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The 5 best voice over softwares available online (In 2022)

keerthana — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 13:27:32 +0000

A kick-ass video will have perfectly edited frames, color grading, background music, and, most importantly, a well-tailored voice over.

Voice overs are essential to convey essential ideas and express the scenario with emotions to the audience. As a result, many businesses rely on video formats with a perfectly suited voice over to deliver critical messages about their services/products to the customers.

Generally, voice overs are being used in a variety of formats, including podcasts, audio/video commercials, corporate training films, webinars, online coursework, video games, to name a few. Such content would be uninteresting to the audience if it did not include voice overs. For example, in a video course with no voices, or a video game with no narrative, no one would be interested in spending time with such content.

Nevertheless, creating good voice overs is strenuous. Though you could technically make one on your own, you’d still have to shell out hundreds or even thousands of dollars on recording equipment, besides the person-hours to be invested in that task.

Even though you are someone with the capacity to make a large investment, chances are you would not be satisfied with the quality of the voice overs you created on your own. Hence, understandably, you would turn to a freelancer or professional voice actor. However, depending on their service experience and the required work, the cost of hiring voice actors is also not the ideal long-term answer.

So are you wondering what you could possibly do about such a situation? Don’t worry, let me introduce you to voice over softwares. It’s 2023, and we have voice over softwares that runs based on artificial intelligence to produce realistic voices just from text.

Yes! You read that right. You can now convert your video scripts, documents, essays, or any text for that matter into a natural voice of your liking with the help of these voice over softwares. And the best part here is that most of these solutions are super affordable and easy to use. A few of them have lifetime free plans, and a few have trials that you can access without sharing your credit card information.

In addition, you don’t have to be concerned about piracy or copyright infringement with these tools.

So, choosing an online voice over software definitely has its advantages. But how do you choose the right one for your use case?

Well, let us simplify it by picking the best 5 and dissecting the Pros and Cons of each of these tools.

Let’s get started,

Animaker Voice
Natural Reader
Murf.ai
Wideo
Play.ht

1. Animaker Voice

Animaker Voice is a DIY online voice over software that allows you to convert text to speech instantly without much hassle. Simply create a free account with Animaker Voice and start making your voice overs without ripping any holes in your pocket.

Whether the use-case be a

YouTube intro voice over.
Product Explainer Video voice over.
Brand video voice over.
Wishes video voice over.
Instagram Reels voice over or
Tik Tok voice over,

For that matter, Animaker Voice allows you to create human-like voice overs for any use case that you might have in hand.

What’s special about Animaker Voice?
Animaker Voice comes loaded with about 200+ different human-like voices in 50 global languages. That’s insane, right?

Also, you have the complete customization of how the voice should sound.

Gender – Under the Gender option, you can choose between Male and Female voices.
Language – Under the Language option, you can choose the language for the voice. Animaker’s Voice Generator Application comes packed with 50 different global languages.
Voice – Under the Voice option, you can choose from different voices available based on the Gender and Language that you have chosen. In total, the Animaker’s Voice Generator Application comes packed with over 200 other computer-generated voices.
Auto Enhance – The Auto Enhance option is an AI-based neural-voice enhancer that automatically enhances the voice output without manually optimizing other options like breath effect, speed, pitch, etc., to the selected voice.
There are options to control the Pitch, Speed, and Volume of the voice.

Pitch – You can control the pitch of the voice from low to high
Speed – You get to control how fast the voice pronounces the text
Whisper – You can make the voice sound even more incredible with the Whisper option. Click on the Whisper check box to enable it.

Furthermore, Animaker Voice also provides editing options to fine-tune the voice manually by introducing a break in between words and introducing breath after pronouncing a word.

Breath – Animaker Voice pushes the voice editing prowess to the next level by allowing you to add real-life breathing effects in between the words with adjustable volume and duration for the breath in the voice
Break – You can even introduce pauses between two words with the Break feature

For a more detailed walkthrough about Animaker Voice, check out this blog – How to make a Computer Generated Voice? [The Easiest way]

2. NaturalReader Commercial

NaturalReader Commercial is an AI Voiceover software that helps you convert text to speech quickly and download them as audio files.

They use synthesized AI voices to bring you the highest quality natural-sounding voices available in the market today.

What’s special about NaturalReader Commercial
Multi-language
With about 176 voices from 27 different languages, including regional variations like Canadian French, Brazilian Portuguese, and US Spanish, NaturalReader Commercial offers the customers the variety to choose their preferences.

Studio Editor
NaturalReader Commercial comes with a Studio Editor that helps you assign specific voices and speeds to selected pieces of text or use drag and drop to rearrange sections easily. This Studio Editor is the key feature of this voice over software.

Pronunciation Editor
With the Pronunciation Editor, you can use word substitution or phonetic characters to correct or improve the pronunciation of a given word or phrase.

Advanced Controls
Also, Natural Reader offers advanced controls. For example, you can use SSML tags to adjust pitch, tone, and emphasis or insert silence periods.

Commercial Licensing
NaturalReader offers a commercial license that allows you to publicly use the audio or for redistribution purposes. And this means you can use the audio in your YouTube videos, company training videos, eLearning modules, public announcements or broadcasts, and other business, public, or commercial purposes.

Pricing

The commercial subscriptions available under the monthly subscription are,

Free Plan – $0 per month
Single plan – $99 per month
Team Plan – $204 per month for four members

Pricing for this particular voice over software lies on the expensive side compared to the market standards. There’s an option for a yearly subscription as well, and the corresponding prices are Single Plan at $49 and Team Plan at $79 (for a four-member team). Still, this is expensive compared to the other players in the market.

