Are you struggling to script engaging training videos? Or maybe viewers are getting confused, and you’re not quite sure how to hold people’s attention long enough to deliver any value.

In this episode, host Matt Pierce shares his tips for writing training video scripts that keep viewers engaged. Drawing on years of scriptwriting experience, Matt breaks down the fundamentals of writing a strong hook to building an outline that reinforces the value and learning goals from start to finish.

Matt touches on when and how to use AI while writing training video scripts. He explains how AI can help check your structure and flow, spot missing information, remove redundancy, or get you past the first blank page.

You’ll also learn two key principles for writing and recording better training videos, how to edit your work, and the importance of creating human-centred content, even if you do use AI tools to speed up your workflow.

Learning points from the episode include:

1. 00:00 – 01:34 Intro
2. 01:34 – 01:54 Using AI for writing scripts
3. 01:54 – 06:22 How to write compelling hooks for videos
4. 06:22 – 08:16 Creating a strong structure and flow
5. 08:16 – 09:01 Using AI prompts in your scripting process
6. 09:01 – 11:18 Why your videos need to be easy to follow
7. 11:18 – 13:00 Adding your outcomes to your video script
8. 13:00 – 13:44 Why it’s important to always double-check your instructions
9. 13:44 – 15:44 What’s in it for your audience and reinforcing value
10. 15:44 – 17:29 Using specific phrases for signaling
11. 17:29 – 18:20 Using the personalization principle
12. 18:20 – 19:25 Using the “Hey Mom” principle
13. 19:25 – 20:32 Checking your script for redundancy and jargon
14. 20:32 – 21:57 Be ruthless with your editing
15. 21:57 – 23:12 Adding your call-to-action
16. 23:12 – 24:36 Bringing humanity into your scripts
17. 24:36 – 25:22 Matt’s final take
18. 25:22 – 26:07 Outro

Important links and mentions:

1. Learn more about the Human Framework for AI training videos: https://www.techsmith.com/blog/human-framework-for-ai-training-videos/

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My

name is Matt Pierce. Today I want to talk about something that if you're in

training and development, you probably have done. If you've ever made a video, maybe you

haven't, and you know, you're just really good off the cuff. But I want to

talk about scripts. We've talked about scripts on the show before, of course, but I

think it's always a topic I like coming back to. One is because

frankly, I'm making a lot of scripts right now, writing a lot, and

it seems relevant to talk about the process, to talk about the things that I'm

learning, things that I've experienced, and hopefully help you to make a

better script. Now, let's be fair, the world of scripting

has changed dramatically in the last couple years with more and

more AI. I think people are turning to AI, whether you like

it or not. They're using it to help them to get to something, get past

the blank page perhaps, or to even do it wholesale.

In fact, you know, I think about my own process and there's lots of different

AI tools out there. We've been using Gemini, one of My teammates,

Danielle, she actually made a bot to incorporate a lot of brand information, stuff

like that. Used ChatGPT before. All these things are great,

and I think we have to acknowledge— just let's acknowledge the bot in the

room— that AI is a thing that can get you from

start. It can do the thing, it can polish the thing, it can give you

ideas, it can be a partner, it can do the wholesale.

Whether you like that or not, that's a whole other decision for another

podcast about ethics of AI and everything like that. But we have to

acknowledge it. But Today's episode, we'll talk about AI,

but I really want to focus on some process, some

structure, things that I've been thinking about, particularly for learning videos. But if

you're a marketer or others, stick around. There's some really great stuff here. I think

the line between really good marketing and the line between really good learning

is very, very close, if not just one big Venn

diagram. And if you know me, I love a good Venn diagram. So

let's start with your intro.

Every video needs a starting point, right? And there's lots of ways to

start. I start the podcast the same way every single time.

