These days, it’s all about the graphics and visuals. It’s just how it is. Visuals are the largest factor that keeps readers interested and hooked to your content. People get bored very quickly, especially if you present long content without some kind of visual. And let’s face the facts; the public’s general attention span seems to be growing smaller every day! Graphics, in their various forms, are crucial in the growth of your marketing skills. These types of content enhancers drive digital marketing growth in ways you can’t imagine. They just make things so much easier for viewers to comprehend your product or service thoroughly. A superb form of graphics that provides a comprehensive understanding of your product or service is explainer videos.
Explainer videos are a powerful marketing tool that could significantly impact the path of success. Marketers always strive to educate their audience on their product or service – this provides a better understanding and drives sales! People love to feel like they know everything they know about the work they invest in, topics related to the industry, or your community. Customers want to understand, and they want to learn more. Explainer videos break down your product or service in just a few minutes. It attracts and engages customers in your brand and keeps them interested. Not to mention, explainer videos boost your conversion rates, even in the slightest. There’s a better chance your viewers will get your product or service’s full impact through explainer videos. It just does the job better than a blog post or even the usual graphics.
What Are Explainer Videos?
Explainer videos are not as easy to make. It’s not just a random video you put together and just expect it to make all the difference. Explainer videos require a certain amount of thought and strategizing to reach their highest potential and produce the most significant impact. So, what are explainer videos?
Explainer videos are marketing videos that usually are very short (anywhere around 30 seconds to 3 whole minutes) that explain a particular product, service, or topic related to your company – makes it simpler to understand completely. It makes a complicated issue very fun and easy-going. These videos make a great addition to your homepage, a blog post article, or social media post.
You’ve probably seen explainer videos when looking up a tutorial on how to use a specific product. Most people will choose a video over a manual any day! A step-by-step tutorial in video form is more fun, less time-consuming, and much more interesting than any written record of a tutorial.
Want proof? Let’s be real. How excited did you get when your teacher walked into class, pushing the cart with the decade-old tv unit to watch a video about your lesson? Same concept!
Here’s an example of an Explainer Video by Slack on why their platform is better than emails! It’s short, fun, and straight to the point.
Explainer videos support your brand communication – they tell your story! This method works exceptionally well if your products have repetitive background stories and want to switch it up. These videos also work well to promote your brand’s culture and perspective. It helps you build a strong customer base – a critical key to marketing growth.
The Different Types of Explainer Videos
Not all explainer videos are the same. Not all videos serve the same purpose, either! A few different types of explainer videos depend on your service or product or specific need. You have to know the different variations of explainer videos before you learn how to make one. Generally speaking, there are two different categories of explainer videos: animated and live-action videos.
Animated Explainer Videos
These types of videos use animated characters or elements to explain a specific part of your business, like a product or service. It could use a mix between motion graphics and text to describe a particular topic. Or even use kinetic animated videos with text only! We all watched many cartoons growing up, so you know there are tons of ways to incorporate animated videos into a brand culture with all animation styles. Animated videos are the most popular type of explainer videos since they don’t limit creativity. It opens up a world of possibilities to express your brand! Some even use the whiteboard explainer method to get their ideas through. This video is a type of animated video hand-drawn and then erased – just like an actual whiteboard. It tells a story through an animated whiteboard.
This video is an example of an animated video by SPOTIFY to promoted its US launch.
Live-Action Explainer Videos
Live-action explainer videos use real people with real settings. They explain your business’s fundamental aspect in a scripted video – just like the commercials you watch on TV. These non-animated videos work best to promote actual physical products or services that are people-oriented. These videos often create a sense of emotional connection because many people feel drawn to other human beings – human nature. It makes sense of comfort, which often brings joy to the viewers. But there’s only so much you could do with live-action explainer videos. You can’t let your creativity go completely loose. There will be certain limitations, but you could always find a way around it if determined!
Just check out this live-action explainer video by Casper that explains its vision with extreme humor!
How to Create an Explainer Video
Don’t be intimidated by the idea of creating a good explainer video. You don’t have to be a professional to do this on your own. It’s just a process you have to follow to produce a successful video. All you have to do is focus all your efforts on this task. Trust us; it’s worth it! We’re going to guide you through the whole process, step-by-step, to create your very own explainer video!
