How to Use Screencasting To Promote Your Business

Even if you draw a blank when you hear the term "screencast", you may have watched and learned from one in your online travels.

Many bloggers and webmasters use screencasts – which are recordings of what happens on a computer screen, often accompanied by voice or text explanation – to illustrate tutorials or other useful resources that will be of interest to their audience.

The second image above on this post comes from a screencast by Dianne Gilleland at CraftyPod, which explains how crafty types can maximize their use of Google Reader. You can use screencasting in many ways: to create demonstrations that will help your audience, presentations using Powerpoint, or to help watchers navigate a website, product or software program.

So, how do you make a screencast?

There are many software programs out there – some free, some not – that allow you to do screen capture and pair voice or text with your presentation. Keep reading to the end of the post for a list of tools available to both PC and Mac users.

How can screencasts help creative entrepreneurs?

It's possible to use screencasts in a way that will increase your credibility and sales, but attracting the right target audience is the most important thing to consider before experimenting with the process. If you create presentations for the wrong crowd, your time will be wasted.

Tips for screencasting for YOUR audience:

1. Pick Your Target
Visualize your audience before you start using screen capture tools (or doing marketing of any kind, for that matter) as a way to increase traffic and sales. Every day I receive emails from readers who feel their target audience is women age 18 to 80, which is a shame. Besides narrowing the age down, think about who this woman is, what she likes (and doesn't like), where she lives, who she associates with, and other relevant characteristics.

2. Create videos for that target
I often see craft sellers creating tutorials for their peers and, while that's incredibly generous, it's not necessarily going to help your sales.

For example, if you are selling handmade jewelry, a potential customer who wants to buy a pair of earrings is not going to be interested in a screencast tutorial on "How to use Craft Cult" or "How to Increase Sales with Facebook".

Brainstorm videos a potential customer might be interested in, such as a video on how to navigate your Meylah store, maybe a video on entering a coupon code in your website's checkout system, or perhaps put a few videos together into a Byte-Syze Learning tutorial to sell using Meylah's new platform and detail how they can make their own earrings. These help and how-to videos could go a long way toward closing the sale for you and give you a professional edge, compared with other sellers out there.

3. Smooth out your videos for the audience
Some of the recommended software below gives you a chance to edit your screencasts immediately after recording, but you can also use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to smooth out those rough edges, edit your audio and add intro graphics and words that will speak to your target audience.

What tools are available for screencasting?

For Mac:
Copernicus (free)
Jing ($15 a year)
Screenflow ($99)

For PC:
CamStudio (free)
Jing ($15 a year)
Camtasia ($299)

Have you ever tried screencasting? Have you ever benefited from watching a screencast?

Justine Smith is an Etsy success story who used her experience selling online and turned it into a full-time wholesale business. Her real passion is helping handmade sellers find success marketing their craft products. She offers tips on advertising, branding, social media and growth via email through her blog Justine's Media.

Main image courtesy of blakie.

Just a friendly reminder to enter Meylah's July Contest: What's Your Passion? Name Your Price! for a chance to get your own personalized site at your price...entries will be accepted up until July 31, 2010.