Explaining the Obvious: Marketing Your Product with Screencast Scripting

by Don Wallace

Introduction

Software products are often best explained by showing, not just by telling. The modern "show and tell" that you can use to effectively showcase your software product is the screencast.

A screencast is a digital recording of a computer workstation screen that depicts an unseen operator using a software application. The visual portion of this "movie" is created using one of many existing software products made for the purpose. (Examples: Lotus ScreenCam; Camtasia Studio.)

A carefully planned screencast presentation - which includes voice-over narration using a script that is carefully prepared with attention to the visual subject matter - will create an exceptionally professional and positive impression for your product.

If you want to promote and evangelize your product, then a narrated screencast that is carefully scripted will let you run with the big boys. This blog entry shows you exactly how to arrive at a polished result.

Low-Effort Screencasting - Feasible?

There are three choices available to you for screencast audio production:

• Produce a silent screencast, or use a musical accompaniment.
• Ad-lib the narration: connect a microphone and start talking (or, narrate as you record the screencast.)
• Script the narration, as this article recommends.
  

Most screencasts are ad libbed: the person who is operating the software talks into a microphone and explains as she is performing actions.

Besides the consistency and quality that the scripting approach described in this blog can provide, a script allows you to easily outsource the voice portion of the project. There are many providers of high quality, professional voice services available online, such as Voices.com, which will record your script using professional voice talent, in some instances for extremely modest prices.

How to Create Effective Screencast Scripts from Scratch

The following is an outline of the basic technique that I used to develop screencasts for a client earlier in 2008. Since the resulting screencasts combined with professionally recorded voice-overs appear to have created a stunning result for my client, I feel very certain that this "recipe" will work for many other software products where a live demonstration of the software is used to reinforce the marketing message.

Here are two pieces of general advice.

• Repeat yourself: The process of script creation is iterative. You may record a screencast that you believe is well-paced, easy to understand, and that "should" be easy to narrate. Once you start developing the script, you may find that things fall apart when you actually try to plan the wording. This is to be expected, and I believe that most screencasts will have to be re-recorded or at least edited a few times in the process of developing a workable script.
  
  
• It's all about time: It will be for the very best if you are working with a screencast video that has a time position counter somewhere in view in the video frame, and which also has a "pause" control and a position slide adjustment. Not all video capture packages produce these features by default. If the video does not contain a time position counter, then you will have to use an external timer, and errors can creep in and accumulate in the timing of your script.

Here is the basic flow of screencast script production.

1. You need to first watch and preview the "new" screencast. Maybe twice. Get the "feel" of the screencast.
2. Ask the client or stakeholder questions - detailed and also broad-agenda - to enhance your understanding of the video. Example questions: "What the heck are you trying to do here at 1:34?" Or, "What is the whole point of this demo?"
3. Start writing rough draft. Select time points at which segments are to be spoken. So you will wind up with a list of paragraphs, with time stamps noted in minute:second format at the start of each paragraph. You will have to view the video and pause it continually and rewind it in order to write each paragraph.
   
4. Preview the screencast again, this time reading your script aloud at the prescribed time points. You should make a point to speak methodically and more slowly than you would in normal conversation (as an example, pay close attention to the cadence that newscasters use for reporting on broadcasts.)
5. You are striving for a "Goldilocks" effect - just the right length of material. The purpose of the previous step is to verify that the words you write will fit correctly into the time slots that you are working with. As you complete reading each paragraph aloud, the video time position counter should not yet exceed the time that you have assigned to the start of the next paragraph. In other words, running-over is an error, and you must correct it either by somehow shortening that paragraph, or by editing the video recording, and inserting a pause at the appropriate point. And gaps of more than 5 seconds or so in an otherwise very "chatty" narration feel awkward.
   
6. The video itself may have timing problems that you cannot compensate for by scripting alone. Problems that I have encountered tend to be issues like not allowing "dead" time (a motionless video) at the start and the end of the recording in order to allow for introductory and final words. Another problem is the operator in the video doing very complex actions too fast to insert a reasonable explanation into the script. It may be necessary to re-record segments or to insert pauses.
7. Edit your copy after the video has been edited, to refine the timing. Use the "speak aloud" technique to re-test each modified paragraph. You may have to adjust the timing starts of the paragraphs that follow if time has been inserted or removed from the video.
   
8. Some steps above may require an iteration or two in order to arrive at narration that you believe represents your product well.
   
