How to Choose the Right Interactive Video Software

While video is one of the most engaging mediums you can serve your audiences compared to stand-alone text or images, the problem is that viewers can’t actually engage with a traditional video. 

In a worst-case scenario, they’ll just listlessly skim through the video without retaining any of the information you worked so hard to put together.

But with the right interactive video software, you can turn that passive viewing experience into something else entirely. With just a click, interactive video content allows your viewers to unwrap the layers of a product demo, dive deep into a virtual training module, or navigate unique branching storylines.

In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to look for in an interactive video platform – from identifying important features to choosing the right video tool for your specific use case.

What is an interactive video platform? 

An interactive video platform provides users with robust tools to create, manage, and share interactive videos that engage viewers in ways that traditional video experiences can’t. 

These types of videos are not only more engaging, but also particularly effective in reducing cognitive load and improving long-term retention of information.

The different types of interactive videos

Here’s a closer look at the different types of videos you can make using an interactive video platform:

• Clickable videos with unique overlays and hotspots
• Branching scenario videos with menus and hyperlinks
• 360-degree shoppable videos for ecommerce
• Live interactive broadcasts with integrated quizzes

And that’s just scratching the surface. 

Compared to traditional video formats, interactive video gives business leaders and their teams a virtually unlimited number of ways to deliver information to their customers and employees – whether that means creating an interactive product demo or employee onboarding training.

The 5 most important features of interactive video software

As you evaluate the different interactive video solutions on the market, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer number of interactive features these tools can offer. 

However, as long as you focus on functionality to help you increase viewer engagement and maximize your video investment, you can dismiss other features as nice-to-haves.

Here are the key capabilities to look for in interactive video software:

1. Interactive elements

For starters, your video solution of choice should give you access to a range of interactive elements like hotspots, buttons, image overlays, quizzes, and hyperlinks to overlay on your videos. These features allow users to choose paths through different branched scenarios, jump to certain timestamps in your video, and navigate to external links via clickable hotspots.

But more importantly, all of these features should be user-friendly. Otherwise, you’ll be spending all your time learning how to use a new piece of software instead of creating interactive experiences for your viewers. 

Prioritizing software with intuitive, drag-and-drop functionality is one way to ensure that you can get started with these tools right away. 

For example, Colossyan gives its users access to a library of prebuilt interactive video templates so they can start the video editing process within a few minutes of signing up for the platform. All of these templates can be easily edited using drag-and-drop. 

2. Analytics and reporting

Granular analytics and reporting functionality are also crucial for optimizing your interactive videos and demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) on your video marketing strategy, video ad campaigns, and any other use case you can think of. 

Seek out analytics features like real-time viewer monitoring, engagement metrics, playback behaviors, conversion tracking, and custom reports. These analytics will show you how viewers are engaging with your video content. They’ll also give you the data you need to make adjustments. 

This could mean adding a call to action at the end of each video to increase viewer conversions, or it might involve using a different type of video template altogether.

3. Customizability and branding

Matching your videos to your brand identity is key if you want your interactive corporate videos to be polished and professional. 

Specifically, you should prioritize solutions that offer custom templates, colors, logos, animations, and overlays – everything you need to ensure your videos stick out in a sea of sameness. 

For example, Colossyan gives users the ability to create their own company brand kit, allowing them to upload their brand logos, colors, text styles, and custom fonts and then use them across all of their interactive videos.

4. Compatibility and integration

Your interactive videos can’t exist in a vacuum – unless you want to make sure no one ever sees them. 

So if you care about increasing the size of your video audience, the software you choose should integrate seamlessly across your tech stack. Look for solutions with application program interface (API) connections or integrations with the customer relationship management tool (CRM), marketing automation, and learning management system (LMS) of your choice.

For teams creating eLearning content, SCORM export may be another non-negotiable. 

Not only will these integrations make it easier for you to distribute your video content, but they’ll also ensure that you can track the performance of your videos across platforms.

5. Security features

Just like with any other tool in your tech stack, robust security is a must. If you plan on publishing or distributing your video content at scale, you should prioritize security features like user authentication and access to data privacy controls. 

These features are necessary for many enterprise scale companies. Additionally, they’ll give your users the peace of mind that your content is safe to view.

