Marketing is no longer about the things you make but the stories you tell – Seth Godin
The above words make 100% sense today when attention spans have shrunk to a few seconds, and there are unlimited businesses with captivating content competing for clicks and leads. With so many voices wanting to be heard, standing out in the crowd becomes challenging. An animated explainer video can be a powerful tool to attract and hook your audience in those crucial few seconds—before they lose interest and scroll away.
So the main question is, how do you do that? How do you attract and retain your customers within seconds and make those precious seconds count?
This is where a creative explainer video production can help you. These short and engaging visual storylines with animations have become a popular tool for capturing and making a lasting impression while promoting your services and products or explaining a concept.
In his article, we will see what an explainer video is, the types of explainer videos, such as animated explainer video production, and how you can create the perfect explainer video for your brand.
What Is an Explainer Video, And Why Should You Use It?
An explainer video is a short marketing film that is made to explain your services or product in easy and visual ways. Most businesses like to use animated explainer video makers to create short videos to break down complex ideas into easy and captivating stories.
45% of marketers around the world are already using custom explainer videos in their marketing strategy. Even 73% of customers are reported to have bought a product or service after watching an animated explainer video.
Typically lasting for about 60 to 90 seconds, explainer videos use clear storylines, images, visual elements, and mostly animation to convey a message. These videos often guide viewers through an organized story, highlighting a specific problem and then showing how their business is helping them solve that problem. Brands across industries, particularly in tech, finance, and ecommerce, heavily depend on explainer videos to communicate with their customers and retain them.
These videos are also great for boosting SEO and online visibility. You can keep visitors on your site for longer, increasing the engagement rate and letting search engine browsers know that your content is valuable and loved. You can also attract backlinks and social share, making your website’s domain authority stronger. Use the right kinds of keywords in your animated explainer videos with proper metadata to improve your visibility and drive traffic to your website.
Explainer videos do a lot more than educate and promote. They turn curiosity into action, which is quite beneficial for businesses as it can help them convert leads. Explainer videos also bring your product or service to life, building trust and loyalty among your viewers. Visually showcasing your products and how they work builds a genuine connection with your audience, making your brand recognizable. This approach drives better engagement and credibility.
What Are the Different Types of Explainer Videos?
Now that you know what an explainer video is and how it can help your business, let’s see the different types of explainer videos you can make to promote your product or services.
· Animated Explainer Videos
Animation is the top option for explainer videos and offers the greatest value for money. Designers have the ability to create attractive storylines with unique illustrations and animate them at a fraction of the expense of live-action. Animation is a strong tool for changing technical or abstract concepts into lively, easily understandable stories.
The creative and imaginary freedom that comes with animated explainer videos is unlimited. These videos allow you to describe even the most complex ideas in an entertaining and enjoyable manner. Animation is also very adaptable and relatable. This is one of the main reasons that businesses, from startups to major corporations like Microsoft, Google, Slack, and others, favor animated video production services.
· Live-Action Explainer Videos
A live-action explainer video is another popular yet expensive kind that features real people and scenes, offering an original touch. This type of explainer video is perfect for creating a personal touch. It can also include customer reviews and feedback to give your audience the social proof they need to believe in your brand. A great example of a live-action explainer video can be seen when a skincare brand films someone applying their skincare products and showing us the results, making themselves more credible.
· Screen-Recorded Explainer Video
This type of explainer video is excellent for showcasing mobile applications in use or for producing website tutorials. Also, recorded screen videos are budget-friendly. Simply capture directly from the browser or application and then add some visual effects (such as highlights, zooming, scaling, and a bigger mouse pointer).
However, creating a smooth video from screen captures is more challenging than it appears. Be ready to invest a lot of time and perform several takes if you desire a professional appearance.
For example, consider an online educational platform where a screen-recorded tutorial video can help users create an account, explore courses, and use essential functions. It’s entirely focused on delivering a practical, on-the-spot demonstration that makes the learning process easier.
· Whiteboard Explainer Video
Whiteboard explainer videos use hand-drawn sketches to break down difficult information or concepts. The process of seeing the whole sketch come together keeps viewers involved and helps them stay on longer to learn simplified explanations.
For example, a college or university can use a whiteboard 3D animated video production services to explain the admission process or how to fill out the admission form. A consultancy company can also use a whiteboard explainer video to describe their approach to project management, outlining each phase with visual diagrams and texts.