Is that good? I don't know. Maybe it's not the best way

to start. Maybe there are better ways to start than saying who I

am, telling people good morning, whatever. I think the idea though

is in most videos, learning videos or otherwise, you do want

something to draw your learner in, that hook. And I've talked about this in other

places, but that hook is really important. Why? Because it is the

establishing thing. It's what sets up the learner

for the opportunity to say, yes,

I want this, or okay, I— here I am, I'm going to get

this. And I think there's lots of things to think about.

I think one is from a cognitive load perspective, a good

hook, one, it connects, right? It's like it

brings you in, but two, it can establish where you're going and

what you're doing. So hopefully there's a start of a mental

path for your learner to go down that they're not like, what is this

about? Why am I watching this? What am I trying to get out of this

thing? Is this even relevant to me and to what I'm doing? So

you've got some time. You gotta move fast. You gotta think about that.

One thing I found, and this is where AI can come into play, is it

can definitely help maybe ideate on some of those hook ideas.

I do think there's an opportunity here to start creating your own

kind of library of hooks, or as you go out and watch videos, How are

people engaging you? What are they doing? I talked

to one of my colleagues today and they talked about that they watch, you know,

as they're going through Instagram, they hear this one voice and it's like, hey,

and they know every single time without even, they don't have to look, they just

know that it's this person. Is that the right hook? Probably not,

not for a corporate brand, not for training, but I do think there are signals

that you can give to someone that sets the tone.

When my guests come onto the Visual Lounge podcast, one of the things that often

share with them in advance of hitting the record button is I have a

specific process. One of the things that I do before I record

is I have a little bit of music. It used to be when the

show was live, it would play and it became very

Pavlovian. And I know when that plays,

I'm in the zone. I'm on the Visual Lounge. I'm doing the podcast. This is

what I need to be. This is who I need to be. This is what,

what I'm about. And I think by establishing

a series of the right types of introductions and hooks, particularly

for an internal organization, I think you can do something very similar.

Now, we're not trying to science experiment on our people, but

the Pavlovian behavioral science is real.

You can help people to say, like, this is the mindset I need to be

in when this happens. And then that

hook, that hook, that little thing can be the thing that can help. And

of course, you know, you want to gain interest, maybe you set up a problem

for somebody, you know, give them an

unanswered question so that they're like, oh, how

do I do that? How do I make that change? You know, I can

imagine if you're an HR professional, you're doing something with— you want your staff

to designate beneficiaries, you know, for policies and

stuff like that. You could say, What would happen

if you were to pass away to all your insurance,

blah, blah, blah, right? Like, it's not a perfect example, but you can see like

all of a sudden like, oh, maybe I don't know, or I do

know. And then I know what I'm like, okay, I know this. I know what

I'm in for. I'm set. But I think we can really play, start playing with

the hook. And, you know, AI again gets us past the blank page. Use it

as your kind of sounding board a little bit. But I think every video

needs a good solid start if you are starting with your company

logo. I don't recommend it.

You can, you can obviously do whatever you need to do, whatever your company policy

says. I'd push back against it. I would start with something that's going to be

engaging, interesting, sets up the problem, sets up the

opportunity, you know, brings them along. If you're starting with

music, that's fine. Music's not bad in the beginning. Just make sure

it's not drowning out the purpose. Make sure you're taking that, like, think

6 seconds. You got 6 seconds to engage my brain.

And internal training, maybe a little bit longer. External, it might be

more like 3 seconds. So you gotta, you know, you want to get into it.

Next, in the scripting process, what I've been finding

lately is that there are a variety of different

structures for different types of videos. If you're making an ad,

that's going to look very different than a how-to video. That's going to maybe

look a little bit different than what I'd call marketorial or something that's maybe a

little bit more polished marketing, but it's also helpful.