First Things First! Action Plans for Success
Yes, you need an action plan. Any successful marketing venture needs a concrete action plan first. An outline helps you stay focused and locked down on your end-goal. You would have in mind precisely what you would like to feature and accomplish in your explainer video. The first thing you have to do is set individual goals to help you make important decisions later. So, to start with, figure out what you want to explain – what part of your company do you want to feature? You have to decide on the product or service that matters most to describe and portray in your explainer video.
Ask yourself these questions: Do the viewers have a problem that needs a solution? Is my product or service the solution to their problem? If so, how do they use it to solve their issues?
Once you have all the answers to these questions, consider how you can feature these answers in your explainer video. What do you want people to take away from your video?
You should decide upfront the length of your video, your budget, and the deadline. These matters are crucial to have set in front of you right off the bat. It leaves no place for future misunderstandings or related issues.
Research Your Competitors
The marketing industry is very competitive. Odds are, there are a handful of other companies who do the same thing you do. So, you have to look at what others are putting out – find videos that feature similar ideas. Researching your competitors is essential to set your brand apart from others. If your competitors use explainer videos, check them out! See what you like about their videos, what’s missing, and the added value you could provide. This research is essential to creating an explainer video special and unique, which will drive your marketing growth forward. You can look up all kinds of explainer videos and take inspiration. Don’t go overboard and copy the exact thing – get your creative juices running!
Know Your Resources!
So, now you have a rough idea of how you want your video to look! The next step is knowing your resources. The first thing is human resources! Do you have someone up for the job? If you do, that’s great! If not, you have to start looking for someone with the right credentials to produce this video. You could even go the extra mile and hire a video production agency to do the whole thing for you – depends on how much you’re willing to go for this explainer video! There are tons of agencies that provide services that could suit your needs, take much less time, and use up less of your own resources.
Since you already determined your budget, it all depends on whether or not you could fit an agency into this budget! You could also look into freelancers who have good reviews to do the job if you don’t want to go all out for this video.
Write A Script!
Your goals, product/service, and your company’s story shape the way your script turns out. This is an essential element in the video creating process. The script makes or breaks your explainer video! Even if you have the BEST graphics, the BEST animations, and the BEST music, it all won’t matter if you have a lousy script. Even if you get Morgan Freeman himself to do your voiceover, it is not going to work!
You have to put all your focus on developing a proper script that is both interesting and informative. The script has to target your customer’s needs and provide all the answers to his/her questions! It has to address all the possible issues they might face and present a solution. You have to make sure to handle a particular emotion; this develops a connection with your viewers. This connection also gives you an edge and an advantage above others in your industry! So, think about what scares, confuses, or worries your viewers, and then address that specific emotion!
Your script should address the main things: a general overview of the product, an introduction to the addressed issue, the suggested solution (as in the product or service), and a call to action!
Best practices to keep in mind when it comes to creating an explainer video script:
- Place your main goal right at the start, somewhere within the first 30 seconds
- Keep the whole video short (between 30 seconds to 3 minutes).
- Don’t confuse people with your script.
- Use simple wording – don’t go too technical.
- Speak in 2nd person.
- Use an easy-going casual tone that keeps your viewers hooked (conversational humorful tone).
Record the Voiceovers
If your explainer video doesn’t need a voiceover, like a kinetic video, then just skip this step and move on! There are tons of website where you could hire professional voice actors to do your voiceover
You could even do your own voiceover if you put your mind to it. It all comes down to confidence, a light tone, and a GOOD script!
Get Some Feedback on Your Explainer Video!
Before you set everything in stone, you should run your ideas by an impartial party! You don’t want to go through all the trouble only to find out that no one gets the direction you’re going with. This is a step you should take a right before you embark on the production process. Choose people who have nothing to do with the explainer video project, and present your ideas to them. Feedback from impartial people really helps you narrow down your target audience and see things from a neutral perspective. It also gives much insight into something you might have missed.
PRODUCTION!
