UPDATE: 2nd October, 2024: Vidnami officially shut down in August of 2021 when the company was sold. Since the tool is no longer available, these are my recommended replacement video creation tools for 2024 and beyond:
- InVideo Studio - create videos yourself in much the same manner as Vidnami allowed but with more assets and features.
- InVideo AI - let AI create videos for you, Think InVideo Studio with AI.
- Read more: Using InVideo AI To Create A Marketing Video
- Pictory - another excellent tool for creating your own videos and having the capability of AI creating videos as well.
- CapCut - more of a video editor than a video creation tool. You basically upload the video elements you want and put them together, with some inbuilt resources, to create videos. Very good for creating vertical-style video shorts.
- Vidyo - a tool for intelligently creating short videos from a long video. Great for breaking up YouTube videos into video clips to use on social media platforms.
UPDATE May 14, 2020: Content Samurai has recently been rebranded as Vidnami. The online video creation tool is the same and it’s still owned and operated by the same company. The tool just has a different name. If you want to know more about why this change was made, I cover it in this blog post. The features in the videos below are all included in Vidnami.
Are You Working From Home?
With half the world in lockdown due to the pandemic, many employees are seeing what it’s like to work from home full-time.
It’s something I’ve been doing since 2004 and it suits me.
But some people miss the change of environment that going to the office brings and the social aspect of interacting with their colleagues.
The advent of the Zoom revolution has shown that people can get together and still have meetings, even if it is virtually.
In all likelihood, working lives will be changed forever as a result of the pandemic and more people will be working from home than ever before, even after the lockdowns are lifted.
There may still be trips to the office, but not every day.
But maybe you find that you actually like working from home and the flexibility it gives you, assuming your employer gives you a bit of latitude in that respect.
And, if you can work from home for an employer, why not work from home for yourself?
Building Your Own Online Business
You can build an online business selling a product or service you’ve created yourself, or you can build an online business selling other people’s products.
Being your own boss means you get all the profits (but, if things go wrong, you’ve got to eat the losses).
So What’s This Got To Do With Making Professional Video Content?
Most people’s first reaction when they hear about making videos is that they’ve got to appear on camera.
This terrifies a lot of people, understandably enough.
The best thing to do is work through the fear and realize that everyone who has a YouTube channel had to create their own first videos.
And they all pretty much sucked.
It’s hardly surprising – they didn’t have a studio, proper lighting, a good camera, their vocal delivery was halting, they didn’t know where to look, and so on.
But they got better at all of that as they gained experience.
And now, when you come across an established YouTube personality, their videos are slick and professional. And you assume that’s how they’ve always been.
But, if you’re shy and introverted and you’re afraid of being criticised, laughed at or whatever, there is a solution where you still don’t have to put yourself on camera, and you don’t have to read the script in your own voice.
That solution is called Vidnami (formerly Content Samurai).
It’s an online video creator for making professional-quality videos that require no direct input from you. I reviewed it in detail a while back:
https://emaillistbuildingtechniques.com/web-video-marketing-with-the-content-samurai-online-video-maker/
You can craft your videos from the safety of your keyboard and from behind your screen.
The tool even includes a text-to-speech option so it will convincingly speak your words for you, something that might especially appeal to people whose first language isn’t English.
So What’s The Point of Making Videos?
There are several reasons you might want to make videos:
- Online content is moving inexorably towards video from the written word (blogs) so if you want to reach a wide audience, you kinda have to add making videos into your marketing mix.
- You can create videos to market your own product or service, just by telling viewers how your product will help them. Or you can do the same thing for things you endorse and promote as an affiliate marketer.
- The reach of YouTube is huge and it’s the second largest search engine on the planet, after Google (who also own YouTube). Getting ranked here is easier than doing a ton of SEO to get a blog post or website ranked on Google. In fact, YouTube promote your videos for you for free.
- You can create videos that are specifically ads and put them in front of other users’ videos – these are the skippable ads you see in front of some videos on YouTube. There are a couple of other ways to promote video ads on YouTube as well.