You might do a customer testimonial, you might be doing, you know,

a longer kind of training that's more like maybe a Zoom

presentation, right? And what you want to make sure you're doing is creating

a strong structure and flow. You want

to make sure— and this is true for any training, whether it's a video or

not— but you're thinking about, hey, I need them to do X, Y, and

Z. What is going to be the logical progression to get them through

that? And thinking about the words that you're using, thinking about the opportunities

that you have, thinking about What's going to move them through? And if this is

going to be a longer video, it's going to be longer than, I don't know,

2 minutes. What's going to re-engage them along the way? So you've

got your outline, you're starting to build that out and saying like, hey, you know,

I hooked them in the beginning. Now I probably need to give them some, a

little bit of background information. You're going to have the debate with

yourself. Do I provide the learning objectives? Like what they should be able to do

at the end of this? Maybe depends on what you're trying to approach it with.

Then your outline, maybe it's moving from 1 to 2 to 3. Whether that's steps

or whether that's concepts, you know, front load, always

front load your stuff that you really want them to know the best you can.

We know if people are going to fall off, they might fall off at any

time, but they might, it might not look in the viewer analytics, but they might

do this. They might just turn their head and be doing other work. And the

other work probably is important, but it's distracting. I

can't stop them. That's the reality of modern work. You can't

stop somebody from being distracted. But what you can do is make sure they're getting

the information in your outline. Early on, right? And

so there are some opportunities there. Again, if we're talking AI, this is

where you might lay out, hey, here's the 3 things

I need them to learn, here's my learning objectives, what are some ways I could

structure that? Now, if you talk to Josh Cavalier and other

AI people who are much more expert than I am, you know, you give them

that— the AI a role, hey, as an expert

instructional designer. You might want to give them some context, the

opportunities, like what are all the stuff that's going to help them, and, and really

start to frame in. What I've found is, and I think I've talked about

this, but just getting questions,

asking the, the AI to ask me more questions so that I have

to answer it. And as I answer it, we're building a body of knowledge to

then flesh out that structure and that outline.

But I think, again, a good hook, you don't have to write it first, but

that's got to be the first thing in your video. Come up with that structure.

What are the things that we're going to go through? And maybe you're moving things

around again because maybe you don't want to quite reveal the,

the, the, the ending. You're building a little bit of mystery, but you want to

make sure it's clear and easy to follow. In the video viewer study,

over and over again, over the many years that we've done it, it's videos that

are easy to follow are the ones that people want to watch,

particularly if it's a how-to. If you've ever watched a how-to video and you

found it difficult to follow along, that's a problem.

That's not just a little problem, that's a big problem. I recently—

building some furniture, not handmade by any means, but like putting together

some furniture, I should say. And I appreciated a video I

watched because it did give me some step-by-step. But I made a mistake

early on. You had to put on like this bar and, you

know, get it aligned up and so that you could put the screws into your

wall. It's what anchored your furniture to the wall. And I watched the

video, I watched it a couple of times just to make sure I understood everything.

And as I was doing that, I I anchored it, put them in my anchors,

and I realized one thing they didn't point out is that

you had to— even though, like, you just look like you kind of set it

in there against the back cabinet and, you know, it had some notches for it

or whatever, you actually had to lift it up a little bit so it could

align with the holes that are on the side of the cabinet so it would

hold it. And I missed it. They didn't say anything about it. There wasn't a

notice about it. And that was, that was frustrating to me because I ended up

having to drill another hole, which

I didn't like. I don't want to have to put another wall hole in my

wall and put an anchor in, things like that. So, you know, make sure you're

going through that process to make it easy to follow along and that there

are steps you're not missing. Those things you might even start with

kind of where level setting, like, hey, in this video, after

you get through your hook, here's 3 things that you need to know. If you

don't know these 3 things, make sure they're level set, right? We want to, we

want them to connect with these things and you move them along. There's some

emotion there in training you want to help them feel, but obviously

there's a lot of different areas how you might approach that depending on

your culture, depending on what type of video it is, things like that. But you

want to make sure you're, you're helping them to move along. So we've

got our outline, we've got a hook. Obviously we need to start

thinking about like outcomes. If we are not already, your outline should be

getting in outcomes. And so I think the next thing we, we think about particularly

again, we're writing a lot of marketerials, is once we've got that kind of

outcome and outline, we're starting to think like, hey, what's coming

for them? Like, what should they be able to do? Are

steps clear? Then really spelling that out, like writing out the script. Now

again, this is a chance— maybe AI could do that for you, but like, I

just worked on a script today, in fact, that we used AI, and what

it really needed— it needed a human. It needed someone who could

understand the nuances of the product. It could understand things that it just

maybe doesn't know because no one it, and I didn't want to necessarily

tell it all those things. It also couldn't understand maybe

the bit of the tone we were going for. A little bit different in the

script. I won't talk too much about it, but it was like, it

wasn't just a traditional, like, in this video we're going to talk about blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah. And so there were some nuance to the tone that