Pros
Studio editor to completely customize the audio output
Pronunciation editor
Commercial licensing to use the audio public purposes
Advanced controls – SSML tags
Cons
No export option is available in the Free plan. It doesn’t allow you to download any audio files. You can only use the interface and get to know about the software.
Synthesized voices are available, but they can sound even more realistic.
Language options offered can be increased.
Pronunciation editor and advanced controls are not available for all voices.

Pricing plans are expensive compared to other software players in the market.

3. Murf.ai

Murf is an AI voice over platform where users can generate synthetic speech from text and add it to their videos and presentations. They specialize in voice synthesis. AI technology creates realistic voice-overs for various purposes, including e-learning, business presentations, gaming, and more.

Murf promises guaranteed quality and no more robotic voices. Instead, their voices are human-sounding, and quality checks across dozens of parameters. So gone are the days of computerized text to speech; it isn’t easy to distinguish between Murf’s advanced AI voices and recorded human voices.

What’s special about Murf.ai
Murf provides a wide range of 100% natural-sounding AI voices in 20 languages for professional voice over projects and presentations.

Murf provides a variety of voices in 20 languages. Most languages have voices accessible for quality testing, even in the free plan. In addition, some languages, such as English, Spanish, and Portuguese, accommodate various accents.

It’s more than simple text-to-speech software.

Add voice to videos or images
Murf Studio makes it simple to produce voice over videos and presentations. You can attain that ideal video timing by simply uploading videos or photos and altering the timing using the blocks in the bottom timeline. Then, add your text, convert to audio, and match your text blocks with your visuals in minutes to get the perfectly stitched voice over video.

Grammar assistant
Murf Studio includes a free grammar and punctuation checker, so you can always write immaculate scripts for your voice overs. It detects any grammatical, spelling, or punctuation mistakes in your text. It makes recommendations for enhancing the script for a higher-quality voice over.

Free background music
Murf Studio has a built-in archive of royalty-free audio tracks that you may use in your projects. Plus, there’s more. Each background music file has been labeled and classified based on use cases, such as explainer videos, presentations, advertising, and moods, such as joyful and peaceful. So on, so you can locate what you need quickly. But, of course, you also use your music within the project, and that’s also a possibility.

Pricing

Murf offers a free plan and three paid pricing options. Under the yearly subscription,

Basic plan – $13 per month
Pro plan – $26 per month
Enterprise – $83 onwards per month
Under the free plan, you get Single User access, and you can try out all 120+ voices plus get 10 mins of voice generation and 10 mins of transcription. However, you have no downloads in the free plan.

Under the Basic plan, you get Single User with Unlimited Downloads, 24 hours of voice generation/year, access to 60 voices in about ten different languages. Also, Commercial Usage rights are included. In addition, chat and Email support will be provided in this plan.

The Pro Plan supports up to 3 users with 96 hours of voice generation/year and 48 hours of transcription/year. You also get access to 120+ voices in about 20 different languages. Also, there are Recorded voice editing and Voice changer features. Commercial Usage rights and Priority Support are also included.

In the Enterprise plan, you get an Account Manager, Custom voice generation time, Custom transcription time, specify the number of users, SSO is enabled. Also, Collaboration features and Centralized invoicing are available.

Pros
A total of 120 voice overs in 19 languages
All plans include full HD video export
Pricing is on the affordable end compared to the market standards
Extensive voice over studio
A full scope of voice over customization is available
Cons
No downloads in the free plan
Voice changer is limited to the Pro and Enterprise plans only
Recorded voice editing feature can be improved and added to all the plans
The number of languages offered can be increased.

Sample Voice Note - Since there were no download options available in the free version, we couldn’t showcase any sample audios from the Murf voice over software.

4. Wideo

Wideo is a video-making website with over 2.5 million registered users worldwide. Make promotional films, explainer videos, demo videos, and presentations, among other things.

Wideo also provides a text-to-speech tool that uses the Google text-to-speech API. Wideo’s Text to Speech Software (TTS) is a quick and straightforward approach to converting text to audio to make your message more memorable and inclusive to the audience.

What’s special about Wideo
With Wideo’s TTS, you can convert text to speech, download it as an mp3 file, import the audio file into your video editor, and add a professional voiceover to your videos.

Without creating an account in Wideo, you can still make your own voice overs and download them as mp3 audio files. Under the free version, you get to convert 2000 characters per day.

Pricing

Wideo comes as a video creation suite, and along with it is the text-to-speech tool.

The basic plan is $59 per month, and the Pro plan is $99 per month. Both provide a limited character count for conversion and download. The Pro plan starts at $99 per month, and the Pro+ plan starts at $199 per month. Unlimited characters limit is included in these two plans for the text to speech conversion.

Pros
Offers more than 40 global languages
You can customize the pronunciation speed of the text
User-friendly interface
Pro plan is economical compared to the market standards
Free user plan is available
Cons
Customization of the voices are limited
More number of global languages can be added
Integrations can be included to support other applications
Detailed information about the tool can be provided

5. Play.ht

Play.ht is a text-to-speech and Al voice synthesis software. You can instantly convert text into natural-sounding speech and download them as audio files in MP3 and WAV formats.

What’s special about Play.ht
You can quickly pick the correct voice from an extensive library of 570 Al voices in 60+ languages and generate natural-sounding voices in no time.

