How To Automate Video Creation
by Oliver Goodwin | December 29, 2022
Reading Time: 9 minutes
Ever noticed how videos are the most likely to appear at the top of search result pages when you enter a keyword? This is because search engines prioritise video content, and as a brand owner, you can leverage this.
However, pivoting towards video creation will require you to create videos for multiple products/services, and this involves setting up equipment for, shooting, and editing every video. This is not only time-consuming but also expensive and mentally draining. But guess what? You can create your perfect videos without experiencing all of those; how? By automating your video creation.
Automating your video creation is not rocket science and can be done by anyone, be they a novice or an expert in video creation. In this post, you will learn:
- Why you should automate your video creation.
- How to automate your video creation with Synthesys.
- Answers to further questions you might have regarding video automation.
5 Reasons Why You Should Automate Your Video Creation
If you have not started automating your video creation process, here are five reasons why you should:
1. Create as many versions of a video as possible
Automating your video creation gives you room to generate multiple variants of an already-created video. If, for instance, you had 500 different products to market, traditional video creation means you have to create 500 unique videos. Video automation, on the hand, allows you to easily edit an original video using a database for the remaining products. All you have to do is replace the unique details of each product or service in the original video.
2. Save money
A 2-3 minute video professional video production typically costs between $2,000 and $7,000. This price range stems from the individual production units, such as screen talents, visual assets, special effects, video production crew, rendering and compression, etc. Imagine wanting to make a separate video for each of the ten different products and/or services; this would cost roughly between $20,000 and $70,000!
Video automation with our AI studio saves you all these exorbitant amounts. There will be no need to hire actors, set up expensive equipment, and pay for special editing and effects. All you need to generate the fitting promotional video are included on the platform.
3. Save time
Producing a standard 60- to 90-second video using the traditional production method typically takes two to eight weeks. This, of course, is a disadvantage to most marketers because, in a world where markets are highly competitive, time is a luxury you must never squander. 23% of marketers who do not deploy video marketing say it is because they lack time to create videos. But everything changes when you automate your video with Synthesys. While the time it takes for your video to render on our platform depends on the content incorporated into the video, the rendering time is grossly incomparable to the time it will take to set up equipment, hire actors, edit and include special effects, etc.
4. Achieve consistency
Traditional video creation does not usually follow a pattern because each content is shot independently. This can lead to brand inconsistency—an attribute that even customers say must be addressed if loyalty is to be ensured. A brand revenue increases by 23% if it remains consistent in its presentation. To leverage this as a video marketer, video automation is inevitable; why? Automation allows you to make your videos similar, each with its unique identity.
The common unifiers can serve as your brand identity, which your audience will have to get accustomed to. For five different products, for instance, automating your video will give you five videos, all similar in properties except for the details of the product that each represents. Repetition is a key part of consistency and one factor responsible for customer loyalty.
5. Generate high-quality videos
When a video is produced using actual cameras, the resulting output faces two possibilities: it takes an enormous memory size and high resolution, or the size is manageable but has a low resolution. You do not have to worry about this challenge when you automate your video creation because the process optimises your disc space while generating the best quality possible.
How To Automate Your Video Creation With Synthesys
Video automation with Synthesys is founded upon the mainstays of beginner-friendliness and quality assurance. The first is a huge advantage because product video production requires a lot of expertise to perfect. With Synthesys, however, you can automate your video creation in eight easy steps while having zero video production experience. Simply follow the steps below.
Step One: Plan your video marketing campaign.
A video marketing campaign is a body of all the events, content ideas, and activities that lead to promoting a brand’s products and/or services through videos. That said, planning one is easy if you follow the following guidelines:
- Determine your marketing protagonist: Your protagonist is that thing you want to promote. Is it an event? A product? A message? You can ask yourself, “What is the point of all these?” Answering this question will assist you in identifying your protagonist.
- Create your theme: Your theme is the central idea that surrounds your protagonist. What is your protagonist trying to achieve? This will also create room for understanding your audience’s preferences and pain points, as they are the focal point of your entire campaign.
- Establish your campaign goals and deadlines: Mapping out your goals and setting deadlines for them give bones to your campaign. What do you want to achieve with your campaign? How many customers do you plan to convert, and when?
Step Two: Craft your script.
If your visuals represent the flesh of your campaign, your script is the blood that flows through its veins. The best way to craft your script is to make it simple and agree with the language and locale of your audience (You can always use a tool like ChatGPT to help you with that). Try to incorporate a conversational tone, and make it communicate your message directly without too many distracting expressions.
A good script must have the following:
- A setting – a vivid description of the environment in which your product/service exists.
- A solution – what can your product/service do for your audience?
