Tips to Create Engaging Training Videos

Training videos systematise a process, lesson, or policy and remove the chance that something vital will be missed in a presentation. But how easy is it to make a quality training video for your expanding business? If you think you need specialised skills or experience to make a great training video, we have great news for you. In today's fast-paced business environment, training videos have become an indispensable tool for employee development. They offer a versatile and engaging way to disseminate information, ensuring that all employees receive consistent training regardless of location or time constraints. However, creating effective training videos  requires careful planning and execution. Here are some key steps to ensure your training videos are impactful and engaging.

Benefits of Using Training Videos For Employees Over Presentations

You’re probably asking yourself, “Why should I use video training?” The answer is simple: it’s an effective way to communicate a message. Video training allows you to engage your audience and provide them with information in a clear, visual way. You can follow the trends of training videos if you want to be even more spot on. It enables them to get answers quickly and easily, making learning more enjoyable than ever before. In fact, video training is as beneficial for workers as it is for companies. These are just a few great reasons to use video training for your employees. What makes a training video the better choice for growing businesses and entrepreneurs looking to bring on new staff?

Anytime Access

While a presentation over a lunch break can be difficult to arrange for all involved participants, videos can be watched at any time and as often as the viewer wants.

Affordability

After the time spent creating the video, it is free to watch and distribute. You don’t have to cut time out of everybody’s schedule for an in-person meeting to hear a presenter speak, and you don’t have to hire a subject matter expert to present the information. With Pitchy, you can create professional training videos in just a few steps. 

Accessibility

Video is a useful tool because it has built-in accessibility options for members of your staff that might be deaf or hard of hearing, have learning disabilities, or need to watch something multiple times in order to fully retain it. With Pitchy you can easily create closed captions and descriptions of what is being said in the video.

Define Clear Objectives Before You Create Training Videos

Before you start creating your training video, it's crucial to define clear objectives. Ask yourself what you want your employees to learn and how this training will benefit their roles and the organisation. Having specific goals will guide the content creation process and help measure the video's success.

Know Your Audience

Understanding your audience is vital. Consider the demographics, learning preferences, and existing knowledge levels of your employees. This will help tailor the content to their needs and make it more relevant and engaging. For instance, new hires might need more detailed explanations, while experienced employees might benefit from advanced training topics.

Plan Your Content For Your Training Videos

Create a detailed outline of your video content. Break down the information into manageable sections and sequence it logically. This helps in maintaining a smooth flow and makes it easier for viewers to follow. Include an introduction that outlines what will be covered, the main content, and a conclusion that reinforces key points.

Keep It Short

Finding the balance between keeping your content succinct and including all necessary information can be challenging. Employees may have a heavy workload and countless distractions to deal with on a daily basis, which means that a long video is unlikely to hold their attention. An ideal video length to combat short attention spans would be 3–6 minutes, but you could go up to 30, granted that you provide suitable breakpoints every few minutes. If you need to go longer than that, it's better to make a series rather than an epic video.

Focus On One Thing At A Time

When creating training material, you might be tempted to cram as much information as possible in it. Although this aims to help learners take a deep dive into the matter at hand, it might result in confusion and disengagement. Instead, the video development best practice we suggest is choosing your key subject and sticking to it. Minimise redundant explanations and steer clear of "fun facts" that distract learners from the main point. This way, you will achieve greater clarity and learner engagement.

Use a Script For Your Training Videos For Employees

Writing a script is essential for a polished and professional video. It ensures that all necessary points are covered and prevents you from going off-topic. A well-written script also makes the video more engaging and easier to follow. Practice reading the script out loud to ensure it sounds natural.

Invest in Quality Equipment For Your Training Videos

While it's possible to create videos with basic equipment, investing in good quality cameras, microphones, and lighting can significantly improve the production quality. Clear visuals and crisp audio make the video more professional and easier to watch. If budget allows, consider hiring a professional videographer or editor.