Creating Audio files
Play.ht voice over software gives the users basically two options,

1. Create audio from text 2. Source from an article URL. You can enter the text or fetch content from a URL, convert it to audio, and download it as MP3 or WAV files.

WordPress Plugin
The voice over software comes with a Plugin for WordPress. You can easily add audio to blog posts, pages, and e-learning materials from your WordPress dashboard. Use AI voices and audio player widgets to make your textual content audible.

To improve content accessibility, user engagement, and time on page metrics, you may convert your blog posts, articles, and eLearning content into audio with the plugin.

Medium Extension
Play.ht also offers a Chrome browser extension for Medium. You can easily add audio to your Medium stories by installing and using the available Medium Chrome Extension.

API access
Use the API to gain access to Play.ht. For example, if you’re a developer, you can use Play.ht’s API to incorporate text-to-speech conversions into your software. The API uses a comprehensive collection of voices and languages to provide a single interface for converting text to speech.

Complete Customization
Play.ht allows you to modify the voice overs by simply highlighting the words altogether. To make the speech more human-like, add pauses and emphasis. You may even alter the voice’s pace, tone, and pronunciation to mimic genuine human voices in specific scenarios better.

Podcast Hosting
With Play.ht, you can get the RSS feed of the created audio files and distribute them to powerful podcasting platforms such as iTunes and Spotify.

Pricing

Play.ht offers four paid plans (prices below are when billed monthly)

The personal plan starts at $19 per month. This plan is apt for school projects and proofreading content. It includes unlimited previews and downloads, but the catch is you won’t get commercial rights for reuse; podcast hosting is also not included.

The professional plan starts at $39 per month. Premium voices are the key added advantage in this plan. And along with it, you get customizable audio players and exclusive commercial rights. Even Podcast hosting is included in this plan.

The growth plan starts at $99 per month. Under this plan, you get everything included in the Professional plan. In addition, you get a pronunciation library and an automatic audio creation feature along with it.

The business plan starts at $199 per month. Everything in the Growth plan is covered here. Also, priority technical support is offered. You get the rebranding and reselling rights as well. Teams’ access to the project for possible collaboration is also included.

The pricing varies drastically when you opt for the plans yearly,

Personal- $14.25 per month
Professional – $29.25 per month
Growth- $74.25 per month
Business – $149.25 per month
But the features included remain the same as when the plans are billed monthly.

Pros
Offers 570+ AI Voices and 60+ Languages
Supports MP3 & WAV Export of audio files
Commercial Use licensing is provided (except personal plan)
Full SSML Support
Availability of API Access
Plugin Integrations with WordPress and Medium

Cons
Rebranding and Reselling rights are included in the Business plan only
Voice over options are too many, but most of them sound less human-like
The free version supports only three downloads.

Top 5 2D Animation Software!

keerthana — Tue, 18 Jan 2022 05:49:20 +0000

A 2D animation video takes hours of planning and effort. Right from the pre-production stage of character design, scriptwriting, storyboarding, choosing color themes, visualizing backgrounds, and more – 2d animation videos worth a couple of hours takes months to be produced.

But, the efforts taken to produce a 2d animation video is totally worth it because of the attention and appreciation it gets. People enjoy watching 2d animated videos because of their simplicity, visual appeal, and impact.

With a huge potential to attract and convert, 2d animations are a treasure trove for not just the entertainment industry but businesses too.

But, more often than not, creating 2d animation videos is abandoned or postponed because of the fact that it takes a lot of time, effort, resources, and a huge pie of the budget.

The age of DIY 2d Animation Software

With the rise of DIY 2d animation tools, creating videos for marketing, sales, HR, and learning has become easier than ever. Every individual who has no prior knowledge or experience of video making or editing can get their hands dirty with these DIY tools and produce studio-quality videos in no time.

The DIY 2d animation tools have been successfully breaking the barriers and making videos possible for all.

But, there’s one problem with this.

Which software do I choose? That’s the question on everyone’s mind.

Investing in 2D animation software can be overwhelming to decide considering that there are so many players in the market.

We have made it easy for you by filtering out the best players in the market and have highlighted their features, pros, cons, pricing, and differentiating factors so that your choice can be made easier.

Let’s begin.

Top 5 2D animation software

1. Animaker

Animaker is a DIY video making tool that helps beginners, non-designers, and practically anyone create studio-quality animation videos at ease with its simple drag-and-drop interface.

Animaker has a forever free plan that gives you access to a lot of assets. You can create 2 custom characters and export up to 5 HD quality videos per month.

Pros:

Tons of pre-built templates covering a wide range of topics and use cases
A huge library of 30,000+ in-built animated assets that cover 2d backgrounds, stickers, gifs, properties, animated texts, and more
Powerful character builder to create custom characters by altering facial features, accessories, and expressions – potential to create a billion character combinations
Advanced animations like smart move and action plus simplify complex animations with a click of a button
You can add voiceovers to video through the TTS software, upload voiceovers, or even record one on the app
It is also possible to humanize text-to-speech by adding breaks, emphasis, and customize it in different languages and voices
Syncing characters’ lip movement with voiceovers can be automated with a single click
You get up to 4K quality video exports
If you are a power user of videos in your content, then, features like Brand kit and real-time collaboration would come in handy

Cons:

The Brand kit is available only in the Enterprise Plan of Animaker
2K quality is available from the Pro Plan onwards

Animaker tops the list of best 2D animation software because of differentiating features like advanced animations and a huge collection of assets.

2. Vyond

Vyond allows you to create professional 2D animation videos at ease with its simple user interface. It has a wide collection of animated assets covering different industries and use cases. There are three visual styles - contemporary, business-friendly, and whiteboard.