- You can use videos to build your email list or send people to your Facebook Group. People who watch your videos are doing so because they were looking for content that you happen to provide. So they find you rather than the other way round. And they’re much more pre-disposed to signing up to your mailing list than some random visitor to your website is.
The Ease of Making Videos
Ok, hopefully now you see that there’s merit in making videos, whether you want to appear on camera or not.
If you’re an extrovert with a camera, have at it. 🙂
For everyone else, there’s Vidnami.
The guys who created this online tool recently held a webinar (it’s 42 minutes long and not a long-winded 3-hour marathon that some webinars end up being).
In this webinar you’ll discover how to create professional video content from your kitchen table including…
- How to convert your smartphone into a pro camera
- A fantastic lighting set-up that costs under $20
- How to get a perfect recording in a single take
- Plus lots more!
Unlike a lot of webinars, there’s also no smoke and mirrors and the guys don’t skip over any steps.
You’ll see them create a complete video from start to finish and they’ll share all their tricks and tips along the way!
You’ll find additional training videos showing just how easy it is to make videos with Vidnami here:
Content Samurai Discount & Bonuses
If you like what you’ve seen in this webinar, and you’d like to get Vidnami (formerly Content Samurai) for yourself, it’s normally $47 per month.
But I’m able to offer you a 14-Day Free Trial to give the software a test drive and a 25% discount on the fee, so you’re only paying $35 per month.
There are no account restrictions and you can make as many videos as you want.
I’m also offering a bonus package that includes 27 products, some with PLR (Private Label Rights).
If you decide to order through any of my links, you’ll need to email your receipt to me (instructions are at the bottom of my bonus page).
This is because Vidnami (Content Samurai) don’t provide a way for me to automatically deliver the bonus and they only notify me when someone signs up, but they don’t tell me who that person is or provide an email address I can use to send out the bonus.
So you’ve got to contact me to get the bonus (yeah, their affiliate program could use a little work) – the info you need is on my bonus page.
All the best,
Gary Nugent
Check out my Instagram posts and reels here:
Follow me (@garynugentmentoring) on Instagram
P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that:
Hi!
Thanks for this wonderful article as I wanted to know how to make videos for YouTube as I am running one blog about tea. But I did not have much ideas on how to make videos for my audience as for a good cup of tea lots of things to be considered for good taste, flavor and aroma profile. You have made it easy for me and from now onwards I think I’ll not have problems in making videos.
Thanks for letting me know you found the post useful, Himbru. Yeah, making videos doesn’t have to be as hard or terrifying as it’s sometimes made out to be. 🙂
Thank you so much for your review on content Samurai. Making the video and the content was already hard enough but editing the video is another level! At least for me. That is why I only have 3 videos on my YouTube channel lol However, I want to revisit making video content again just to bring traffic to my website.
Wow, it is not that bad for $35 a month but do they offer a free trial? I like to try something first and see if I like it or not.
I was slow in adding videos to my own YouTube channel as well, Nuttanee, since I hate appearing on video.
Content Samurai does indeed offer a free 7-day trial. I’ve updated the post to point readers to that option. I’ve also updated my bonus page to link to the free trial by default and then if someone decides to subscribe to Content Samurai, they’ll still get the lifetime 25% discount.
Thanks for bringing that omission to my attention.
Hey nice article you have there. As an introvert, having to stand in front of a camera to make a concise video to promote my YouTube channel has been a major challenge to me. With content samurai, I am convinced it is the perfect tool. I need to make an interesting video in order to attract more traffic to my YouTube channel, it will be much more easier for me to use.
Don’t forget, edahnewton1, that you can also use the videos you create to send people to your blog and/or offers that you promote and generate traffic that way. You can include the web addresses in your video but it’s probably better to include them in the video description where you can add a lot more links if you need to.
And Content Samurai has now been rebranded as Vidnami – something that happened about 10 days after i published my post!
Hi Gary, thank you for this post. I’m going to have to take you up on your link to Content Samurai when I start adding more videos to my site. thanks!