Major use cases for interactive videos 

With a little bit of creativity and the right interactive video tools at your fingertips, you can create effective video assets for a wide array of other professional use cases. Here are just a few of the ways your teams can harness the potential of interactive video:

Employee training and development

The first use case on our list is eLearning.

Interactive video is a game-changer for employee training. Scenario-based branching stories allow your employees to choose their own adventure and apply new skills in a simulated learning environment. Then, based on their choices, your video training can branch out and adapt to reinforce certain concepts where needed. 

For example, you could create scenario-based sales training ideos that prompt your sales reps to find the appropriate response to specific product or pricing questions.

Or, could take your interactive training a step further by adding quizzes at the end of each of your video modules. For more complex topics, you can give your viewers the option to replay certain sections and work through your tutorials at their own pace. 

Ultimately, interactive video makes employee training more immersive and helps you improve retention to ensure that all of this new information sticks.

Marketing and sales

If your team needs help with video marketing and lead generation, you can use interactive videos to create a nearly unlimited number of assets for your go-to-market teams. 

For example, you could create and send an interactive sales deck to new leads that allows them to learn about the key aspects of your product or service that are most relevant to their needs. 

Then, you can embed a call to action at the end to increase the chances that they schedule a discovery call with your team.

Customer support and onboarding

As your company scales, you’ll need to increase the size and efficiency of your customer support team. However, rather than increasing your employee headcount, you could leverage interactive videos to provide your customers with self-service options 24/7. 

Let’s say your users need help troubleshooting a certain product feature over the weekend, but none of your customer support reps are available to help. In this case, you could offer them a video library that gives them access to interactive product demos and common troubleshooting scenarios to help them help themselves.

Event and webinar engagement

Last but not least, you can leverage interactive videos to add a unique participation element to all your virtual events and webinars. For example, you could give your presenters the option to embed live polls, Q&As, chats, and social feeds to turn your attendees into active participants.

This kind of gamification doesn’t just make your live events more entertaining; it also ensures that your attendees receive the full value from your video presentation.

Scaling your interactive video production with AI

It goes without saying that AI is changing the way we use technology – and that same rule applies to how we produce interactive videos.

AI drastically expedites interactive video creation with automation and video editing powered by machine learning algorithms. In layman’s terms, that means you can automate repetitive tasks like splicing footage, adding transitions, and translating audio into multiple languages in a matter of minutes.

A perfect example of this automation is Colossyan’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, which allows users to customize their video templates, themes, and assets to match their brand style. 

And beyond an intuitive interface, Colossyan offers a document-to-video feature that enables you to transform your existing help desk documentation or sales assets into a fully produced video draft in just a few clicks.

Simply upload your document, select a template, and in less than 60 seconds later you’ll have a video draft complete with an AI avatar, voiceover, and images. From there, you can edit it to your liking. With features like this, it’s never been easier to scale your video production.

Choosing the best interactive video software for your use case

At this point, you should have a good idea of what interactive video features you should look for, but that doesn’t make it any easier to choose the right tool – especially when you have a limited budget and stakeholders to impress.

If you still need help, here’s a simple framework you can use:

1. Assess your needs: To start, figure out who your audiences are and what types of videos you want to make. Then, decide where you'll share them and what success looks like. This will show you which features you need.
2. Research your software options: Use platforms like G2 and Capterra to look at different interactive tools and compare features like video elements, analytics, branding, customer support, and pricing. From here, you can make a short list of the ones that meet your needs.
3. Test-drive the platforms: Ask for demos and try free trials if they’re available. Once you have access, make a few sample videos and get feedback from your team to see how easy to use and useful the different platforms are.
4. Vet the vendors: Once you’ve narrowed down your search, see how long your interactive video vendors have been around and who uses them. Community forums like Reddit and dedicated Slack groups are a good way to find this kind of information.
5. Select the best fit: Finally, pick the tool that best aligns with your budget and objectives and get started.

Start producing interactive videos with Colossyan

With a bit of creativity and the right interactive tools, you can quickly produce high-quality videos at scale for a virtually unlimited number of use cases. With Colossyan, you’ll have everything you need to create videos that will change the way you deliver content to both your customers and team members across your organization.

Want to start producing interactive videos of your own? Try out Colossyan for free or schedule a time with our team to learn more.