Vyond gives a 14-day free trial.

Pros:

Vyond has 200+ templates representing hundreds of industries, occupations, and concepts
In Vyond, you can customize your characters and alter almost anything including complexion, accessories, facial features, and more
You can animate characters in Vyond with the motion path feature
Vyond has TTS software, but you cannot humanize voices
Vyond has a good system for the support that includes FAQs, community forums, and webinars

Cons:

Vyond is one of the expensive DIY 2d video making software
You cannot export your projects during the free trial and have to upgrade to paid plans to do so
You get up to only 1080p quality exports
Although the characters on Vyond have wide customization options, their characters do not look as attractive as the other tools offer

3. Powtoon

Powtoon helps in creating decent 2D animation videos at ease. The tool is quite simple and easy to use.

Pros:

You can custom create different characters for your videos. The options to customize is not as vast as Animaker or Vyond
It has a good collection of properties
You can create two looks for your animated videos – modern edge and cartoon
A wide collection of templates for different use cases
There are options to record voiceovers and use TTS software but you cannot humanize the voice

Cons:

You can create characters in the free plan, but they come with an agency watermark (upgrade to use characters in your videos)
There are no advanced animations in Powtoon. You can only animate your characters and properties on a loop or apply transition effects
Powtoon has a freemium plan, but you cannot download videos in the free plan which really defeats the purpose of a free plan

4. Toonly

Toonly is an easy-to-use DIY 2d animation software and one of the most affordable in the market.

Pros:

Toonly has a good collection of characters, backgrounds, and properties covering a lot of industries and niche. However, the options are not as wide and impressive as the other tools that we just discussed
You can animate your videos easily with a simple click of a button
The pricing is affordable as t starts at as low as $20 in the standard plan that is billed annually
There is a 30-day timeline within which you can get your refund if you are not satisfied with the tool – this makes it risk-free
There’s a private Facebook group for Toonly users to discuss and bounce off tips and suggestions

Cons:

Toonly is downloadable software and is not available on the cloud
The assets available in the standard plan are very limited. Particularly the backgrounds, text animations, and character animations are scarce which make it difficult to create a variety of videos
There is no free trial available which makes it a bit difficult to try and test the tool before investing
Though you can record and upload voiceovers on Toonly, there’s no option to humanize the voices
You cannot customize your characters on Toonly

5. Moovly

Moovly is a decent 2d animation software that allows the creation of animated videos at ease.

Pros:

There is a TTS software available in Moovly. However, the access is available only on their expensive plans
The characters can be customized on Toonly. But, you cannot get too creative as the customization options are very limited
There’s a good collection of templates available

Cons:

You cannot export videos in the free plan. Also, you can create videos only with a duration of 2 minutes in the free version.
Basic actions like adding custom fonts and colors and subtitles are restricted on the free as well as their Pro plan
There is no support available for the free plan
The quality of animations is mediocre on Moovly

Conclusion

So, that was the list of our top 5 2d animation software. Animaker is a complete tool that has a lot of features that the other players do not have. Also, the forever free plan allows you to use the tool and also download five videos per month.

There is also an opportunity to create two custom characters per month. Vyond and Powtoon are the next best followed by Animaker.

So, depending on your requirements, you can now make an informed choice! If you have any other suggestions, do drop it in the comments.

Vmaker: The best alternative for Loom

sangeerani — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 15:51:38 +0000

Screen recording videos has gained a lot of popularity. It’s not difficult to understand why — screen recording videos are easy to create, it’s much cheaper to produce a video than compared to other video creation tools, and there are a lot of screen recording tools available online. Speaking of which, there is one tool that has become almost synonymous with screen recording, and that is Loom.

Loom has taken the world by storm by gaining more than 7 million users worldwide. From marketers to developers everyone has realized the power of creating screen recording videos for daily communication. Loom has also positioned itself well in the market. The product is easy to use, the pricing is to the point, and the website looks very welcoming.

However, there are a few grey areas that is important to be aware of. In this blog, we will be covering a few concerns about using Loom, and how you can get over them by using a better alternative. If you’re using Loom already, then this blog will have a lot of takeaways for you. If you’re one of those people who are starting out with screen recording or at the evaluation stage, then this blog will be a great resource for you too.

In this blog, we will be comparing Vmaker with Loom. This will be a thorough analysis starting from the free plan to the paid plans.

What is Vmaker

Vmaker is a free screen recording tool that allows you to record screen and video for unlimited duration. Vmaker has coined the term “Video chat, without a chat,” which means you can use screen recordings to chat with people, but in an asynchronous way. This keeps the conversation more thoughtful, and less stressful.

Vmaker is a product of Animaker Inc., one of the fastest growing creative companies in the video making and animation industry. Animaker has more than 10 million users worldwide, and with Vmaker, they are optimistic on stretching their reach further.

Coming to the crux of this blog, here’s how the Vmaker is a better alternative to Loom.

Free plan comparison: Vmaker vs Loom

Loom offers a free plan for users. It’s great for those who want to test drive the tool, and then take the decision. However, there are a lot of limitations to it which automatically pushes a user to upgrade to a paid plan. Vmaker, on the other hand has done a great job in designing the free plans. There are no hidden charges or caveats, and no pressure on a user to upgrade to a paid plan. They can continue to use it because most of the premium features are available for the free version too.

