How to Turn a Text-Based Article into a Video Tutorial
The way people consume information is evolving. While traditional text-based help articles have been the standard for guiding users, video tutorials are now proving to be more effective in delivering instructions, improving engagement, and enhancing user experience. Studies show that people retain information better through visual and auditory learning, making video a superior medium for product education and support.
However, for businesses with vast libraries of help articles, transitioning from article to video can seem like a daunting task. Manually converting each article into a structured, engaging tutorial requires significant time, effort, and resources. The good news? With WowTo’s one-click article-to-video conversion feature, transforming existing help articles into professional video tutorials is easier than ever.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the common challenges of scaling video content for large knowledge bases and how WowTo simplifies the transition by allowing businesses to convert their existing help articles into videos in just one click.
The Challenge: Converting Large Text-Based Help Centers into Videos
Businesses that have been in the market for a while often build up extensive text-based help centers over the years, creating articles for every new feature, update, and troubleshooting step. These help centers can quickly grow to hundreds, if not thousands, of articles. When businesses finally realize that video-based learning is a better way to engage and educate users, the shift from text article to video can feel overwhelming—especially with the sheer volume of content to convert. Transforming such a vast library into engaging, consistent videos that remain up-to-date presents a number of challenges.
1. Time and Effort Required for Manual Video Creation
Traditional video creation is a highly resource-intensive process that demands careful planning and execution. Each help article would require several time-consuming steps:
- Scripting: Writing a clear, concise script is the first step. The script must accurately convey the article’s content while ensuring it’s engaging enough for a video format. This often means rephrasing and summarizing the information to suit a visual medium, which can take significant time, especially for complex topics.
- Recording: The next step is recording, which typically involves voiceovers, screen recordings, or even animated visuals. Depending on the help article, this could mean showing step-by-step instructions, feature walkthroughs, or troubleshooting procedures. This is a labor-intensive task that requires expertise in video production to maintain high quality.
- Editing: After recording, the raw footage needs to be edited. Editing is where much of the creativity and time is spent—adding animations, captions, callouts, or other elements that enhance the video's clarity and engagement. Video editing can be time-consuming, especially when you want to ensure the content is visually appealing and professional.
- Formatting and Publishing: Once the video is edited, it must be formatted for various platforms (website, social media, support portal, etc.). Additionally, the video may need to be optimized for different devices and screen sizes. This requires extra effort to ensure the video performs well across various formats and platforms.
For businesses with a vast knowledge base, going through this process for each individual article is neither practical nor scalable. It’s not just time-consuming; it also requires a skilled team, specialized software, and consistent updates. As the knowledge base grows, the time and resources needed to produce videos for every text based article become increasingly unsustainable.
2. Maintaining Consistency Across Help Content
A structured text-based help center is built to ensure uniformity—whether it’s in formatting, tone, or information delivery. Each help article follows a clear structure, providing users with a predictable and reliable experience. However, when businesses attempt to convert these articles into videos manually, several inconsistencies can arise that impact the quality and user experience:
- Style and Branding: Videos are inherently more personalized, and differences in style, tone, and production can quickly emerge. Whether it's a variation in the presenter’s voice, editing styles, or the use of different visuals and animations, such inconsistencies can confuse users and disrupt their learning experience. A disjointed approach to video creation can create a mismatch with the company's established tone and branding.
- Content Updates: One of the advantages of a text-based help center is how easily articles can be updated—whether it’s fixing broken links, updating product features, or correcting minor errors. With videos, however, updating hundreds of videos manually when a feature or process changes can be significantly more challenging. Every video would need to be re-recorded, re-edited, and re-published. This adds a level of complexity that can overwhelm teams trying to keep up with constant changes.
- Alignment with Existing Documentation: Without a streamlined process for video creation, businesses risk producing disjointed video tutorials that don’t align with the tone, structure, or accuracy of their existing help content. This misalignment can confuse users, making it harder for them to follow and trust the support materials.
