Your enthusiasm for your product is contagious. When you talk about it, people grasp the value immediately, but you don’t have time to sit down with every possible user and walk them through it. That’s where the power of the demo video comes in — you can capture your product’s best features and unique use case all while entertaining and engaging your audience. Plus, it’s easier for fans to pass around to tell their own peers why they love your product so much!
We’ve selected ten demo videos from all over the web that illustrate best practices: a clear problem and solution, appeal to your unique target market and a great audio track, from smooth narration to sound effects and music. Include some of these into your video and you’ll capture the hearts of potential users. Enjoy!
Lucky Ant: The video begins with narration from several characters, and I bet you would empathize with at least one of them. Lucky Ant’s service is like a Kickstarter for local small businesses. The narration is clear and interesting, and the music keeps things moving along.
Padmapper: This site plots apartment or other home rental postings from Craigslist and similar sites onto a map. Even if you’re looking for a place in Los Angeles, you’re a bit amused to hear the French accent — who doesn’t wish she was about to move to Paris? It’s aspirational. But beyond that, the narrator recognizes the basic customer needs and explains how the service can meet those needs.
Shopify: This video starts with a compliment. Even if you weren’t looking for this service, you start thinking, hey, maybe I could use this! The voice talent is friendly and approachable, a big part of what makes this video a win.
Zazzle: First off, who can forget unicorn poop? That’s what makes this video memorable, it is a quirk that so aptly describes reality. The video also goes deep into the pain point of creating shirts and it’s easy to see why this service is so popular.
MovieClips: Sure, your service does a million things and solves a thousand problems. But in a video, you have little over a minute to retain viewers’ attention. That’s why MovieClips chose one pain point that was universally applicable and used it as a selling point.
Duolingo: Videos are of the utmost importance for the products that are the most complicated. Duolingo is one of these. It begins with a classic problem — how languages can be exclusive — and wraps their web solution inside. Now, its product is not just translating websites, it’s connecting people.
Groupon: This is very simple and to the point: It begins with the value proposition, followed by a call to action, and the animation is a clear illustration. Think of objects shown like the bag of cash — it aptly defines Groupon as a “thing that saves money.”
Cottonique: Sound effects can be used in nearly any video. They serve to make actions more realistic. Notice the baby crying at 00:46. It might not capture attention, but it does grab your emotions.
Twitter: One way to capture your audience is to present your product through the eyes of a skeptical user. Common Craft does that here, with Twitter. General needs lead in to specifics and the unique value proposition is met.
BitTorrent: Here, Common Craft allows one character to explain the service to another. This is more friendly than the all-knowing narrator, especially when the technology is complex. No hard sell was needed — the biggest hurdle for BitTorrent was providing understanding of the product because that itself proves value.