I just didn't understand. Again, doesn't know all things.

It couldn't read my mind, but I could spend the time massaging,

fixing, changing, rearranging in a way

that allowed me to get those key ideas across.

And so I could segment things a little bit better. I could provide

a little bit more nuance, a little bit more context, and

even a little bit of honestly what I think was funny.

I didn't know, right? So I think you just have to be thoughtful about those

things as you're building out and working to that. Like, yep, here's the step one.

Step 2, step 3. Another key thing is always follow along, like do

your homework, go through the steps. Did this do the thing

that I expected? Was there anything that I had to do

that I didn't mention? Remember moving the bracket?

That's really important because sometimes we know, particularly I work for software companies,

so I know the products fairly well and there are things

that I have just stopped thinking about. Just

steps along the process that I don't think about that. It's like,

hmm, I didn't even think that I had to do that step. Someone new would

maybe not know or catch on to the fact that I had to do that.

So you're working through that process, you get that all put together, and you're getting

your detailed instructions in place. And then there might be other things

that you're adding in during this time. You're adding the value statements,

the motivational statements, The things of purpose, like,

you know, someone's going to be learning to use a new system.

Help. Yes. Train them how to use the new system, but

what's in it for them? The WIFM we talk about in instructional design and learning.

What's in it for them or me? WIFM.

It's one of my favorite acronyms of all time, just because it sounds so great,

like WIFM and people get it, right? You get it. So you want to

make sure again that you know And you're laying that out

for them. Don't assume they know. Don't assume they've been in the

conversation. Don't assume anything about that.

And you might find as you go through, as stakeholders review, you

can— there are things you probably can cut, but by leaving it in there, putting

it in there, you're going to make these statements that are allowing your

learner, the viewer, to really to come along and

not just assume things about them because they might not have been

in the conversations. They might not be aware. Maybe you've told them 20 other

places. You can reinforce the value there. You can reinforce

like, hey, this is going to help with, you know, value to

you being smarter, faster, getting more done. Or maybe value to the company—

we can do this more effectively, cheaper, easier. You know, we're going to

save money, we're going to get bigger bonuses, whatever it is.

But usually those are not that dramatic, but You want to make sure they know

that because that reinforces after the learning,

like, hey, yeah, you really need to do this because here's the value you're going

to get. And sometimes you might be saying, as a

compliance training, I just have to tell you to do it. And we've talked about

compliance training on the podcast. So you tell them, this is

compliance training, you have to do it. Well, what's the penalty?

Do I— am I gonna get fired? Am I gonna get fined? Is the company

getting fined? You know, like, I don't know that you have to go to those

extremes, but like, help them to understand the real outcome, because there are real outcomes

with this. Okay, moving on to our next thing. One thing to look for in

your script as you're writing, particularly screen recording, screen software, software

tutorials, right, is there's a principle by Richard Mayer that

talks about, uh, using specific phrases for

signaling. And you want to be really thoughtful about this, is making sure that the

things that you're saying are aligning with what you're showing if you're

talking about a process. So you might say something

like, now look here, That's even a little bit too

ambiguous. Like, look where? Using the mouse cursor, of course, you can

guide in their direction. That's why one of the reasons I love Camtasia is because

I can make that mouse cursor a little bit bigger and make it easier to

follow along with. But you might be a little bit more specific. In the

upper left corner. Now there's a whole world of accessibility that

you want to be careful about. So you want to be specific, like

in the upper left corner, there's a button

that says click here or whatever it might be.

