Demo Videos for Onboarding Emails and Help Centers
An onboarding email should link to one demo of one task, twenty seconds long, that ends on the result the email promised. A help article should embed a longer, literal clip of the exact steps in the heading above it. Both are the same kind of asset, a short recording of the real product with captions, and both go stale the moment the UI changes, which is why they are so often missing. Here is how to produce them in volume and keep them current.
What does an onboarding email clip need?
Each email in a welcome sequence makes one promise: “connect your data”, “invite your team”, “send your first campaign”. The demo for that email shows that one task and nothing else.
- Steps: three to five, starting on the page where the task begins.
- Captions: outcome-first, in the words the email uses. If the email says “workspace”, the caption says workspace.
- Format: 16:9 in a browser frame. The poster frame (the first settled frame of the recording) is what the email shows; link it to the video page.
- Hosting: email clients do not autoplay video, so the email carries a poster image with a play button drawn on it, linked to the video. Klevo gives every video a poster and a direct MP4 link; host the poster in your email tool and link to the MP4 or to a page that embeds it.
- The end state: the last step should show the thing the next email will build on, so the sequence feels like one story.
Prompt for the first email’s clip:
Record a demo with Klevo of connecting a data source on https://staging.acme.app/sources: click Add source, pick Postgres, paste the connection string, test, save. Desktop, 16:9, browser frame, smooth. Zoom on Test. Captions under six words. Log in with DEMO_LOGIN.
What does a help article clip need?
Help articles want completeness. The reader has a problem, found the article and wants every click in order. That changes the recipe:
- Steps: as many as the task takes, up to ten per clip. Past that, split the article into sections with a clip each.
- Captions: literal is fine here (“Open Settings, then Billing”); the reader is reproducing the clicks.
- Style: minimal. No zoom, no cards, even pace. Zooms slow a reader who is scrubbing.
- Format: 16:9, browser frame, embedded under the heading that describes the task.
- Mobile articles: record on a mobile device and render in a phone frame, so the reader on a phone sees their own layout. Recording a mobile demo shows the prompt.
Captions that explain a flow covers the difference between the two caption styles in more detail.
How do you keep both current?
This is where most teams give up. A sequence of six onboarding emails and forty help articles is forty-six videos, and the next release moves a sidebar. Nobody re-records forty-six clips, so the clips rot.
Klevo keeps every recording as a script: the URL, the device, the login reference and the steps with their captions. After a release, each script renders again on the current UI, in about a minute each, from a sentence in the chat or the “Render again” button on the video page. If a step no longer finds its element, the render fails and tells you which step, with a screenshot, which is also how you find out that the article is out of date. Demo videos that never go stale explains the script; keeping demos current after every release turns it into a routine.
What does a library plan look like?
| Asset | Count | Steps | Style | Re-render |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Welcome sequence clips | One per email | 3 to 5 | Smooth | After any change to those screens |
| Help article clips | One per task | 4 to 10 | Minimal | After each release that touches the area |
| Feature announcement clips | One per feature | 2 to 4 | Snappy | Rarely; they are dated by nature |
Name the scripts after the article or email they belong to, download the script JSON from the video page into the repo next to the docs, and the mapping survives staff changes.
How do you link a video from an email?
Most email tools accept a poster image linked to a URL. Use the video page in your own help center as the destination rather than the raw MP4, so the viewer lands somewhere with a next step. For a short welcome clip, a GIF export is sometimes requested; Klevo does not produce one today, so if a GIF is required convert the MP4 with any tool, and keep it to three steps so the file stays small.
FAQ
Should the help clip show the login? No, and the onboarding clip should not either. Start on the task’s page with a saved test login. Recording an app behind a login covers test accounts and single sign-on.
What if my app’s data is customer data? Record against a demo workspace with plausible fake content. Demo videos without real customer data.
Should the clip autoplay in the help article? Muted autoplay with a poster is fine for a two-step clip; longer clips should wait for a click so the reader controls the pace.
How many videos is that per month? A help center of forty articles re-rendered once a quarter is about fourteen a month, inside Pro’s fifty. The free plan’s three a month covers a welcome sequence.