In terms of conveying information or training people to accomplish tasks, it’s hard to make a case against video content’s effectiveness. After all, short of in-person guidance, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better alternative to create compelling, quick, didactic, scalable and reusable teaching tools.

But the fact that educational videos can be that effective doesn’t mean they always are!

Ask any experienced professional about it, and they’ll tell you that, behind every effective educational video you see, there’s a lot of know-how and technical design elements in place facilitating information delivery and retention.

Take those away, and you end up with a showy piece that, even if visually stunning, will still fail to get the job done.

This article will cover four critical production and design problems that lead to ineffective training videos. Then, we’ll draw some key lessons you can use to improve your own training video production efforts, helping you create content that will not only wow your audience but also help them learn.

1. Content Inconsistency: Relevance, Depth, Brevity

First and foremost, every single training or educational video you create should accomplish one core purpose: to provide viewers with actionable and valuable information in as little time as possible. Fail to achieve that baseline, and you already have an educational video that’s not working as intended.

Making your piece relevant is rather simple. Just make sure you understand your target audience’s needs and craft your script around the information they need to address them. Identifying the particular type of viewer you want to appeal to early on will do wonders in guiding your production process and help you make the right choices on what to include.

Then there’s the tug-of-war between depth and brevity. Your impulse will likely veer toward including as much information as possible as to increase your video’s overall value. But it’s more important to make your videos engaging, keeping them brief but informative to increase their appeal.

All in all, there’s no magic formula to figure this balance out, but you can always use clarity as your guiding principle. Ask yourself: How much do you have to talk about something to make it crystal-clear for most people? Then, work a bit at making it shorter. Also, remember to leverage the visual layer of your project to help summarize and synthesize information in effective ways, shortening runtimes.

2. Subpar Delivery: Appeal and Presentation

More so than their counterparts, educational videos can benefit from variations in how you deliver your information.

Having an on-camera, live-action interview with an expert has fairly different requirements than making a didactic animated video using voice-over and illustrations to reinforce your key points. While both would be considered educational videos, these two types would be trying to accomplish the same thing but in significantly different ways (and likely for widely different types of audiences).

So, you’ll want to take some time during pre-production and figure out the best approach for your purpose and type of viewers for each training video you create. That said, there are a couple of general design elements that most of your training videos will likely benefit from, including storytelling, emotion and passion.

Storytelling is at the heart of most learning experiences one way or another; ensuring it has a place in your content is generally advised — especially if you are using whiteboard animations or video explainers. By the same token, emotion (usually in the form of humor, but not exclusively) will often also contribute to making your video far more appealing and engaging.

Last but not least, effective training requires enthusiasm! If your video doesn’t convey how passionate or invested you are in a topic, how do you expect your learners to care?

3. Lack of Interactivity and Follow-Through: Active Learning Matters

The third most crucial way in which many subpar educational videos fail is in their lack of follow-through.

Learning is not a passive process, and the more your videos make active participants of the viewer, the better its chances of not only achieving their core goal but also of providing a satisfactory experience that will have your audience coming back for more.

How much interactivity you add to an educational video largely depends on the platform where you use it or make it available. Whenever possible, adding invitations for discussions, posing interesting questions and adding calls to action that prompt viewers to do more than just click play, watch and forget will go a long way to make the process less passive and more involved. Some platforms even allow you to add interactive elements like quizzes and polls right as part of the video; consider using these features whenever it makes sense.

4. Poor Accessibility and No Promotion: If a Video Plays in a Forest…

You can develop a truly outstanding educational video experience, but unless you also make sure those pieces consistently reach their intended audience, there’s little you’ll be able to reap for your efforts.

Consider adding as many accessibility features to your content as feasibly possible, with captions and transcripts at the top. This not only makes your content accessible to more people, but it can contribute to your video’s discoverability through organic SEO.

Strategic promotion of your educational content can also go a long way. Distributing them (either completely or even partially) on popular social media platforms and relevant online groups can ensure a growing stream of eyes finding you and your content.

In Short

Creating truly impactful educational videos goes beyond simply conveying information. It’s about fostering an engaging and active and effective learning experience.

By understanding your audience’s needs, presenting information concisely and with variety and encouraging interaction, you can transform your videos from passive lectures into dynamic learning tools people will want to engage with.

Remember, well-crafted visuals, passionate delivery and accessible formats are key to ensuring your message reaches the right audience and leaves a lasting impact. By incorporating these crucial elements, you’ll be well on your way to crafting educational videos that not only inform but also empower viewers to learn, retain knowledge and take action.