How Small Businesses Use VideoScribe, with Doug Baden

Running a small or medium business can feel like an uphill battle. Oftentimes, without a dedicated marketing, sales, or HR department, employees can find themselves wearing many hats within the business and taking on roles and responsibilities outside of their job description.

For small and medium businesses, marketing solutions need to be efficient, time-saving, and cost-effective. One of the answers is engaging, customizable, and high-quality animated video. At VideoScribe we want to be the solution to your business's marketing woes.

We spoke to Doug Baden, Associate Partner at AKF Partners to discover how he uses VideoScribe to create animated videos that benefit his business.

afk logo proper

What does your business do?

AKF is consulting for Software-as-a-Service product companies on product and technology scalability. In other words, we help companies large and small scale their web-based products.

What do you do?

As an Associate Partner, there is no ‘typical day’ for me at the office. I work for clients conducting due diligence reports, workshops, engineering, and consulting. I also build and maintain internal workflow processes and tools.

How does video fit into that?

I translate challenging and detailed topics into videos that make the subject matter more accessible and attention-catching than just another blog post. We don't have a sales team or do any real marketing. The company has been in existence for almost 18 years and has grown almost entirely by word of mouth. We had a LinkedIn account but didn't post much there. What we do have is a large body of blog articles, but it takes a while for people to read them through. Video became the solution!

What do you use VideoScribe for?

I animate 4-6 minute videos focusing on business and technical topics that are difficult to understand. Reading a lengthy blog post isn't always palatable, so by creating entertaining video content we can introduce the subject to more people and generate further interest through our blog library.

Why did you choose VideoScribe?

We wanted to get into some additional social media. We looked at Instagram and Facebook, but we needed some short-form video content, and I was asked to put it together. I tried a few other animation software but their toolsets were too limited, and we got bad internal feedback on the final product. I was recommended VideoScribe by some of my work peers and it was the most broad-based and professional-looking product.

What's your favorite thing about VideoScribe?

I'd say it is the ability to "test" the animation in three different ways: start from a single element, start from the beginning of the scene on which I am working, and start from the beginning of the project.

Are there any specific features of VideoScribe that you find particularly useful or innovative?

The hand-drawn elements make a big difference in catching people's attention. I also really enjoy the use of multiple cameras within each scene, which provides a great way to shift the focus to new elements or elements that have been introduced and now become the primary subject.

You can learn more about VideoScribe’s camera feature here and browse our range of hand-drawn characters here.

How has VideoScribe helped you fulfil your objectives?

We ran a workshop and some of the attendees looked at our older articles and said: “You guys are referring to people from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s”. Quite literally one of them asked: “Who the heck is Fred Brooks”. He is a software engineer many of us in IT read about at college. Our clients mentioned that there are several people we refer to but most clients don't know who they are or why they have relevance within IT today. So, we started a "Who the Heck is...?" series on a number of technology executives from the past and I used VideoScribe to animate them. They were our first efforts to tackle such a project and has been successful in communicating with our audience.

We have created explainer videos tackling issues related to controlling clients' technical debt. We have also released a video focused on our scalability cube which is a foundational element to our approach to consulting.