Let’s look at the following table to see how Vmaker’s free plan is better than Loom –

Summary

The free plan offered by Vmaker has the right set of features to encourage users to create screen recording videos even when they’re in the free plan. Normally, the DND mode and video editing features are available only for the paid plans. By offering these features in the free plan, Vmaker is miles ahead of Loom.

Alright, so that was the free plan comparison. Let’s check how Vmaker and Loom fare in the paid plan comparison. In the following section, we have compared the pricing along with the features offered in the paid plan.

Paid plan comparison: Vmaker vs Loom

Summary
That was the comparison of the starter plan of Vmaker and Business plan of Loom. By paying a dollar less, you get features that are interesting and can make your videos more sharp.

Now, let’s compare the highest plan of Vmaker, and the business plan of Loom

Summary

The Teams plan of Vmaker which is the highest plan, cost $2 extra as compared to Loom. However, features like recording scheduler, unlimited creators and workspaces, justify the premium amount. This plan will do great justice to teams that collaborate together to work on different projects. Talking about Loom’s business plan, it falls short from becoming an effective tool for team collaboration

Verdict

The verdict is clear. The comparisons are right in front of you. Vmaker offers a better bang for the buck. It has the right set of features, and its friendly pricing has a lot to offer for anyone who is willing to make screen recording videos. The free plan is probably the best in the market, and it is the biggest head turner for Vmaker. The Starter and the Teams plan, has advanced features which will appeal to those users who have been making screen recording videos for some time now. It’s about time that these users migrate to Vmaker for a better experience, access to more thoughtful features, and higher return on investment.

Picmaker

sangeerani — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 12:46:35 +0000

Picmaker is a DIY YouTube thumbnail maker that helps people create stunning Youtube thumbnails and YouTube channel art in a jiffy.

The simple and easy to use interface makes sure that users don’t need any designing experience to create an awesome thumbnail in Picmaker. With just a few clicks, anyone can create thumbnails that can significantly boost the CTR(Click Through Rate) of their YouTube videos.

What’s inside Picmaker:

Background removal tool
Sticker effect tool
Photo filters
100,000+ graphic elements
700+ pre-built templates
Exclusive access to 1000+ stock photos
Image Resizing option
Image upload option
Unlimited storage for photos and assets

Baked with love from the creators of Animaker Inc., Picmaker is the Perfect tool to make Uber-Cool YouTube Thumbnails!

Algopix – Product Research Made Easy

sharmila — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 09:08:09 +0000

For past decade, the co-founders of Algopix have been committed to helping companies succeed in eCommerce. A few years back, Ori Greenberg and Dani Avitz founded an agency focused on providing the required expertise and management to expand companies’ e-commerce efforts internationally. Along the way, they had the opportunity to work with dozens of companies performing various activities including conducting general market research, creating international growth strategies, advising about local business entities and regulation, setting up fulfillment centers and creating customer support departments; we did it all. And humbly, they did it all pretty well. They had a great customer base, a great team and genuinely loved what we were doing.

But Ori and Dani started to see a bigger problem, a more systemic problem that went beyond the scope of the professional services their e-commerce agency offered. The majority of the merchants they were working with were relying on ‘gut feel’ to make critical business decisions. In the era of big data, of making the most calculated decisions possible, e-commerce merchants were falling behind. So they started spending more and more time with our merchants to understand the nuances and like any good investigation, they started at the beginning.

The first task with a new customer was always the same – to take a very close look at their inventory, specifically the list of slow movers; the millions of dollars stuck in warehouses. Reviewing the list of items consistently produced the same results – the items either had a low demand level or were priced higher than the market price as a result of inaccurate purchasing decisions. So, how did the customer choose inventory that was in low demand and/or inaccurately priced? Gut. Feel. In some cases, the market price was examined but gaining the demand level was always a challenge and always a guess.

Ori and Dani knew a few niche solutions existed in the market to help merchants explore the demand level on specific marketplaces (eBay, Amazon, etc.) but didn’t provide an Omni channel perspective which meant performing manual analysis to understand every item in every market. There had to be a better way.

To ensure they were on the right path, Ori and Dani brought on three additional full-time employees to test their hypothesis that more informed purchasing decisions from the beginning would help merchants’ bottom line. The results were more than apparent – sellers generated greater margins, increased sales volume, reduced risks of overstock and decreased the turnaround time of their funds.

The final step was interviewing merchants to ensure they were building a product that was easy to use, easy to look at and easy to see the value in. They wanted it to be a solution that was built specifically with sellers in mind. They spent the next two years designing and developing a solution they genuinely believe will help e-commerce merchants do business better. That has been and always will be their primary goal.

The results of their efforts were Algopix, a comprehensive product research platform that provides the eCommerce community with the data needed to make the most informed business decisions possible. By providing actionable product insights automatically, Algopix helps eBay and Amazon sellers save time, increase sales and reduce risks.

Algopix offers immediate benefits to users including:
Saving Time – reduces time spent on a tedious manual process and enables users to make decisions quickly.
Reducing Costs – with the right data about what to source and sell, overstock of products that are not in demand is reduced.
Lowering Risk – by making more informed decisions, the risk of losses on making the wrong choice is reduced.
Increasing Market Awareness – Comparison of different offers and sales campaigns over the long term for more targeted business strategies.
Enabling Smart Business Decisions – through intelligent analytics, Algopix equips users with the data needed to know precisely what actions to take

Algopix is currently free to use and supports over 12 eBay and Amazon markets globally.

Top 5 Best Tools to Make Social Media Videos

sangeerani — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 06:56:14 +0000

Last week, the shower fell on my head. It was a chilly morning. First, I thought it was frozen ice. Then, I realised the whole damn thing was broken.