9. After completing some scripts, you will find that you can skip or accelerate some of the steps above (for example, identifying too-short sections of the video) as you learn what to watch for. You will also develop a feeling very quickly for the time that each line of your script requires to be spoken, so you will soon learn enough to minimize the effort of revising each passage.
   

To summarize these steps: watch, learn and get the "feeling" of the screencast. Work on understanding the points that should be conveyed to the audience. Then write a script that, when spoken, fits the actions that are shown in the screencast. You will need to write this script as a series of paragraphs that are crafted to be spoken within fairly restrictive time limits.

What I Didn't Explain

I explained a way to produce screencast scripts. What I didn't explain are the following essential techniques and skills: operation of the screencast recording software; video editing; selection of voice over talent (voice actors); and, the copywriting itself. Each of these subjects could be covered in its own blog entry.

Conclusion: My Own Show-and-Tell

Screencast scripting is a simple procedure, but is somewhat tedious with mechanical bits. There is quite a bit of fussing required to achieve a good result. And it does feel a bit like you're being a movie producer. I think the results are well worth the trouble.

If you would like to see the end result of the type of planning that I advocate in this article, please visit my client's site and press the green "View Demo" button.

(Please consider recommending Ernic Software's excellent product, Optitask, to your IT department.)

And if you don't wish to undertake this kind of project yourself, I am certainly for hire.

Copy That Doesn't Suck: Developing the Consultant's Web Site

by Don Wallace

This article will show you how to not commit the common egregious errors of writing judgment that plague most IT consultant's web sites.

Before you hire a web designer, before you start printing your snazzy new domain on your business cards, and before you tell your mom to have her bridge club check out your online artistry - please read this article and heed a few simple guidelines.

Flabby, confusing, look-alike, posturing, pompous, awkward, easy to dismiss...

No, that's not just me at my first grade-school dance.

That phrase describes the copy in the majority of web sites that IT professionals and other consultants first put up on the web in order to announce their glorious availability to the world.

Most technical professionals tend to write marketing materials that confuse or bore their prospects, without really communicating their business proposition in a way that prospects can care about. Stilted writing, not taking chances, playing it safe, being too "corporate" while actually saying too little - these things, and others, are the death of the small business marketing message.

There are relatively few ways to showcase yourself effectively so that someone will actually want to hire you to help them. And there is a multitude of ways to make your prospects click away someplace else.

This article will show you how to avoid some very common pitfalls in writing for your consulting web site.

Writing Well for Promotion

You may believe that because your work is complicated, the message has to be complicated, too. Or it just happens to work out that way.

The general rule for writing for marketing is continual simplification. Less is usually more and simpler is usually better. These principles are counterintuitive to technical folks like programmers and systems analysts.

The Simpler the Better

A good rule of thumb when writing ad copy is always to write at a 5th to 6th grade level. Even for an "intense" or "hard core" programmer or architect type.

Here is a checklist of the most important things to do in your writing:

• In your writing be completely obvious to laypeople.
• Be clear: explain exactly who you help and how you help them.
• Be specific: qualify your services by industry or sector, as necessary.
• Avoid overly fancy and unusual words. The simpler and more ordinary the word, the better. 9 out of 10 cavemen agree: "ameliorate" BAD, "improve" GOOD! UGH!
• Avoid BS: avoid jargon and "businessy" seeming but relatively meaningless and unquantifiable terms. A few common examples include "leading edge", "take to the next level", or anything "-centric". There are almost always much more direct and persuasive ways to say the same things.
• Use short sentences. Break up lengthy sentences.
• Chop unnecessary words mercilessly. Only say something once. (Obviously this advice does not apply to "long form sales letters", which are a niche of copywriting not discussed here.)
• Avoid being "Mr. Professor" - come off your high horse! Avoid sounding like a technical textbook. Use active voice, not passive voice.
• Above all, be conversational in your writing tone. If you can't imagine talking like you write, then change the way that you write.

Now, on to the tactics of writing well for your IT consulting web site.

What Do You DO? The Science of Clear Description

Let's talk about how you title your consulting practice.

Your highest priority should be to identify yourself and your services clearly in a way that makes sense to your prospects.

Indirectness is not allowed. Metaphors are not allowed. Cuteness is forbidden.

The primitive parts of our brains - as well as your prospect's brains - rely on labels and names. Your first job is to label yourself, and your specialty, as a specific type of independent professional.

But beware - even if you think that you are being on-point, you may still label yourself poorly from a consulting viewpoint.

The Trap of Commoditization

What do you tell someone when they ask you what you do for a living?

• "I'm a Java architect."
• "I do embedded."
• "DBA."
• "Configuration management."