When businesses move to video without a consistent, automated process, it becomes difficult to maintain the uniformity that is so valuable in a structured text-based help center.
3. Scaling Video Content Without Disrupting Workflows
Product and support teams are already juggling ongoing content updates, new feature documentation, and responding to customer queries. Adding video production to their plate can significantly slow down workflows, making it harder to keep the help center content up to date. Video creation requires dedicated time and effort, often involving multiple team members from different departments.
This added complexity can be overwhelming, especially when teams are already stretched thin managing other priorities. As a result, many businesses recognize the benefits of video tutorials but hesitate to implement them, fearing the disruption to existing processes and timelines.
The One-Click Solution: Convert Articles into Videos with WowTo
The challenges we just discussed are real and relatable, right? It may feel like creating video tutorials is a herculean task, one that requires a huge budget and a lot of effort. You might think, “This might not be feasible for my team.” But here’s the good news: you’re wrong.
Introducing WowTo—the game-changing tool that makes video tutorial creation not only easy but incredibly efficient. With WowTo, you can say goodbye to the overwhelming process of scripting, recording, and editing. In fact, WowTo will allow you to convert your existing help articles into professional video tutorials with just one click. Yes, you read that right—one click.
Introduction to WowTo’s One-Click Feature
WowTo is a specialized video editor tool designed to create instructional videos for customer support and employee training with ease. What sets WowTo apart is its simplicity and flexibility, offering multiple ways to create engaging video tutorials without needing complex tools or processes.
One standout feature of WowTo is its one-click conversion tool. This allows businesses to convert any existing text-based help article into a fully-formed video tutorial with just a single click. Gone are the days of needing to script, record, and edit videos manually. WowTo does the heavy lifting for you, transforming your article into a professional, engaging video in seconds.
But WowTo doesn’t stop there. The platform also includes a screen recording tool for creating workflow videos, and it allows you to easily convert existing PDFs or PowerPoints into video tutorials. Whether you’re creating training material, support content, or internal documentation, WowTo provides a variety of options to make instructional videos quickly and efficiently.
With WowTo’s one-click feature, businesses can now create video tutorials for their entire help center or knowledge base in no time—without the hassle of traditional video production. This not only saves time but also ensures that you can keep your content updated and easily accessible, all while maintaining a consistent user experience across your training and support materials.
How WowTo Works
It might sound too good to be true, but it’s not! Getting started with WowTo is quick and easy. Just follow these simple steps to convert your help articles into video tutorials with only a few clicks:
1. Sign Up for a WowTo Account
First, create a WowTo account. There’s no need to worry about upfront costs—WowTo offers a free plan that gives you access to all the features, so you can get started right away without any commitment.
2. Paste the Link to Your Support Article
Once you’re logged in, head over to your dashboard. Select the option for Support Articles, and simply paste the URL of your existing help article. WowTo will pull the content from the article automatically, preparing it for video conversion.
3. View Your Article in the Video Editor
On the next screen, you’ll see your article transformed into the video editor. WowTo automatically generates the first screen for your video, which includes the title of your article and an introductory script that explains what the guide is about.
4. Visuals and Script Layout
On the left side of the screen, you’ll see the visuals—screenshots or images pulled directly from your existing help article. On the right side, the script appears, with step-by-step instructions that match the content of your article. This layout makes it easy to understand how the article translates into a video format.
5. Edit the Script If Needed
If you find that any part of the script needs updating, simply click to edit it. Since your help articles may have been written some time ago, you can easily make adjustments to reflect any new updates. Editing is as simple as double-clicking on the text, making sure your video stays accurate and current.
This script will also be used as the voiceover for your video, using one of WowTo’s AI-generated voices, which will make the video sound natural and engaging. We'll dive more into the voice options in the next step, where you can choose the tone and style that fits your brand.