Make Your Training Videos Visually Engaging for Your Employees

Incorporate visuals such as graphics, animations, and real-life examples to illustrate key points. Visual aids can enhance understanding and retention of information. Additionally, using branding elements consistently helps reinforce the company's identity and creates a cohesive viewing experience.

Incorporate Interactivity

Interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and reflection questions can make your videos more engaging and reinforce learning. These elements encourage active participation and help gauge the employees’ understanding of the material.

Provide Supporting Materials

Supplement your training video with additional resources like handouts, infographics, or links to further reading. These materials can help employees deepen their understanding and provide a reference for future use.

Add Captions And Voice-Over to Your Training Videos for Employees

One of the top priorities of your video training program—or any other type, for that matter—is to be as accessible and inclusive as possible. Adding a voice-over to accompany the actions shown in the video and captions to avoid any misunderstandings is a great step in that direction. These additional aids are useful for not only employees with visual or auditory disabilities but also employees with varying learning styles. Moreover, they allow employees to still watch the training videos in noisy environments or without headphones. Pitchy recently came out with a a new feature: automatic transcription. This AI-based feature allows users to transcribe their voice-overs OR speeches in their videos automatically in the subtitles panel and then correct/customise them. There’s also a feature on Pitchy where you can directly translate your subtitles in over 50 languages. Pretty amazing, right?

Test and Gather Feedback From Your Employees

Before rolling out the training video to the entire organisation, test it with a small group of employees. Gather their feedback on the content, clarity, and overall effectiveness. Use this feedback to make necessary adjustments.

The examples of Online Training Videos for Employees

Online training videos come in various forms, ranging from simple “how-to” tutorials to comprehensive, multi-part lessons. Understanding the different options available can help you create engaging content and avoid redundancy for your audience.

No matter which type of training video is most relevant to your needs, remember that diversifying the format and focus can greatly enhance the learning experience.

Corporate Training Videos

Corporate training videos are commonly used to ensure uniform practices across a brand with multiple sales and marketing channels. These videos can vary in length from short segments to extensive sessions. Pitchy can help you create inspiring corporate videos.

Educational Videos

Educational training videos focus on teaching processes, policies, or strategies relevant to the business, rather than academic subjects like arithmetic or reading. These videos are often used for onboarding new employees but can also be utilised to train staff on new equipment or sales strategies.

Employee Training Videos

Employee training videos are designed to onboard new hires and provide information on company policies such as sick leave, vacation time, and other benefits. With Pitchy, you can create your own employee training videos.

Health and Safety Training Videos

Health and safety training videos are essential in workplaces with potentially dangerous equipment. They serve as general public service announcements and help protect the company from liability.

Customer Service Training Videos

Customer service training videos help standardise policies, ensuring a consistent customer experience and simplifying the job for customer service staff. These videos often function like flow charts, guiding employees on appropriate responses to specific issues and determining when to escalate problems.

Creating effective training videos for employees is a powerful way to enhance learning and development within an organisation. By following these steps—defining clear objectives, understanding your audience, planning your content, using a script, investing in quality equipment, making it visually engaging, keeping it concise, incorporating interactivity, providing supporting materials, testing, gathering feedback, measuring effectiveness, and updating regularly—you can produce training videos that are not only informative but also engaging and impactful.

You want to create your own training videos? Don’t look any further! Pitchy is packed with features that make it an ideal platform for creating high-quality training videos. Pitchy offers a vast library of professionally designed templates that can be easily customised to fit your specific training needs. Whether you need a simple instructional video or a complex multi-part series, these templates can be tailored to your brand’s style and content requirements. Our platform includes a rich collection of visual and audio elements such as stock footage, images, music tracks, and sound effects. This allows users to enhance their videos with high-quality media, making the content more engaging and visually appealing.

You can book a demo here if you want to get a shot at our solution! Your video making will never be boring!