Imagine your new users confidently using your platform, grasping its value within minutes of signing up.
Your product adoption skyrockets, churn plummets, and support interactions drop.
That's the impact of having great customer onboarding videos.
These videos guide first steps, showcase features, and solve challenges, turning new users into loyal advocates.
But what exactly makes a great onboarding video?
After compiling and reviewing many customer onboarding video examples, I identified best practices that kept me engaged. Now, I'm excited to share everything I learned and reveal the best of the best
Best practices identified
- Short 1-3 second logo intro
- Timestamps for quick viewing
- Subtle sound design / background music
- Fade background when focusing on feature
1. ClickUp
ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform to streamline task management, collaboration, and project tracking.
Below is an overview video of their platform. It does a great job of highlighting the key features without being overwhelming.
I love how they introduce the speaker with a headshot. It keeps it engaging - humans connect with humans!
I recommend exploring ClickUp's onboarding page for more inspiration.
ClickUp's video strengths
- Short logo intro
- Subtle sound design
- Subtle zoom ins/outs
- Introduces speaker
- Call out, animated graphics
- Fades out background when focused on feature
2. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a sales management CRM designed to help teams visualize and streamline their sales processes.
What immediately stood out to me was that Pipedrive breaks up all of its videos with timestamps, making for a seamless viewing experience.
Allowing their users to skip to sections they're looking for quickly.
Each video also has a well-designed thumbnail, creating a satisfying brand experience.
Like ClickUp, they have a fantastic dedicated onboarding page with engaging video tutorials.
Pipedrive's video strengths
- Timestamps
- Great branding
- CTA end screen
3. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is an accounting software tailored for small businesses and freelancers.
Rather than splitting it up, they combine the topic title and logo in a brief three-second intro slide. This saves time and keeps it engaging.
The high-quality voiceover and soothing background music make it enjoyable to watch.
No time is wasted - the video is 1:24.
FreshBooks video strengths
- Short & engaging
- High-quality voiceover
- Soothing background music
4. Wave Banking
Wave is an accounting software designed for small businesses and freelancers.
It starts with an animated laptop that immediately engages the viewer.
There are subtle zoom/pop sounds used throughout.
It's broken up with timestamps for easy section skipping.
Waves video strengths
- Timestamps
- Sound design
- Engaging animation
5. Basecamp
Basecamp is a project management and team collaboration tool to streamline communication and organization.
Below is a great onboarding video that addresses a specific use case from one of their users.
It starts from the user's perspective; then it's immediately addressed. This is the most creative and engaging way I've seen a software video done.
Their sound design and animated callouts make it easy to follow.
They end their video with a CTA for user feedback.
Basecamp's video strengths
- From user perspective
- Sound design & animation
- CTA at the end
6. Notion
Notion is an all-in-one workspace to help teams and individuals organize/manage their work.
This is one of the higher-produced animated onboarding videos on the list.
Rather than static screen recording, they thoughtfully animate every scene.
It's a more expensive production approach; however, putting more resources towards it makes sense since it's a cornerstone video.
Notion's video strengths
- Great animation
- Soothing background music
7. Monday.com
Monday is a platform that helps teams manage projects, workflows, and everyday tasks.
This overview of their CRM is a mixture of animation and screen recording.
They use timestamps for a convenient viewing experience.
Monday's video strengths
- Subtle sound design
- Soothing background music
- Subtle scale animation to highlight feature
8. Zendesk
Zendesk is a customer service platform that enables businesses to improve customer interactions through support tickets, live chat, and comprehensive help desk solutions.
Cost-effective way of producing this video because it’s a mixture of title animations and screen recording.
Zendesk's video strengths
- Well-designed title screens
- Easy-to-follow voiceover
- Subtle background music
9. Asana
Asana is a project management platform that helps teams organize, track, and manage their work efficiently through task assignments, timelines, and collaboration tools.
Fully animated UI assets make for crystal-clear zoom-ins.
Asana's video strengths
- Fully animated
10. Box
Box is a cloud content management platform that enables businesses to securely store, share, and collaborate on files from anywhere, with advanced security and workflow features.
Combination of animated titles and screen recording.
Video types
If you're unsure which video style is best for your onboarding process, here are three common options to consider:
- Animation
- Screen recording
- Combination of both
Animation
This style uses clean, scalable graphics that look sharp no matter how much we zoom in. It's great for illustrating complex concepts in a clear, visually appealing way.
Screen recording
This is simply a video of your software in action, showing how to complete specific tasks. It's the most cost-effective option and works well for straightforward tutorials.
Combination of both
You can combine animation with screen recordings. This gives you a more dynamic and polished video without the higher cost of full animation.
If you'd like to learn more about SaaS video types, reference this post.
Final Thoughts
If you watched each of these videos, you're in a great position to create an engaging customer onboarding video.
Use animation, sound design, background music, and respect the viewer's time.
If, at any time, the viewer feels the information is not relevant, you will lose them!