6. Enhance Your Visuals
After making any necessary script changes, you can take your visuals to the next level. Use WowTo’s annotating tool to highlight key areas of your screenshots or videos, or replace outdated visuals with new images or videos, especially if there have been UI updates. Simply click the edit step option to swap out the visuals as needed.
7. Choose the AI Voice for Your Video
Now, choose the AI voice that suits your video’s tone. WowTo offers over 300 voices in 20+ languages, ensuring you can cater to a global audience. With this feature, your users will not only feel more connected but also engage with the content in their native language—a huge boost to your user experience.
8. Add Final Touches
Add any final details like transitions and background music to give your video that extra polish. Once you're happy with your creation, simply click Generate Video—and just like that, you’ve turned your text-based help article into an engaging video tutorial that your users will love watching, in their preferred language.
9. Host and Share
The best part? With WowTo’s Video Knowledge Base Builder, you can host all your videos on your very own no-code video knowledge base. Organize them into categories based on topics or user needs, making it easy for users to help themselves with video tutorials that are not only simple to follow but also seamlessly created by your team.
Benefits of Using WowTo for Video Creation
You see how the task you were dreading has been made so simplified with WowTo. But ease of use isn’t the only advantage it offers. With WowTo, you get much more than just a quick way to convert articles into video tutorials. Here are
Quick and Easy Video Creation
One of the standout benefits of WowTo is how quickly and easily you can turn your text-based help articles into videos. With just a single click, the process is streamlined, saving you time and effort. There’s no need to navigate complex software or invest hours into scripting, recording, and editing. WowTo does it all, making video creation accessible and simple for businesses of all sizes.
Cost-Effective Solution
Traditional video production can be expensive—especially for businesses that need to create multiple videos. Hiring a video production team, renting equipment, and spending hours on editing can quickly add up. With WowTo, all of these costs are eliminated. You don’t need to hire a team or purchase expensive software. Everything is handled within the platform, providing a budget-friendly way to create professional videos at scale.
Scalable for Large Knowledge Bases
For businesses with large, established help centers or knowledge bases, scaling video creation can seem daunting. However, WowTo is built to handle even the most extensive libraries of articles. Whether you have hundreds or thousands of help articles, WowTo allows you to convert them into videos with minimal effort, helping you keep up with content creation as your business grows.
Enhanced User Engagement
Video content is proven to be far more engaging than text alone. WowTo makes it easy to create videos that are visually appealing, informative, and easy to follow. With the ability to customize visuals and add animations, your videos will keep users engaged, helping them understand complex concepts more effectively and encouraging them to stay on your site longer.
Multi-Language Support
If your business operates globally, you need to cater to a diverse audience. WowTo has you covered with over 300 AI voices in 20+ languages. This feature allows you to reach a wider audience, making your video tutorials accessible in multiple languages. Whether you have users in Asia, Europe, or the Americas, your content will resonate with them in their native language, improving the overall user experience.
Customizable to Fit Your Brand
Maintaining brand consistency is crucial, and WowTo allows you to align your video tutorials with your company’s visual identity. You can customize the color scheme of your video knowledge base to match your brand’s colors, ensuring that your videos reflect your company’s style. This simple yet effective customization option helps maintain a cohesive user experience and ensures your tutorials feel consistent with your overall brand.
No-Code Video Hosting and Management
Managing and hosting your video tutorials has never been easier. With WowTo’s no-code video knowledge base builder, you can organize your videos into categories and host them in one place. This centralized system ensures that users can easily find the video content they need, and you don’t need any technical expertise to get it up and running. You can focus on delivering great content while WowTo handles the back-end management.
Convert Your Article to Video With WowTo
Switching to video tutorials doesn’t have to be time-consuming or complex—WowTo makes it effortless. With just one click, you can transform your help articles into engaging videos, ensuring a smarter, more effective way to support your users. Say goodbye to manual video creation and hello to a streamlined, scalable solution.
Make the smart switch today!