And, but you want to focus the learner and you

can, you know, start moving that mouse cursor. And as it's moving, say

in the upper left corner, click on the button and that will

give them a sense of where are we going. So as you're going through your

script here, you've started to flesh out that outline into actual words that are going

to be said. You want to make sure those instructions are clear

and included because it is really easy to be ambiguous.

Or just give context or directions without context.

So for instance, you might say something like, click on the button.

Well, if I'm in Microsoft Word, which one?

Or go to the menu. Which

menu? File? Edit? What is it? And

so just be, be really thoughtful. The other thing that Meyer talks about is

a personalization principle. I love the personalization principle. I think it's

really important. It's the I, you,

we versus being more third person.

Also making it conversational, like use contractions in your

video. Now you might again have reasons why you've got to be stiff and

formal. I can't think of them, but

you might have them. And so what I would say is make sure that you're

writing in such a way that it is personal. It feels like

you as a coworker, as a friend, are maybe

walking them through. We actually have this whole thing from

a voice standpoint. Now, AI voices may make this redundant

or not needed. I'm a fan of personal voices in a lot of videos.

I think human connection is really important, which we'll talk about more. But I would

say if you're struggling to get consistency in your voice, one thing

you can do if you're doing a voiceover particular— it's a little weirder for video,

but you can still make it work— you do the Hey Mom principle. And we've

talked about this, I think, a long time show, but it's like when you start

a line, you say, "Hey, Mom, I want to talk to you about how to

click on the menu in the upper left-hand corner." Something like that. Or,

"Hey, Mom, drag this box across the screen

into the drop zone." That "Hey, Mom" just makes it feel a little bit

friendly, gets you kind of a nice beat. It makes it feel a little bit

more personal, warm and friendly. If you're against your mom, I'm sorry. I

feel terrible about bringing up moms. But if most people have a decent

relationship with your mom, even if they're complex and strained as they can be

sometimes, Being saying like, hey mom, or even your best friend,

hey Sarah, let me tell you about this, right? So whatever it might be,

you can use that to connect. And think about that, you don't have to write

that in your script, but it is, it's a great way to make it feel

personal because you sound personal, you sound connected, like you're connected to that person

that you're trying to help. And that's a good way to write a script.

Now, the other thing here I think is really important is you're looking to remove

redundancy. You don't have to, you don't have to

repeat things all the time. If it's on the screen for

them to read, maybe you don't say it. You just give them time to read

it. Or if you said it, don't put the text on the screen. Like we

put too much text on too many screens. We've got too much, especially for video.

So just be really mindful of any redundancies that are not necessary.

Now, again, if you're showing them to go up to click, I think it is

a helpful guide to give them that instruction. All your audiences

will be slightly different. All people are different people. So you want to think about

like what's going to help them to be most successful, even if they might be

more expert in their craft. Once you've got all that done,

you're looking for just polish, making sure you're not getting into jargon. If

there is jargon, you're defining the jargon, particularly if it's for an audience that

you don't know if they'll know what that thing is. Like, what is

an LP in marketing? What is a

LOB, what is an API, what is whatever, right?

You want to make sure you're defining those appropriately, giving people the benefit

of the doubt that they might not know, you know. And then

ruthlessly cut everything you don't think you need. Be

brutal, cut it out if it's not needed, if it's not helpful.

You might also in this process be thinking, starting to think visually, because

hey, all video is visual, right? And be thinking about like, what am

I going to show? And if you're getting to a point you're writing your script,

you're What am I going to show? What's going to be

on screen here? And you're not sure. That's a

great time to pause and say, why do I need to say this?

You might, and that might be a time for you, or if you're into the

AI avatar thing, to be on the screen.

That could be a point of personal connection. But

ultimately, what you want to do is be brutal. Remove it if you don't

think it's— if it's not helping move it along. And sometimes

you have to be brutal and ask other people to be brutal. I love

working with our video producer Katie, and now our new video producer David,

because we're building this rapport that we can just be brutal to each other's scripts.

