GROWTH:

4 of the Best Storyboarding Tools for Video Marketing

Video marketing is one of the strongest pieces of any content strategy today.

The platform has seen tremendous growth over the past few years. In a survey conducted by Wyzowl, 85% of people said that they’d like to see more video from brands in 2018.

Moreover, 81% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.

Because the internet is cluttered with content, marketers have started investing in videos to carve their brand’s niche and to engage their prospects.

Consumers watch videos that entertain and delight, whether viewing a fun brand advertisement or an explainer video that makes a difficult concept easier to digest.

With a plethora of tools, it is now easier than ever to create videos that capture the attention of any audience.

But remember to focus on quality over quantity. It’s important to plan, strategize, and tell a great story to stand out from the crowd.

Every successful video marketing strategy begins with a storyboard.

What is a video storyboard?

Whether you are developing a TrueView ad or a product explainer video, creating a storyboard before putting your resources to work can save you hundreds of hours and thousands in costs.

Communicating your plan in the right manner is important to keep things organized and align everyone with your overall goals, which is where video storyboarding comes in.

“A storyboard is a graphic representation of how your video will unfold, shot by shot.”– GoAnimate

What are the benefits of a video storyboard?

You can think of storyboarding as a plan of action, a frame by frame representation of your idea. Here’s how it helps:

1. Organization: A video storyboard ensures all your ideas are in one place — neatly organized for you and your team to refer to in case there’s any deviation from the current plan.
2. Focus: In any creative process, it is important to shine a light on your vision. A video storyboard helps you communicate that vision visually.
3. Communication: Nobody wants to work on a project where everyone has a different outcome in mind. It is a waste of resources. A video storyboard keeps everyone aligned and on the same page.
4. Efficiency: Storyboarding helps you plan effectively — frame by frame. It ensures you know the exact resources required to complete a certain action. Storyboarding is a huge time and money saving exercise, especially when it comes to large productions.

Now that you know what storyboarding is and how it can benefit your video strategy let’s look at the four best storyboarding software and tools you can use to help your process.

1. Plot

Plot is an online storyboard creator that instantly puts your script in a storyboard format. Some of its notable features include:

• Drawing: Allows you to illustrate your ideas or create beautiful graphics to depict a scene.
• Team collaboration: You can invite your team to review your storyboard or make changes.
• Smart scenes: Allows you to create new scenes directly from your script.

Additionally, Plot also provides you a drag and drop functionality — making it one of the easiest storyboarding tools to use.

Pricing: Free and Premium ($7.50/month — paid annually)

2. Boords

Similar to Plot, Boords is an easy-to-use online storyboarding tool that gives you access to everything you need to getting started on your video storytelling.

Some of its features include:

• Storyboard Creator: Offers you the ability to drag and drop images or use the built-in editor to create ready-to-share storyboards.
• Team collaboration: Get feedback and interact with your team or client in real-time.
• Animatic: Use the animatic tool to create animations quickly. You can share them online or export as an MP4 file.

Boords also allows you to export your storyboard with its multiple export options — making it effortless to move between different creative processes.

Pricing: Basic ($12/month), Plus ($19/month), Team ($24/month), Enterprise (Contact Boords)

3. Canva Storyboards

With a wide array of design options for creatives and non-creatives alike, Canva has already made a dent in the industry with its innovative approach to design.

With an easy to use interface, Canva ensures anyone can design a storyboard in minutes. Some of its features include:

• Image stock: Canva offers a library of more than one million images, illustrations, and graphics to choose from.
• Grid and Frames: Use the grid and frame to layout a perfect scene in your storyboard.
• Team collaboration: You can share the design’s URL and grant editing access to your team to make changes.

While Canva isn’t tailor-made for storyboards, it fulfills the basic requirement to get started.

Pricing: Free, Paid ($12.95/month/per user)

4. Storyboarder by Wonderunit

If you are looking for an effortless, fast, yet sophisticated tool to start storyboarding for your videos, Storyboarder can be a good choice. Storyboarder is downloadable, free, and open source.

Some of its features include:

• Drawing Tools: Storyboarder gives you access to six simple drawing tools. Light Pencil for roughing, Hard Pencil for fine lines, Pen for most work, Brush to tone, Note Pen to write notes, and Eraser!
• Easy to add boards: In Storyboarder, you can add boards with a click. You can draw, duplicate, copy, paste, rearrange — all without any friction whatsoever.
• Add metadata: Enter dialogue and action to craft the perfect frame for your video.
• Open in Photoshop: You can draw your roughs and do layouts in Storyboarder. For more control, you can click the edit in Photoshop button.

Pricing: Free

Storyboarding helps you quickly test your ideas and bring them to life. Get ready to communicate your video goals strategically and effectively.

This article was originally published at marketing.sfgate.com

Thanks for reading The Marketing & Growth Hacking Publication

Follow us on Twitter. Join our Facebook Group. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel. Need a sponsored post written? Contact us.

---

4 of the Best Storyboarding Tools for Video Marketing was originally published in Marketing And Growth Hacking on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Join The Rockstar Entrepreneur Community Now: Start Rockin Now