I called the plumber. He came in at lightning speed. So quick that he forgot to take his tools. He was the finest plumber in town, but without the tools he was as good as my Neighbour Jerry.

The only difference between humans today and humans 10000 years ago is tools.

You might be a social media expert. You might have the creativity to make content that attracts attention. You might even have the insight to understand the trends. But without the right tools, you are only 1% of what you can be.

A lot of professionals don’t update their arsenal.

We find an amazing tool. We fall in love with it. And we keep on using it for years and years.

What if your Grandpa still used pigeons instead of Gmail?

Here is the 2017 list of must have tools for social media:

Live Video Maker – Shakr.

Small businesses and big brands are turning to social media video advertising for discovery, entertainment and brand awareness.

And with the number of video ad views totaling to 28.7 billion last year, you just can’t ignore it! However, as the cost for making video ads are too expensive, most marketers were still testing waters. Shakr changes all that. It is the missing piece of puzzle that saves the day here.

Shakr aims to help Small business owners ( real estate agents, car dealers, restaurant owners) to create video advertising campaigns for their marketplace at a very affordable price.

All you need to do is pick stock images from the application and drop them in the video creator. The output is a stunning HD video for your video ad campaign. Their templates are designed by graphic designers who have worked for brands like Nike and Samsung in the past.

You can also preview the HD-quality, non-watermarked video clips and themes before buying them.

WeVideo

Another popular social media app I have come across is WeVideo. Like Shakr, WeVideos also helps you create live videos. But the best thing I like about them is that you can capture and edit your video on your mobile on the go.
WeVideo boasts of giving full creative control to the users.Their main motto is that imagination should be the foundation of any kickass video. They make it very easy to create a great movie.

With features like photo animation, voice over, and clip transformation, screencasting etc, WeVideo seems no less than a mix of professional video editing tools within a single application.

WeVideo is the one stop solution for making anything from family videos to product demos. It can be used in both PC and smartphone.

Animated Videos: Animaker

Animated videos are underestimated.

While it cannot provide the richness of a real video, it has its own advantages.

It’s not just an app for explainer videos. In addition to having a huge list of awesome features to make cool animations, it can come to your rescue:

1. If your target audience is not from your country and you don’t have the money to hire a foreign actor.

2. When you want your imagination to make all the rules.

3. When you want to incite warm emotions while showing a factory or anything boring.

4. If you are catering to a statistics heavy topic.

5. If you want to make changes later.

Animaker edges out most other apps in the same segment thanks to 2 things:

Better Visuals: More lively characters in the app with new characters coming up all the time.

A constant update of features: Last year we came up with Video Infographics and this year we’ve already brought in Animaker Decks: which can convert your video into a slide show presentation. But our landmark innovation this year would be the addition of the world’s first vertical video maker. If you haven’t already, you should check it out now.

Video slideshows – Animoto

Like the 3 tools mentioned above, Animoto also has a unique feature- Video slideshows.

It gives you a video slideshow instead of a video as an output which is recreated out of free images, video clips or music clips. Animoto has patented Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology which makes all of this possible.

The company aims to help users make professional looking videos instead of poorly made camcorder video clips. And it turned out to be true when Animoto’s Facebook application launched in 2008 had nearly 750,000 people signed up in just three days!

If you want to create a video slideshow with an attractive mix of video clips, images and music clips, Animoto is a tool you need to try.

Magisto

If you want to add a personal touch to their social videos, Magisto holds a big advantage. With their emotion sense technology, the tool automatically selects the best parts of the video and clubs it into a beautiful story that elicits emotion.

The patented emotion sense technology is said to work on three levels: Visual analysis, audio analysis and storytelling.

After a detailed analysis of the video, the tool identifies the main character of the video, the topic of the video and uses the emotion guided techniques to form a perfect story.

From personal videos to commercial ads, Magisto captures the core element of your video (the story) and makes it compelling to look at.

All with an easy-to-use interface with editing tools, captions, custom branding and pre- themed templates. Magisto has come a long way to be called a “smart video storytelling application”.

It’s a war out there. Having a good plan alone won’t be enough to stand out. You need to use the right tools as well. Remember, Iron man would be just talk and no show if he didn’t have the suit.

How to wisely use Dogs in Startup videos?

admin — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:12:22 +0000

Many animals are appreciated as cute, cuddly and friendly. Dog is one such kind.
Their innocence emotionally touches our inner child and our empathy. Even if we are not a dog lover, we are still able to look at a dog video and appreciate its humour and the creativity that had penetrated into its concept.

You know that dogs are the current darlings of marketers. We are in an era where people are looking for an exceptional association with companies and brands and most find dogs endearing.

The dog power

Dogs are popular and just plain irresistible, because they are,

An epitome of simplicity.
A symbol of energy.
Enthusiastic and motivated round the clock.
Transmit a thought of freshness.

When the positives are so many, why not use dogs in your startup videos.

Dogs can lock attention

Our primary goal is to lock the attention of the target customer. In the first place, realize that your customer is sick and tired of watching thousands of ads in TV, mobile phones, hoardings and posters on the road. To make that fatigued consumer spring up from his couch, imagine a video showing a beautiful chocolate Labrador retriever running over a green pasture. People who have an affinity towards dogs stop a moment to take a look. And when that happens, your video has successfully scaled an incredibly challenging hurdle.

