How to Make Interactive Videos Quickly & Easily

It should be easy and inexpensive to create interactive videos

If you were to google “interactive videos” right now, like I did the other day, you'd find a ton of options – platforms that help you make and host these videos, and articles that teach you how to make interactive videos.

You know what you won't find on most of those sites? The price. Out of 12 different platforms I looked at, I discovered that only 2 had listed prices. That tells me I'm not the intended audience for the rest of those platforms. I get it. Not every platform was designed for individuals. Some are corporate plays.

But these days interactive video should be available to everyone. And while YouTube supports annotations, I remember trying it a few years ago and feeling frustrated pretty quickly.

I've written about the various criteria I use to evaluate membership plugins, and now I wanted to create a recommendation engine that was powered by video. So I started looking for a quick tutorial that would show me how to make interactive videos, and more importantly find a platform that made it all easy.

Guess what? I found it.

Remind me to tell you about SmartQuizBuilder

I'm not going to talk to you about SmartQuizBuilder today, but remind me to circle back and show you all the cool things you can do with that solution. It's by the same folks that brought you DAP (which I told you about the other day).

Veena wrote a great post the other day about interactive content. I agree and the only reason I'm not telling you how to use that product right now, is because I want to walk you thru all sorts of quizzes, and that's a topic for another day.

But now let me take you to the platform for interactive video.

Check out Mindstamp – they make it easy to create interactive videos

A recommendation engine is one where you ask a series of questions and based on the answers, you create an intelligent recommendation. That's what I've been looking to build.

Of course, that starts with knowing the flow of what you'll ask and how you'll get to the answer. I created a flow chart to keep everything straight.

That's what told me which videos I needed to create, which was the easy part. This particular workflow would take 11 questions, and result in 11 different video recommendations at the end.

Recording a simple question or a product recommendation is easy. If you want to create interactive videos, you have stitch them together.

That's where Mindstamp comes in.

What you see in this screen is my crazy face. But more importantly, I can ask questions, add buttons, and route you from one video to another by simply picking from a drop down list.

The other cool thing is that Mindstamp asks me for all my color and font preferences up front, so that every video feels connected to my site. (In this case, I turned off the branding like my logo because I didn't want to distract from this recommendation engine).

And just like if you were doing this in a non-interactive way, Mindstamp collects the answers of viewers so you can measure and track not only the engagement but which answers get the most clicks.

I'm not done yet, but man, I can't tell you how easy it's been. I was connecting video content in minutes (without watching their tutorials).

Their customers love them, and so do I

Most of the time, when a website puts testimonials on their homepage, I smile and move on. That's because they're tiny little blurbs of nice text. “Great product,” and “So easy to use.”

But on Mindstamp's site, the reviews are a paragraph long. And once I used the product, I totally understood why. I found it as easy to use as everyone else did. And I found the value of the product to be incredible for what I was paying.

I can't wait for you to see my recommendation video guide

I'm sure I'll come back to this post and update it with the link to my recommendation engine that helps you pick the right membership plugin for your specific situation. Even though it will eliminate about half of my Clarity calls, it's worth it because it will help you at any hour of the day (or night), without having to wait for me.

If you're looking to create interactive videos, I recommend you check out Mindstamp. I'm loving it.