It’s time to produce your explainer video. Bring it to life! This step helps you have a better view of how the video will turn out – it enables you to visualize your script. The next part would be recording voiceovers, providing the right sound effects, and choosing the best background royalty-free music. Your graphic designer works on creating motion graphics and the required animation for your video – add a touch of magic here and there! If you’re going for a live-action explainer video, you should shot all the shots you need for the video right at the start. This way, you won’t have to waste time later on and leave all the work to editing.
Why Use an Explainer Video to Boost Marketing Growth
Using motion graphics in your content is a great way to boost your marketing growth and drive more traffic to your brand. So, naturally, videos generally do pretty well, and consumers react to them positively. In other words, you really can’t lose if you have a stable video to promote your product or service. This is the reason why explainer videos do very well. They’re fun, short, and they get the idea through much faster – people love them!
But, there are many more reasons why you can, and should, use explainer videos to drive marketing growth. Here are some of them!
Explainer Videos are Concise
As we mentioned before, explainer videos are generally very short – maximum of three minutes. So, it’s a really great way to promote your product or services in a way that won’t lose people’s interest. These types of videos have the advantage of being short because people generally get bored quickly. Also, most people don’t have the time to watch a 30-minute video about your product – no matter how excellent your product is! So, explainer videos work really well to give a concise idea and create curiosity about your brand!
Provide A Problem and its Solution
Videos usually progress linearly as the video plays out. This progression helps you present a consumer’s problem and then provide a solution – in this case; it’s your product or service. Your video will show viewers how your product or service is the ONLY way to solve their issues.
Sky’s The Limit! Get Creative!
The cool thing about explainer videos is that you can get really creative in such a small amount of time. You can experiment, take risks, be funny, or put on a little act… It’s really a world of potential! There are so many ways you could implement new animation techniques with some cool background music to tie it all together! If you create an entertaining video, it will stick in people’s minds! There’s nothing better than a genuinely fun explainer video.
All Platforms are Your Oyster!
Nowadays, there are tons of social media platforms where you could share your video and reach people. You are not limited in the number of times you share your video or where you share it! You can put it up on Youtube, on your webpage, blog post, or social media! You can even put it on ALL platforms if you want! The world’s your oysters! They’re very approachable and flexible. These types of videos don’t need too much studying or worrying. You really can’t go wrong with video marketing. ANd it doesn’t even cost as much as it used to! You could make a fantastic explainer video with the resources you have at hand.
Showcase Your Brand Personality!
It’s time you let your brand personality take the stage! Most of the time, we focus on the product, service, or all-in-all marketing and forget to give some love to the brand itself! Visual marketing really gives a chance to let your brand show what it’s really about, especially with explainer videos. It shows through your tone, script, or story! It brings people closer to you as a brand and really helps build a solid customer base!
Bring Out the Benefits of Your Products/Services
It’s really a skill to be able to describe a product or service in a way that helps people imagine it or have a better idea of it. But, visual explanations always provide much better insights and do your product justice. Videos help bring out the benefits to your product and shed light on them. You can literally show off your product or service’s benefits through your explainer video and have people feel more confident about buying it! It works a lot better if they could see what they’re spending their money on! You can show off your brand value, testimonials, social proof, or sales. Explainer videos really have no limits to how much information they can hold in such little time! These videos have real powers!
Why Do They Work?
First of all, videos, in general, stimulate both your visual and auditory senses. So, it feels like a much more engaging experience for your viewers. In all honesty, people would feel much more willing to check out your content if you provide fun videos – you would be doing them a favor. Plus, it keeps people within their comfort zones. It makes it all much easier for them to understand everything they need without having to ask.
Furthermore, people most often have their phones in their hands ALL the time! So, odds are they probably will take a minute or two to watch an exciting video about a topic that matters to them. It also increases the chances of people finding your content online. Explainer videos have greater and long-lasting reach. People could still be watching your videos for months or years after you post it. This part is the most significant way to drive traffic to your webpages, ultimately! It brings curiosity to the table. If you create a perfect explainer video, people will know that you mean serious business! Even your conversion rates will skyrocket!
It’s a no-brainer. Use explainer videos to drive marketing growth!