Dogs can evoke emotions

You have made your customer notice your video. You have crossed half the bridge. Now, you ought to lock your video in his memory. All you need to do is- engage his emotions. Generally, dogs evoke warm emotions. So you can simply achieve it, by recalling his childhood pet experience with a tint of amusement. You have triumphed in showering your customer in an emotional rush. Job well done. The customer can effortlessly summon back your ad from his memory, and decides to buy your product. What can be better than this?

Dogs can build Trustworthiness

Nowadays, everyone wants to spend their dollars, rightly. If you intend to be recognised by your customer for your genuineness, you need to register that feeling in his mind in first place. It is an universally acknowledged truth that dogs are the faithful, best friends of humans. Man trusts his best friend. So, the dog can help as an agent to the customer to take that crucial and final decision by recommending your product as a trustworthy product. As it is a known fact that, dogs are a source of security and are our protectors, people believe that it won’t let them down.

Big Brands Adopt Dogs in Videos

The Most Viral Advertisement of 2003- Hutch

Winner of Best Ad Award 2011- Lotto Dog

Volkswagen Woofwagen dogs advertisement 2013

A real treat to startups who are dog-lovers

Watch some of the dog videos to best know how dogs can be smartly handled to convey your marketing message.

Dog recommends HousePlans

Dog reinforces environmental messages- P.O.O.P(Protect Your Only Planet)

Dog endorses its Toy

However, this is not an exhaustive list. Share some of the best dog videos that we have missed out in the comment section below.

10 Steps To Avoid In Any Pitch Deck Presentation

bhuvana — Thu, 26 Dec 2013 05:54:51 +0000

What is Pitch Deck?

A “pitch deck” is a selling technique, with a planned sales presentation strategy of a product or service designed by an entrepreneur in order to raise funds from (“pitch”) investors.

They can be sent to investors as a stand-alone document (e.g., via email) or visual presentation or as an explainer video.

But, Pitch Deck Presentation in the form of explainer video will be the best way to convey your product and your ability to raise fund.

How Your Presentation Should Be Or Not?

A well presented pitch deck gives a positive first impression to the investors and Vc’s that you have the ability to execute your project well.

Being an entrepreneur you might be in touch with many investors and now is the time to convince them that your product will give solutions for some big problems and

It is going to change the world — or is at least worth investing in it. Since pitch deck is likely the first time, an investor will come to know about your product.

The pitch deck for a startup needs to be a summary of what they are doing in this project, and what they need to do to make it happen.

So the Pitch givers should be aware of avoiding some common mistakes in their presentation:

10 Common Mistakes in Pitch Presentation:

1. Using More Slides:

A pitch should have a number of 10 or less than 10 slides. Using more slides will worsen the presentation; this is one of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make.

“Like many things in life, less is more in fundraising slides” -Fred Wilson.

Allow one slide for a cover slide which should have your name, your company logo and a single line explanation of your business.

2. Brief Content:

Avoid using too many words. Decks should have more visuals with charts, tables and pictures, or can use explainer video, so that each slide can convey its purpose in few seconds. Since Investors are not interested in reading memos and rows of bullet points.

3. Lack of storylines:

Everyone loves to hear stories, even the investors. So tell an exciting story about your startup and arrange your slides to reflect that story.

This may impress your investors in a better way.

4. Not Recognizing a Problem:

What’s the big problem? And how your product have the opportunity to give solution to that problem?

You must address this issue in your pitch deck. Only the investors get exicted if you identified a big problem in the market.

5. Not Giving Solution for a Problem:

This must give a crystal clear vision of how your product solves the problem, and an opportunity for you to show them its features.

Make sure your presentation make the audience relate your product with their problem,and the need of using your product, and how it will make their lives easier.

This may be a good time to introduce a demo or screen shot of your product.

6. No Proper Product Demo:

If you are presenting in person, you must give a demo of the product. Demo may be in the form of pictures or visuals or most likely an explainer videos.

Demos trump every form of presentation. Lack of demo will be a disappointment to the investors.

7.No Business Model:

Most of them are failling to explain how will you make money and where your revenue strength are.

The startups also need to show the size of their market and how much they have the potential to make.

8. Failing to show your Team Strength:

Give description about the strengths and skill set of your founder and tell how your skill sets complement others in team.

Because investors wish to see a range of technical and non technical skills between founders, and their team.,so that they can develop a product quickly and can make changes quickly.

9. Not Projecting about the Competitors:

Who is your competitor and how will you compete? How you are different from others? And what is better about your business?

They expect you to explain these things; lacking of this will spoil your pitch.

10. Lack of RoadMap:

Here is where you need to clear the investors, how long will this product take to build, how much will it cost and when will you start making money?

What are your targets and how long will you need to meet them?

Finally by using visual presentations or explainer videos in pitch deck, will help you to give your product demo and summarize your need to the investors in the effective way.

A well presented pitch deck creates positive first impression and the quality of your pitch can certainly be the difference between getting funded and getting left behind.

Explainer Video Pricing and Budget : How to Invest Wisely

bhuvana — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:43:18 +0000

You may already familiar with all the advantages of having a good explainer videos, like ranks your website better in Google search, increasing conversion rates, clarifying your product and boosting your sales. So, we are not going to bore you again with these points.

Now, then what we are going to talk about? A lot of people are shocked when they hear about the cost of an explainer video for the first time. Without knowing the production process, how much resources involved in it, especially video quality and its instant credibility many of us is misunderstanding that the price is too high.

Well, we understand that the main problem for most startup is the cost of explainer video. So this article will help you to justify how much a proper explainer video cost along with its production process and explains you, How should we invest a right amount?

An Obvious Question: How much Costs?

