I figure some other HNers could use the clarification around YouTube.

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Hey Scott,

Simple video and it works - definitely better than many other product promo videos I've seen in my time (as a videographer.)

Just wanted to clarify something about YouTube: ads do not run before, during, or after if you don't allow them. Ads will only run if a video is "monetized," which is a setting that the uploader controls. In addition, I believe embedded content (such as the video embedded in this post) does not have advertisements running ever, but I could be wrong on this point.

That said, both Vimeo and YouTube are great video hosts. I tend to prefer YouTube (if absolutely everything inside your video is original) because it makes the video far more accessible and has a greater chance of being discovered by your desired audience. Vimeo's real advantage is its video page presentation and better compression, at least in my opinion.

Thanks for sharing VoiceBunny! I had no idea this existed, and will make my life easier.

Another option for voice actors that I discovered is http://voiceactingalliance.com/board/forum.php. They are mostly amateurs but many of them do it as a pretty serious hobby and have high end equipment. We posted an ad and had 4 auditions in a week. We selected the best one and then worked with them over the course of a couple of weeks to get the results we wanted. Best of all, it was absolutely free.

Fortunately we also have an amazing designer in house so we could do the rest of the video ourselves. You can see the results at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5siDTau6Rvg (note that we went with YouTube since you can't use Vimeo for commercial purposes).

PowToon looks really great. I need to create a few of these videos soon and I've been looking at different tools and thinking of using keynote but this seems like a much easier and faster solution.

Vimeo clearly states: Vimeo Plus users may not upload videos that are commercial in nature, or that are intended to sell or promote a product or service.

So how can Vimeo be an alternative to YouTube?

Am I missing something here?

It's worth noting that while YouTube could always run ads in your video, it is very rare to see ads in these types of videos. Ads are usually shown by high-trafficked videos, entertainment content, etc.

It depends on the product category you're in, and as always YMMV.

I'm curious how long the entire process took to finish (in terms of man-hours).

Thats not a great video. I stopped after 10 seconds. Its grating, boring and needs me to read words.

I guess thats why the good ones charge so much. The content is pretty important.

Thanks, I've been looking a good, economical, way of creating an intro video, this looks like a really solid option.

Can I ask, do you think it has advantages over, say, recording your screen while you record yourself taking someone through a demo? Then maybe replacing your voice with a voicebunny voiceover?

I imagine cartoon v screen demo is dependent on your audience and objectives, but intrigued as to why you went this route. Cheers!

For scripting I recommend these books: 1) Words that Sell 2) Cashvertizing

I have produced opt in rates north of 51% and actual front end sales conversion rates of 5% percent using those resources to help with building a script

This is certifiably bad ass. Any hints as to pricing or what it was before?

It might be cool to license some more background music from a site like audiojungle.net to make it available.

What are the options for recording Android apps? Post recording editing tools (on Windows)? The voice over can be embedded into the video at editing, right?

I would recommend easyvideoplayer as an alternative to vimeo. Your videos are hosted on Amazon S3 and you can control where your video can be played.

What considerations did you have for the type of voice used?

They lost me at "Were a one stop shop".

aaaaaah, you have a typo "a/b testng".