These phrases, blurted out quickly, are fine for social gatherings where other techies are present.

They are also the very words used by ... warning ... very ugly phrase coming... contingent labor brokers. Those "temp" agencies, whose entire mission on this earth is to commoditize you heavily and to rank and grade you "objectively", and to assign a dollar worth to your scalp that limits your income potential.

Such job-activity-specific descriptions, when they stand alone, make you look more like a job seeker rather than like an independent professional. In general, these types of technical specialty-specific phrases are used in full time employment job ads. That implies that you should not use them, except where absolutely necessary.

End Users Going "Duh?"

The other problem is opaqueness to laypeople. All experienced professionals have a certain blindness. They don't realize what they actually do know.

All trades and professions use verbal shorthand - "Adam and Eve on a raft" means two poached eggs on toast in many restaurants when waiters are barking food orders to the cooks.

But you don't see "Adam and Eve" on many menus.

To attract the right kind of initial attention from prospects - the kind of attention that means that your best prospects can recognize you - you must formulate a clear, concise, simple, and universal description of your services. And one that doesn't fall into the line-items that human resource folks use to label their own people.

Avoiding the Labeling Traps - Be "Beneficial" and Know Your Prospect

The best single way to both avoid confusing your audience and avoid being confused with a job seeker is to label your consultancy in such a way that you are providing a benefit or a solution to your prospect.

The more that your phrasing can reach out and assure the reader that you are there to help them directly with their pressing need, the less that you will look like everyone else.

Examples of Titling Your Business

Here are specific examples of these ideas in practice.

Really bad: Frammis Solutions is a contract software developer operating in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This isn't even good from an "HR standpoint" because there are thousands of programming specialties and the label doesn't denote any of them. There are millions of software developers in the world, and this says that Frammis is just like the rest of them.

I usually see phrasing like this in neglected and outdated web sites where the owner finds their business through their personal network and never even refers to their web site.

Just OK: Frammis Solutions specializes in creating customized applications that meet your most demanding requirements.

What's the problem? For starters - what is an "application"? "Application" - what is that? A job application? A loan application? OH, a COMPUTER PROGRAM! (Well, if your prospects had a guru like you at their elbows to decode somewhat industry-specific terms like "application", they wouldn't NEED your help, would they?)

The insidious damage that certain "semi secret handshake" words (such as "application" with no clear context) do is to lull your reader into inattention. As they stumble mentally over more and more words, your reader's confusion becomes greater, and they "get" less and less of your message. You're literally driving their attention away from you!

Much more effective: Frammis Solutions is a highly skilled developer of software applications on all major platforms - web, desktop and mobile.

What does this fix? For one thing, we spelled out exactly what Frammis does: they develop software applications. And we even distinguished in what areas that Frammis shines for its customers. Now, your reader may not need software applications. But at least you have driven a stake into your turf. The readers that are remaining are with you. They want to know about your "software applications", say, for the web.

Better yet: Frammis Solutions develops custom software applications that help remodeling businesses stay compliant with local labor laws.

This is explaining that Frammis helps a particular kind of business with a particular kind of problem.

This is really good because we have dragged Frammis Solutions kicking and screaming away from being a geeky company doing complicated computer stuff, to a helpful provider of solutions to their client's problems. The focus becomes very narrow, of course, but the text will reach and grab the business owners who have that very problem.

In conclusion, naming and labeling yourself clearly and effectively is critical. In general, it's best to adopt a "benefit" oriented mindset, rather than regurgitating a technical specialty.

The next section explores in more detail how to describe benefits that will command your prospect's attention.

Benefits: So, Why Should Your Customer Care?

Let's say that you've identified yourself and your product well. The next step in the process is to state clearly how you help your customers. I alluded to this whole issue of benefits language above.

Remember the old maxim about drill bits. People buy holes, not drill bits. Your prospects don't hire you because they "need" a highly paid subject matter genius. They hire you because you can produce a result that their business requires.

Your genius, good looks, and charm are mere features. The benefits that you produce are the result that will attract the prospect and will make them sign checks.

So what is that result? That's what you need to explain in your web copy.

Most consultants and B2B (business - to - business) service providers do one (or more) of the following basic things for their clientele:

• They help their client make more money.
• They help their client save more money
• They help their client use a technology, tool or process that has become essential in their line of business. So regardless of profitability, the clients needs to incorporate new technology or approaches from outside the organization.
• They develop or improve processes, techniques or implementations that allow the business to enter or stay in a line of business.

If you are running a consultancy, you have already identified one or more such benefits and your early discussions with prospects revolve around those benefits. You may literally be so expert that you take this knowledge for granted.

