A video for every feature you ship, not just the big ones

The economics of the small release

A big launch can justify an agency. A feature announcement usually can't: nobody spends a few thousand dollars and three weeks on a video for bulk export or a new filter. But these are exactly the releases customers ask for, and a 20-second clip that shows the feature working is what gets them used.

On Softer's Volume plan a video costs $8, and every edit inside it is included. That changes the question from "is this feature big enough for a video?" to "which channel does this video go to?"

From changelog entry to video

Paste the changelog entry, or write the brief in one line: "20-second vertical clip announcing CSV export in Trackwise, for ops managers." Softer writes the script, picks up your brand from the kit it captured at signup, records the voiceover, adds a music bed and animates the feature as motion graphics: the export button, the file landing, the spreadsheet filling in. Captions are drawn in word by word, on by default.

Keep a house style with Reuse

Once one feature video looks right, you don't start from zero for the next. Reuse branches it: "same format, now announcing saved views". The pacing, voice, music and layout carry over, the content changes, and the original stays intact. Over a quarter your release videos start to look like a series, which is what a brand is.

Changes are a sentence, not a ticket

• "Rename the feature to 'Saved views', marketing changed it."
• "Slower on the second step, people need to read the menu."
• "Swap the voice for something warmer."
• "Turn off captions for the in-app version."

Each one re-renders the video. When the feature name changes the day before release, the video is not the thing that holds you up.

Writing a good feature brief

1. Say who it is for. "For admins" and "for end users" produce different scripts.
2. Say the before and after. "Used to take a support ticket, now it's one click."
3. Pick the channel, which picks the aspect ratio and length.
4. Give one call to action: try it now, read the docs or update the app.