Hi Dan, just today Content Samurai was rebranded as Vidnami – check out my post here about that.
Everything else remains the same – the price and the features and my bonus offer.
The same company and team own and run Vidnami so, basically, the service has just had name change and a trademark update.
You’ll love how easy it is to make videos 🙂
Hello Gary, its always a joy to read your post, your posts are always very detailed and informative. Just as you describe above, I have this feelings for being on camera. I might know what to say but when it’s time for recording but I just fidget. Thank you for showing me via this post on how I can make videos even without me being shown. Videos are just what I need to complete my site buildup. Thanks for share this, you don’t know how much you’ve helped me today.
Hi Jomata, thanks for letting me know you found the post useful. At some point, I’m going to have to get over my own fear of appearing on camera. I think me mentor is starting to get frustrated with my lack of progress on this! 🙂 In the meantime, Content Samurai can at least get some video content out for me.
By the way, since I first published the post, the guys behind Content Samurai have announced that they’re rebranding it as Vidnami. I put up a post about that change here.
Wow! this is exactly what I have been looking out for. My youtube channel has suffered for years as my viewers kept on complaining about the clarity of my videos. i cannot wait to try out this samurai content, I just hope it helps me revive my marketing business again.
Thanks!
Glad to be of help, Chimmhogevagreenesnr! 🙂 As I mentioned in a couple of other comments, Content Samurai has been rebranded as Vidnami for a number of reasons that are outlined in this post.
The Content Samurai brand and site will be online until mid-July. After that, all links to Content Samurai will redirect to Vidnami. Don’t worry if you sign up for Content Samurai today, your account will be seamlessly migrated over to Vidnami when the time comes and your subscription won’t be affected.
It just makes more sense now to sign up directly with Vidnami. The 25% discount I can offer my readers for Content Samurai is also available for Vidnami subscribers, as is my bonus package.
As a matter of fact, my bonus page doesn’t hook into Content Samurai any more, it links to Vidnami. So going through it is the best way to get the discount and bonuses.
There’s also a 14-Day free trial you can sign up for through my bonus page where you can fully test out Vidnami and still get the 25% discount if you decide to sign up.
Awesome and thoughtful article. People might not really understand the impact of such an article until they get an experience on it…I remember a friend of mine did a shoot from his home, completely unprepared and he horribly went on without putting on any pants…unfortunately his legs were shown to the general public and that’s so embarrassing… So from this content you should know that making a professional video is very necessary and always get prepared on time
Well, at least it was only his legs that were shown, evans! It could have been much, much more embarrassing! 😉
What people new to making videos don’t often realize, where they’re appearing on camera, is that those who make quality videos often do several takes when they’re speaking a sentence. Maybe they fluff their lines. Or have a weird look on their face. Or their kid bursts into the room.
There can be any number of hitches that can occur that might require you to do multiple takes until you get one you’re happy with.
Have you ever noticed that many YouTubers have fast-cut videos? You know, the ones where they suddenly appear in slightly different positions as they speak?
That’s down to the editing process where they’re cutting out the umms and ahhs and any other thing that might distract the viewer. It can also happen if they do multiple takes and they’re moving around during those takes.
With Content Samurai (now rebranded as Vidnami) you avoid all that as you don’t appear on screen. Of course, you could record a video of yourself speaking on your phone or webcam and record and upload that to Content Samurai/Vidnami and use that video snippet in the overall video you create.
Being creative is the name of the game! The more unique the videos you create (whatever way you create them) the more likely they are to hold the viewers’ attention.
But yeah, having a professional-looking video is pretty much a necessity these days.
Great article, Gary. I got lost in those offers and almost couldn’t find my way out to write a comment! I’ve heard of Vidnami before and may have ordered their product.
Keep up the good work on this website. This is some really good information for the fledgling entrepreneur video marketer to get their content out there.
Too much stuff between the end of the article and the comment section, Bob? Hmm, maybe I need to look at that.
Thanks for letting me know that you found the info in the post useful. This kind of feedback helps me add more of the content that people find useful to the site.