But your prospect who surfs your web site isn't an expert and he doesn't know how you can help him. So you need to spell it out for him in terms to which he relates.

When you write your web copy, think benefits, not features. Suppose that you are an expert programmer, or designer, or architect. That's the "drill" - your skill is your tool. So what is the outcome - the figurative "hole" - that you produce for your clients? Spell it out, using simple language that your mom or golf pro could understand. The best language for this uses very direct and simple declarative sentences and it talks about real problems and challenges facing your clients.

Here is an example of accurate, but pedantic and indirect benefits language.

Just OK: Quality map production involves more than compiling data. It involves compiling, distilling, and refining the look of the underlying data into a graphic suitable for the specific user or solution. We have the tools to refine the data and create a cartographic quality map.

Many prospects will say to themselves - "Yes, you are a data expert. But why are you telling me all this stuff? Why should I care how carefully you do things?"

Now let's sharpen up the "benefits" statement.

Direct and To-The-Point: We can create the custom outdoor maps you need by using GIS data. We compile, distill, and refine raw GIS data into a graphic suitable for your use. We have the tools to process this data and to create a cartographic quality map.

The difference? We used the commentary about our tools mastery to tell the prospect how we can deliver a product to him.

Simple Examples of Benefits Derived from Technology

Let's take some very specific and granular examples of programming technology and recast them as customer benefits. Note that some technological features are almost benefits. They are benefits in the eyes of those who really know such things. But they may evoke a "why should I care" reaction from a customer.

(Just to be clear - the "feature" column on the left is the less desirable technically oriented description and the "benefit" column on the right holds the more customer-friendly phrasing.)

Technical Feature	Corresponding Benefit
Efficient, standard C++	Lightning fast software that your company can maintain easily
We use the open source database PostgreSQL	We use a stable, proven, reliable open source database to minimize licensing expenses
Coded in VB.NET	Runs on the Windows servers that you already own

It's Not Easy

Thinking in terms of benefits is usually the hardest thing that anyone can do for their own business. Why? Because you literally must place yourself in your client's shoes. Then you must imagine that their problems are problems that you, as their consultant, must "own".

A great consultant is really much more like a psychiatrist or a priest or a rabbi than just a technical expert, but that's another article! Being a highly paid consultant is ultimately about helping your customers - and then monetizing that help. You first have to explain clearly how you help your customers if you want them to know about you. Benefits, and not features, are the key here.

Who's Your Competition?

No, you're not going to send your prospects over to "Brand X", your evil competition and sworn adversary.

What you must do, however, is explain how you are different and "better" than other, reasonable sounding alternatives that may be before your prospect. Which may just include doing nothing, or doing what they have always done in the past.

It is likely that you already know this stuff. If you have been in business profitably as a consultant for awhile, you have had to "triangulate" your service offering to your clients based upon essential things that other consultants, products or existing standard services can't supply to them as effectively (in whatever way) as you are able to.

Your marketing material should say something about why you're special - why you are that special snowflake that the prospect must use. And that proposition is usually woven around benefits, but stated in such a way that you are alone and unique - and in a good way.

Example: We don't simply solve a staffing problem by deploying software developers. And we aren't just narrow software specialists. We become your partner for the duration of your project.

Another Example: Our cost to perform such re-engineering is generally the same or even less than many of our competitors who use automated systems.

The whole territory of establishing and describing your "specialness" is called the Unique selling proposition, or "USP" for short.

Where Does This Stuff Go?

Here is a sort of checklist of each type of item above and the places where such material goes in most web sites. These are not hard-and-fast rules. They are simply suggestions as to where each type of content can best fit into a web site.

Type of Material	Examples Where Used
Description, Label, name	- Web page title - Meta Tags (for search) - Index or Main or Default or Entry page of web site
Benefits	- Main page (in compact form) - Services Offered page - Testimonials page - About Us page - Case studies page(s)
U.S.P. Language	- Main page (in compact form) - Services Offered page - Testimonials page - Case studies page(s)

Conclusion

A web site for a professional service provider such as a consultant can be tough and challenging to get right. Someone out there really needs you. Your primary challenge is identifying yourself so that your prospects realize that they really need you. Clear, simple, direct writing should be one primary weapon in your arsenal to make those prospects find you.

About the Author

Don Wallace develops better messages for his clients. If you need help with your marketing materials for your business, please contact him or call him at (513) 932-2236 so that he stops writing in the third person about himself. His wife would appreciate it if you did and he would, too.