Year-in-review video for a SaaS: what shipped, told in 30 seconds

Choose three things, not thirty

A year of releases is a list; a recap is a story. Pick the three changes that customers noticed most, in the words your changelog already uses, and give each one shot and one line.

• What shipped: the change, named the way users know it.
• What it meant: one line on what a customer can now do.
• What is next: one line, only if your page already says it.

Use your own changelog as the source

A public changelog is the best source for a recap, because it is already written for customers and already dated. Paste the address of your changelog or your product page. The film repeats what those pages say; it does not add numbers such as users or revenue that you have not published.

Where a recap goes

The 16:9 film fits the top of a year-end email, your changelog page and your blog. Short cuts of 5, 6, 8, 10 seconds in 9:16 and 1:1 fit social posts and customer-success messages. Captions are burned in, so the film reads with the sound off, and narration can be switched on or off.

The structure is a shorter cousin of the product launch video template; for the product type you have, see the use-case pages and SaaS explainer videos.

Reuse it next year

The same recap shape works every December. Next year, point the project at the new changelog, or pin the shots that carry last year's changes and rewrite them. Every version is kept, so you can line the years up.

A checklist for the recap

A recap is judged by whether customers recognise what they used. Check these before sending.

• Each change is named the way the product itself names it.
• The three changes are in the order customers noticed them, not the order you built them.
• No figure appears that your pages do not publish.
• The closing shot says where to go next, with the real address.

Mistakes that make a recap forgettable

A recap that lists everything is skimmed and forgotten. A recap that is mostly about the team, rather than the customer, reads as self-congratulation. And a recap sent in the last days of December competes with every other email, so aim for the first half of the month.

Who the recap is for

A recap speaks to two groups: customers who want to see that the product is alive, and prospects who read your changelog before deciding. Write it for the first and the second will follow. Keep the tone plain and the claims small; customers trust a recap that undersells slightly more than one that sounds like a launch.