Is the first and foremost question when we enquire about the explainer videos.

It is actually difficult to place a figure on how much an explainer video would cost, as it has different client and each one having different requirements and that could be unique. So it really based on the length of the video and the animation style it involves.

However, we know people would like to know the price before hearing rest things about an explainer videos. so a typical explainer video will cost about $1000 to $5000 per minute, at the same time you should keep in mind that a sophisticated animation video cost can go as high as $10, 000 per minute.

Have you ever think about the difference between $1000 explainer video and a $10, 000 one? Then what about the difference between $10, 000 explainer video and $100, 000 TV spot? The truth is, “You Get What you Pay For”. But creating a video is not always cheap.

The below figured video production process are the possible expense and that will help you to understand the questions,

How the video production budget split up works? And, Where the cost are going?

In general, a 60-90 seconds explainer video takes 4-8 weeks to complete.

Research and Brainstorming (4-7 days)
Story and scripting (4-7 days)
Voice production and Recording (1-2 days)
Storyboarding (7-10 days)
Animation and Production (10-12 days)
Sound effects & Music design (3-5 days)
Delivery and Promotion (2-4 days)

Are you Investing right amount?

“If your business is looking to increase conversion rates, an explainer video may be exactly the secret weapon you need.” – Andrew Angus

Before investing money on explainer video, it’s essential to understand how much can be the right amount and what happens if we don’t invest a proper amount.

A professionally made explainer videos are trending big now, because they are most likely in between 60-90 seconds and explaining your product for users to grasp features and its advantages. However, explainer videos only work if they’re done in a better way.

A poorly designed explainer video with the consideration of reducing the cost can have adverse effects alone and leaves the viewer confused and turned off. Even we can create an explainer video for just $5. Template makes this possible but they may not have a license to sub-license it to you.

A minimum budgeted video doesn’t mean that you are saving money, because you are most likely going to end up and having to do things twice which can’t only cost you money but also time and resources.

If you try pushing the production houses to get a lowest cost explainer video, sometimes you might be unhappy with your video you receive finally.

Ready to Invest? If not:

When producing a video, production houses don’t do just animation, they really care about producing a video for you that will be more effective, and not only explaining your products, they will also explains the pain of your ideal customers and how your product /service will solve that pain.

So if you are interested to have an explainer video and still you feel not having sufficient money to invest then don’t go for it. Because a poorly designed low budget video may hurt your customers more than not having one at all.

Power of Storytelling in Explainer Videos

bhuvana — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 13:36:42 +0000

Once upon a time – this word gets more attention from us usually, when telling a story. The power of storytelling, and the use of stories to create an effect, no matter if it’s a true or fictive story, simple or extravagant. The key principle for storytelling is more memorable and successful in attracting customers. This principle can be applied directly on explainer videos to make them more effective.

“The stories we are telling are as important as what we are selling.”- Jonah Sachs

And any video people would like to watch just because it’s entertaining, engaging, inspiring or informative. The more the video is about the story – it should have minimal reference to the particular business.

Stories and Storytelling:

Research shows that a good story we’ve heard in the last few months or even years – any story (short story, story in a presentation, childhood bedtime story, etc) we will remember easily than a good statistics we’ve heard very recently.

People love stories. A good story can work wonders when it comes to making the listener understand something and retain the information.

“Scratch the surface in the boardroom, and we are all just caveman with briefcases, hungry for a wise man to tell us stories.” – Alan Kay

Some elements of a good story include:

A clear beginning and the end
Clear message
It’s authentic
It’s relevant
Engaging

If we listen to a PowerPoint presentation with boring bullet points, a certain part in the brain gets activated and hits our language processing parts. Scientists call this Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. Where the viewers decode words into meaning. And that’s it, nothing else happens.

When we are being told a story, things change dramatically. Not only is the language processing parts in our brain activated, although any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.

Storytelling in Explainer Video:

The explainer video is a short video that businesses use to quickly introduce themselves, explain what they do, and tell how they help solve their customer’s problems. It’s a very quick, memorable way to make an impact on your audience and help provide the viewer with the important information they need to make a decision. This is vital to your site’s conversion.

Many brands tell its story isn’t ready for the prime time spotlight. And when it comes to telling your story, you never know who you’ll run into. That’s why telling your story through video is so compelling: it’s always there, and consistent for sharing.

Stories are more powerful today than ever. Why?

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell” – Seth Godin.

We are drowning in information. Good stories can cut through the noise.
Stories capture people on an emotional level, creating a deeper, intimate bond.
Stories are memorable; people forget facts but remember stories.
People use stories to make sense of things.
People learn from stories.

Attention spans aren’t long these days, and after years of research and experience, experts found that 90 seconds or less video is bitter for most. And because less in time explainer video would not include every detail, the details are limited to most important things you need your customer to know about your service/product.

Explainer video takes lot of hours to craft a great story and finding a best story takes some creative work. The process of explainer video production have dozens of moving parts like meetings, creative briefs, brainstorming, script writing, sketches, storyboards, style frames, voiceover, animation, sound effects, music, and so on. Even though, most clients care most about how well you tell their story. Also it cares whether you made it relevant, fun, and entertaining their viewers.

The Best story always wins:

Business explainer video is the number one way to boost sales, remain memorable in your client’s mind because of good story in it and do a lot.

As a marketer, if you want people to remember your explainer video, you have to structure it in best story. People retain stories and have better recollection of things, if it can be put in context. Not only do stories put things in context, they also evoke emotions. People relate to great stories and want to know what happens next. In future they become invested in the storyline and character.