Adding an animated intro to your YouTube videos is an amazing way to brand your online content. Not only that, intros give you an image of professionalism and consistency across all your videos and build a sense of familiarity for your viewers.
Many people assume that creating a YouTube intro video requires skill, time, and patience. While in the past this may have been true, now there are plenty of tools out there that let you create a YouTube intro in a matter of minutes, even for complete beginners.
So how do you make a video intro for YouTube?
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That’s exactly what we’ll be focusing on in this complete guide on how to include an animated intro in your video creation process. We’ll be covering the steps from start to finish and wrap it all up with the #1 tip for keeping your viewers engaged.
So let’s jump in!
This Guide to Making Animated Video Intros will Cover:
- Recommended Tools for Creating a Professional Video Intro
- Using Placeit to Make a Video Intro
- Our #1 Tip for Video Intro Animations
Recommended Tools for Creating a Professional Video Intro
Up until recently, the recommended method for making a video intro was to start with a template and customize it to your liking using VideoHive.
Although this is still a solid option, using VideoHive does require some advanced software for the customization part, such as Adobe After Effects. The good news is there’s a simpler way, and that is by using a website called Placeit.
About Placeit
Placeit was created by Envato, the same company behind VideoHive but unlike VideoHive, Placeit is all about complete simplicity. It doesn’t have anywhere near the full template catalog that you’ll find on VideoHive, but it does allow users to customize intros by doing things like:
- Adding in Text
- Changing Fonts
- Changing Colors
- Adding in Images
- And More!
Because it’s so simple to use and comes with tons of cool features, we’ll be referring to Placeit throughout this tutorial on how to make a YouTube intro.
The Other Option for Making YouTube Intros
Before getting into the step-by-step process, there’s one important thing to note: Resources like Placeit and VideoHive aren’t your only option…
The other route is to spend hours learning how to use advanced software for making intros, like Apple Motion or Adobe After Effects. Advanced software allows users to create motion graphic content from scratch, which is a pretty cool skill to have.
However, learning how to use them takes time and patience, and you can expect a lot of headaches along the way. That’s why we recommend taking the easier route like using Placeit, which will produce similar results just in much less time and with far fewer headaches.
Using Placeit to Make a Video Intro
Once you’re on the Placeit website, you’ll start by selecting “Intros” under the “Videos” tab at the top. This will give you pages upon pages of YouTube intro templates to choose from, so don’t be surprised if the longest part of the process is actually selecting one!
Placeit Pricing Guide
Once you’ve selected an intro video that looks good, click on it and at the top of the page, you’ll see the price for that specific video – it’s usually $10 or less. If you plan on using just 1 or 2 templates and that’s it, purchasing each one individually is a good option.
If you prefer to have an unlimited subscription to Placeit and all of its features, you can instead go with a monthly or yearly payment of:
- $14.95 per month or
- $99.95 per year
Opting for an unlimited subscription gives users access to way more than just video intros. There are also mockups, designs, logos, music tracks, and more.
It’s totally up to you, but many people find that the subscription is worth it.
Customizing Your Video Template
After selecting the video intro, video bumper, logo sting, or whatever you prefer to call it, it’s time to start customizing. Here are the basic steps for customization on Placeit:
- Click “Upload Image” on the left-hand side of the page
- Select an image from your computer (such as your company’s logo)
- Crop the image so that it fits within the template
- Click “Preview Video” to see how the image looks in the video template
- Make adjustments to the video on the right-hand side of the page – change the background color, add in a music track, etc.
- Adjust the video playback speed on the left-hand side of the page (if necessary)
Going through these steps takes a matter of seconds. Who knew the process on how to make an intro for YouTube videos was so easy!?
Downloading Your Customized Video
Once you’re happy with how you’ve customized the original template, you’re now ready to download it. To do that, just hit “Download” and then the blue “Render All Slides” button.
If you haven’t paid for the video or signed up for an unlimited subscription, keep in mind that the final download will have Placeit’s watermark in the bottom corner.
Using the More Advanced Templates
What we covered above was using a fairly basic Placeit template with one image upload.
This resource also offers some more advanced templates where you can upload multiple images, add in custom text, and input a logo to play through the intro.
Even if you go with a more advanced template, Placeit has done a really great job of keeping things simple. Now, there’s no need to pay a professional on Fiverr or Upwork to customize a template for you – you can just do it yourself and you can do it for crazy cheap!
Looking into the Licensing Requirements
No matter if you’re making an intro video for a YouTube channel or a teaser for social media, it’s ALWAYS important to look into the licensing requirements.
Placeit puts their licensing information in super clear terms so that users can understand what they can and cannot do with the intro videos they’ve created. In terms of publishing your intro videos on YouTube or another social media platform, here’s what Placeit currently says:
“You can publish, broadcast, display and distribute the content you create with Placeit.”
When to Use Placeit (and When Not to)
Placeit is an amazing tool that’s great for beginners who don’t want to spend tons of time or money on creating a video intro. However, it’s not the right tool for everyone.
To give you a better idea of who can benefit from using Placeit or a similar site, here’s who it’s recommended for:
- Anyone who is interested in creating an intro FAST without all the headaches
- Anyone who is on a budget and not interested in paying a professional
- Anyone looking for the simplest solution and doesn’t mind having limited customizability
Even though it might be hard to believe, some people don’t mind the headaches in exchange for more customization and control. If that’s the case for you, then you might want to use VideoHive instead, and play around with customizing the intro on Adobe After Effects.
Another option is to start entirely from scratch without using a pre-built template, but as we said before, this will add on hours of extra work and numerous headaches.
Our #1 Tip for Video Intro Animations
As this is a video “intro”, you might assume that it should be the very first thing that viewers see.
But this actually isn’t the case, which brings us to the #1 tip for video animations.
One of the biggest ways to lose the engagement of your viewers early on is by placing animations and graphics like the ones in an intro video at the very start of the content.
When you put that shiny new intro clip at the very beginning of your video, you might drive viewers away before they know if they’re in the right place or not. That’s why our #1 tip is to always start with a “hook” that lets them know exactly what the video is all about.
With the right introduction, you’ll be able to tell your viewers exactly what they can expect from the video so that they know they’ve come to the right place. Then, you can keep them engaged with that cool intro clip you made through Placeit or the other options we’ve mentioned.
So remember, hook the viewer first before adding in your intro video!
Now You Know How to Make a YouTube Video Intro!
There you have it – the completely updated tutorial on how to make intros for YouTube.
Now you’re ready to add intro animations to each of your online videos for a professional look that will keep your viewers engaged and boost overall brand awareness.
If you’d like to go one step further and add animated titles into your YouTube videos, check out our full tutorial to learn how to create these step-by-step!
And for more helpful insight on creating YouTube videos, check out the Primal Video YouTube Ranking Guide. Through this guide you’ll learn about the latest tools and strategies for improving video rankings on both YouTube and Google – and it’s completely free!
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