- A resolution – what is the endgame?
- A call to action – that spurs your audience to do what you want them to do. This could be a link to a website, a phone number to call, an email address, etc.
Step Three: Choose a spokesperson.
One of the advantages of using Synthesys is the abundance of actors available, together with the freedom to choose and change actors as you wish. With traditional video production, you can use only so many actors, and that is if you have not paid exorbitant sums already. Also, you cannot decide to abruptly change an actor if you are dissatisfied with their performance.
With Synthesys, however, you are free to choose from our catalogue of 69 spokespersons—each unique in personality, appearance, and tone. Accordingly, all 69 personalities are displayed for your choice, as shown below.
If you want to adjust the position of your spokesperson, say you want them to appear at the centre of your video or in the bottom-left corner, click on any of the options as illustrated in this image:
Step Four: Choose the voice you like
Another good thing about automating your video with Synthesys is that you experience no shortage of AI voices. Sometimes, that one vital missing piece in a campaign video is the perfect voice. In traditional video production, finding an actor whose appearance and voice cater to your campaign goals can sometimes be difficult because you cannot separate the voice from the face.
Automating with Synthesys, on the other hand, allows you to choose from (as illustrated below) and combine as many, or all, of the 65 voices and 254 unique speaking styles with any of the 69 spokespersons at your beck and call. This freedom to experiment with as many resources as possible goes a long way towards achieving a voice-face balance that perfectly complements your video creation.
What’s more, the above image also displays a list of buttons that let you choose your language, adjust your video speed, choose how long your spokesperson pauses to catch their breath, etc.
Step Five: Upload your script.
The image below shows a text box designed to accommodate the script you have already prepared.
You can type in your script or paste it from a clipboard. Upon entering your script, click on the “PLAY SCRIPT” button to understand how your actor sounds. Doing so allows you to adjust according to your needs or leave it as it is.
Step Six: Choose your background.
Your video background says a lot about your ad or brand. Your choice of background will vary with certain factors such as your brand identity, your audience, what is in vogue, etc.
Before choosing your background, think of its connection with your brand. Does this colour represent my brand well? How about the texture? Think of your audience, too. Some audiences, such as kids, are attracted to bright colours.
These considerations are why Synthesys offers you the choice of picking from our available backgrounds (as shown below) and uploading your background.
Step Seven: Click “CREATE”, and your video will be ready.
Before you click the “CREATE” button, you must conduct your assessment. Double-check your script to remove all errors, and make necessary adjustments to the speed. You also have the choice of appending multiple video slides to unify them.
If you are not ready to render your video, enter your file name and click on the “SAVE AS DRAFT” button to save for later, then come back to edit. Otherwise, click on the “CREATE” button and wait for your video to render. The time this process takes to complete is highly dependent on the content and length of your video. But on average, it takes only a few minutes to get your video ready for download.
Step Eight: Distribute the video to the desired channels.
This final step depends on audience preference and availability. Some channels, such as blogs, Medium, Substack, Linkedin, etc., are best suited for text, while others, such as Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Tiktok, are the best for the kind of content you have just created or are about to create.
Moreover, it is imperative to consider the demographics of the channels you are distributing to. For example, 80% of Tiktok users are between the ages of 16 and 34. Therefore, a video ad created for older people is better shared on a platform such as Facebook rather than Tiktok.
Video Automation FAQs
Can I automate video editing?
Absolutely! With artificial intelligence (AI), you can have automatic video editing where the platform or software you have chosen to use analyses your video and makes necessary suggestions and edits where needed.
How can I add subtitles to a video automatically?
In the same vein that we have text-to-speech technology, we have speech-to-text technology that uses deep learning to convert speech to text. Again, you can use platforms such as Youtube that deploy this technology by uploading your video and auto-generating your subtitles.
Is automated video creation expensive?
Not in the least! To put this in perspective, video shooting typically costs between $2,000 and $7,000. On the other hand, automating your video creation using Synthesys costs only $31 per month. The former affords you only one video, which takes longer to create, while the latter allows you to quickly generate as many videos as your device’s memory can store.
Final Thoughts
Video creation is the new oil in this era of marketing. 83% of marketers testify that videos help them increase traffic, while 86% say they now generate more leads with videos.
These prospects sound inviting, and as a marketer, it is advisable to leverage this advantage. However, video production can be so tasking, expensive, and time-consuming. With video automation, you can eat your cake and have it. You can enjoy the above benefits without experiencing the accompanying challenges.
Synthesys particularly makes video automation easier for everyone. With only eight steps to follow, you can generate as many videos for your ad campaign as you want. What’s more, the price you pay is nothing compared to what traditional video production extorts from your pockets.