Steps and Tips to Create A Perfect Explainer Video for Your Brand
Creating an animated explainer video needs more than just high-quality visuals. It demands an organized step-by-step method that can turn an idea or concept into a captivating message. You can also hire animation video production services from a reputable explainer video company to create a result-driven explainer video. Let’s see some steps you need to follow.
· Identify Video Goal and Audience
Researching and strategizing before creating an explainer video is important to build a solid foundation. Begin this process by identifying clear goals for the explainer video, such as increasing brand reputation, awareness about products or services, boosting conversion rates, or educating your viewers.
Next, learn and identify your target audience. Know about your potential customer’s needs, pain points, buying behaviors, and income levels. This will help you determine the core message or concept of your animated explainer video that will have no trouble resonating with your clients and keeping them interested.
Also, it is highly suggested that you conduct a competitor analysis at this stage, as it will tell you what is working for your competitors and identify any gaps that you can fill with your explainer video.
· Compose an Attractive Script
A well-written script is the actual spine of any effective and result-driven explainer video. The script should be concise, engaging, and organized in a way that conveys the problems and solutions properly to your customers while capturing their attention.
Begin by outlining the issues or pain points that people are facing, and then introduce your solution in the form of your product or service. Keep the script clear, without any jargon, and remember to keep it short so the video is no longer than 90-120 seconds. Consider ending your animated explainer video with a call-to-action like signing up for a newsletter or adding to a cart to guide your customer towards the next step.
· Organize Visual and Branding Elements
First, decide what kind of explainer video you will be making, whether you will be using a 3D or 2D animation video production to create an animated explainer video or a whiteboard one. Collect all the required visuals, such as brand logos, icons, non-brand assets, sketches, illustrations, or even stock photos. You can also source high-quality templates that align well with your brand image and explainer video goals.
Also, decide on branding elements like fonts, colors, and typeface for a consistent brand identity. It will also help you make the video instantly recognizable. Assemble all of these graphical and visual elements or any other supporting items before beginning the video process to stay on track and organized.
· Film and Animate the Video Content
This is where the production starts for the explainer video. For a live-action explainer video, follow high-resolution filming practices using professional lighting, clear audio quality, and good graphics. For animated video production, use good techniques that make your video motions smooth and flowy while keeping your audience engaged with transitions and effects.
Whatever type of explainer video you choose, attention to detail and continuity are needed to make sure you are producing something professional and high-quality. Also, work with skilled animated video production companies, videographers, and tools to enhance video quality while saving time and resources.
· Edit for Perfection
Editing is super important to create a seamless and perfect video with an amazing viewing experience. Pay close attention to pacing speed, making sure that all the transitions look flowy and naturally embedded and keep the audience engaged and entertained. Also, work on adding transitions, sound effects, and background music that aligns with the video’s tone. Make sure the volume and audio quality are good enough that people can hear every word clearly.
Use editing tools to fine-tune the color grading, captions, or overall visual quality of your animated explainer video. This step is super important to make sure that your explainer video is consistent with your brand image and ready for the final launch.
· Upload and Promote
Once the video is done with all the production and editing stages, choose the proper channels and platforms to distribute your animated explainer video among your target audience. There are multiple channels you can use, like your website, social media profiles, YouTube, newsletter, LinkedIn, etc.
Optimize your explainer video with the right keywords, meta titles, meta descriptions, and tags for search engine optimization. This will help you reach a wider audience, get more traffic, and spread awareness about your brand and its products and services. Cross-promote your explainer video on different platforms and run paid ads on it to reach more people. Effective marketing will help your video achieve its full potential, draw in more clients, and drive engagement.
Bottom Line
Creating an effective explainer video requires careful planning, creativity, and attention to detail at each stage. From identifying the goals of your animated explainer video and understanding the needs of your target audience to selecting the right kind of explainer video and using the right tools to fine-tune and edit the final product, each step plays an important part in the entire animated video production.
A successful and well-made explainer video should use clear visuals, storytelling techniques, and high-quality visuals and audio to engage your viewers, attract potential clients, explain the concept properly, and convey the right message. If you are looking to bring your explainer video ideas to life, there is no better custom explainer video production company than Video Jeeves. Whether you are looking for 2D video animation production services or 3D video animation production services, we have the right team of experts who know what works well for explainer videos and what will get you the best results. Contact us today to discuss your explainer video ideas with us.
