Your Guide To Training Video Production
As remote workforces become the new normal, the shortcomings of traditional employee online training methods—like recorded Zoom calls or click-next courses—are becoming glaringly apparent. These outdated approaches fail to capture attention, foster connection, or effectively convey company culture.
Training video production has emerged as the antidote, offering a dynamic and impactful way to engage learners, enhance information retention, and build a strong sense of community, even across distances. A compelling case study at the end of this article demonstrates how Trupanion, a pet insurance provider, harnessed the power of training video to revolutionize its onboarding process and product training and drive employee engagement. Check out this video case study:
What Is Training Video Production?
Training video production encompasses the creation of engaging visual content specifically designed to educate employees on a wide range of topics—from company values and onboarding procedures to technical skills and employee safety training. These videos can be live-action, animated, or a blend of both, incorporating elements like interviews, on-screen text, music, and graphics to create a captivating employee training experience.
Corporate Training Video Production Best Practices
Identify Clear Objectives
Before diving into the video production process, take a step back and define the specific knowledge or skills you want employees to gain from the training video production process. What behaviors are you hoping to encourage with your target audience? Once you have a clear understanding of your goals, you can tailor the content, delivery style, and overall structure of the video to effectively achieve them.
Microlearning Video
Attention spans are short in today's digital age. Aim for videos that are engaging but to-the-point. Break down complex topics into digestible chunks and prioritize the most important information. Ideally, your videos should be between 2–5 minutes long, although shorter explainer videos can be even more effective for microlearning purposes.
Video Storytelling
People are naturally wired to respond to stories. Weaving information into a compelling narrative structure makes content more memorable and engaging. Use relatable characters, real-world scenarios, or case studies to illustrate key concepts and resonate with your audience on an emotional level.
High-Quality Video Production
While you don't necessarily need Hollywood-level production value, investing in decent equipment and editing software ensures a professional look and feel. Grainy video content, distracting background noise, and choppy editing can hinder the learning experience and reflect poorly on your company.
Interactive Video
Go beyond passive viewing by incorporating interactive elements like quizzes, polls, clickable links, or branching scenarios. These elements encourage active participation, reinforce knowledge retention, and provide valuable data on viewer engagement.
Accessibility
Ensure your videos are accessible to a diverse range of learners by including captions or transcripts for viewers with hearing impairments. Consider closed captions for all videos, as they can also be beneficial for viewers in noisy environments or those who prefer to learn by reading along.
5 Best Training Video Production Companies By Sector For Corporate Training
Corporate Video Production Agency
Ninja Tropic eLearning specializes in budget-friendly, custom-designed, interactive video-driven learning experiences tailored to a company's unique brand and goals. They leverage a team of experienced scriptwriters, Instructional Designers, animators, and eLearning developers to create engaging and informative content that resonates with learners. They also have the largest portfolio of corporate training videos and explainer video examples.
AI Video Generator For eLearning
Synthesia leverages Artificial Intelligence to create realistic avatars that can present information in a variety of styles and languages to create video. This offers a cost-effective option for smaller companies or for creating large volumes of corporate training content.
Training Animation Software
Vyond provides a user-friendly platform with drag-and-drop functionality and a library of prebuilt characters, templates, and animations. This makes it easy for anyone to animate a generic professional-looking explainer video.
Training Video Software
Camtasia is a popular tool for screen recording and video editing, particularly well-suited for creating software tutorials or product demonstrations. It allows users to record their screen, webcam, and audio, and then edit the footage with transitions, annotations, and call-to-action buttons.
Training Video Production Software (Advanced)
Adobe Creative Suite offers a comprehensive suite of professional-grade video editing tools like Premiere Pro and After Effects. This is a powerful choice for companies with in-house video editing expertise or that require a high degree of creative control over their training videos.
How To Make A Training Video For Employee Engagement?
Creating engaging training videos for employees involves a strategic approach that goes beyond simply creating video content. To truly captivate your audience and foster lasting learning, consider these key steps.
1. Define Clear Objectives
Start by identifying the specific knowledge or skills you want employees to gain from the training video. Are you aiming to onboard new hires, explain a complex process, or reinforce company values?
2. Craft a Compelling Script
Instead of a dry lecture, opt for a narrative approach. Tell a story, use relatable characters, or present real-world scenarios to make the content more engaging. Incorporate humor, if appropriate, to lighten the mood and maintain interest.
3. Prioritize Visuals
Use a mix of high-quality footage, animations, screen recordings, and on-screen text to illustrate key points and maintain visual interest. Consider using a professional voiceover artist to enhance the overall production value.