We're just like really questioning the word choices, questioning like,

does that need to be there? Do we need that? And it is making

me a better writer and a better video creator. So

find that person, even if it's not the final stakeholder. Your stakeholder's

probably gonna be brutal. Hopefully they're gonna be brutal in the right ways. So

just keep working on that and make sure that you're thinking about those visuals. So,

okay, we've talked about a lot of these processes in the script. At the

end, make sure you've got some kind of call to action, steps to take.

What's the thing that they're going to do? They watch this video, therefore what?

There's a great person I love who is very wise and has said a lot

of things, and he was giving a talk and he said, you know, we have

to ask the question, therefore what? And therefore what, right? What is

it that you are to do. At the end of this podcast, I usually give

a little call to action like, hey, try to do this to level up, right?

At the end of your video, if it's a software tutorial, what's next? Do I

need to go practice? Do— is there a specific task I should do? Is there

something along the lines that's going to help me to improve? Particularly from

a marketing standpoint, where marketers are really good— call to action, go look at the

web page, go buy this, try it, whatever it might be. Training,

we need to develop a core function functionality that we're

thinking about what's next. I love Mike Taylor. He's been on the show. He talked

about maybe we stop thinking about training as courses and more as

campaigns, right? So if you got a video, is there an SOP they

need to read through? Is there an assignment they need to do? Is there some

on-the-job type thing that they need to get viewed at, right? Like,

what is it that you would have them do? And make sure you're putting that

in there. And through all this

whether you're using AI or not, find the way to

be human, right? We talked in a previous episode not too long ago about

the Human Framework from TechSmith. I'll link to that in the stuff below that

you can check it out. But bring the humanity into

your training and people will respond. They will listen. Now

look, we're imperfect. We make mistakes. Videos are hard.

Don't let anyone fool you. Making a good training video can be hard because

There's lots of nuances. We got lots of constraints on time and budget,

opportunity. Our audiences are all different at all different levels with maybe different

constraints for themselves. So like, this is hard, but it— I think

having a little bit of human in there goes a long way. And I'm not

saying don't use AI. I'm not saying don't have it help you write. I'm not

saying don't use it as voices. I'm not saying don't use it as avatars. We've

heard great things and results that come from using those

as well. But I think in through all that, there's a thread that we get

to pull on that when it comes to learning, making sure that you're thinking about

at the end of this, whether you're using AI or not, there's a human

watching it. And as the human watches it, make sure that they are the

focus of your success, that they are the ones who will be able to succeed

because you have a training video. Because a training

video that's successful, a marketing video that's successful,

it's not about you. It's about them. So with that said,

I hope this has been helpful insights into some scripting thoughts I've had lately.

I hope you are using scripts. If you're not and you're good off the

cuff, that's awesome. Write an outline, do what you got to do.

But I think there's fundamental practice, and the only way to get better at writing

script is writing more scripts. The only way to get better at writing better scripts

is getting better feedback from those around you who are willing to

help you understand and break it down.. And you might say, no one around me

is a video script writer. It's okay. Ask them, do

they like it? Ask them what they would change, what was hard, what was

easy? Were they able to follow along? There's lots of great questions you can prompt

that will help them. And as you do that, I think you're going to find

a lot more success and you'll get faster at it. And you'll understand even working

with the AI, how to prompt it better to be able to get better outcomes.

And in a future episode, we'll talk about using rubrics for

your AI. I think there's— got something I'm working on. Hopefully it pans out

with Rubrik. We'll see. But most of all, thank you for

watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of the Visual Lounge community.

So grateful for each and every one of you. I do want to note that

we do have a new domain. It's visuallounge.net. So you can go there

or podcast.techsmith.com will work as well. So grateful for

that opportunity to continue to grow the brand and share with you guys, hopefully things

that you find useful. With that said, I hope you're also taking time for yourself

to level up every single day. Thanks, everybody.