4. Record Your Video
Depending on your budget and resources, you have several options for recording. You can use a professional studio with high-end equipment, a DIY setup with good lighting and a decent microphone, or even leverage screen recording software for tutorials and demonstrations. Ensure good audio quality, as poor sound can quickly derail viewer engagement.
5. Keep It Concise
Attention spans are short. Aim for videos that are around five minutes or less. If you have a lot of information to cover, break it down into a series of shorter videos.
6. Incorporate Interactive Elements
Boost engagement by incorporating quizzes, polls, clickable links, or branching scenarios. These elements make learning more active and encourage knowledge retention.
7. Accessibility Matters
Ensure your videos are accessible to everyone by including captions or transcripts. This not only benefits employees with hearing impairments but also those who prefer to learn by reading or who may be in a noisy environment.
8. Gather Feedback
After launching your training video, solicit feedback from employees to gauge its effectiveness and identify areas for improvement. This iterative process will help you refine your approach and create even more impactful video content in the future.
Training Video Production Cost
Producing a corporate training video in-house by hiring individual talent can seem cost-effective at first glance. You'll need to budget for a videographer (around $50–$150 per hour), a scriptwriter ($30–$75 per hour), and potentially an editor ($50–$150 per hour) or animator ($45–$100+ per hour) if those skills aren't in-house. Costs can quickly escalate, especially for longer or more complex high-quality videos. Additional expenses like equipment rental, software licenses, and location fees can also add up.
Partnering with a specialized training video production company can be a more streamlined and ultimately cost-effective option, especially for larger projects or those requiring specific expertise. While their rates may seem higher upfront, they typically bundle services like scriptwriting, filming, editing, and animation into a comprehensive package.
This eliminates the need to coordinate multiple freelancers and ensures a consistent, professional result. Additionally, agencies often have access to resources and talent that might be out of reach for individual hires, such as high-end equipment, professional studios, and experienced voiceover artists.
They can also offer scalable solutions like template-based videos or AI-generated content for budget-conscious clients. Ultimately, the choice between hiring individual talent or partnering with an agency depends on your specific needs, budget, and desired level of production value. Check out this breakdown on how an agency would price a corporate training video.
Training Video Production Customer Success Story
Challenge
Trupanion, experiencing rapid growth in the competitive pet insurance market, faced a mounting challenge: how to effectively onboard a geographically dispersed workforce while instilling a strong sense of company culture and shared values. Traditional onboarding methods, often reliant on in-person meetings and dense documentation, were proving inadequate for creating an engaging and memorable employee onboarding experience for new hires spread across different locations.
Solution
Recognizing the need for a transformative approach, Trupanion sought a partner who could leverage innovative technology to create a more immersive and impactful onboarding experience. They turned to Ninja Tropic, a creative agency specializing in interactive video learning solutions. Together, they embarked on a mission to design a custom-built, engaging onboarding program that would harness the power of video to captivate and connect new employees with Trupanion's unique identity.
The collaborative process between Trupanion and Ninja Tropic was a deep dive into understanding the company's core values, mission, and the nuances of its culture. This involved:
- Identifying key objectives. Clear goals were established for the onboarding program, focusing on knowledge transfer, cultural assimilation, and fostering a sense of belonging among new hires.
- Remote live-action recording. Ninja Tropic facilitated virtual recording with key leaders across the organization to produce live-action videos. This captured their insights, personalities, and passion for Trupanion's mission, making the leadership team more accessible to new employees.
- Compelling scripting and visuals. Engaging scripts were written to transform the interview footage into a cohesive narrative. High-quality visuals, animation, and motion graphics were incorporated to enhance the learning experience and hold the viewer's attention.
- Animation and interactivity. The final product was a dynamic, multifaceted onboarding program hosted on an intuitive online platform. This allowed for easy access, self-paced learning, and ensured consistency in the onboarding experience for all new hires, regardless of their location.
Results
Trupanion's video-driven corporate training has exceeded expectations on multiple fronts:
- Enhanced cultural connection. New hires report feeling significantly more connected to the company's culture, values, and overall mission. This has translated to increased engagement and a stronger sense of belonging from day one.
- Improved retention. The program has contributed to a notable improvement in new hire retention rates. Employees who have gone through the video onboarding are more likely to stay with the company long-term.
- Scalable and efficient onboarding. The online platform has enabled Trupanion to onboard new employees quickly and efficiently, regardless of geographic location. The evergreen nature of the videos ensures that the content remains relevant and impactful over time, reducing the need for constant updates.
Conclusion
Trupanion's investment in a custom-designed, video-driven onboarding program has proven to be a strategic move that has strengthened the company's workforce and set a new standard for engaging new hires in the digital age.