Educational Videos
What are educational videos and how to make your own
Educational Videos
Educational videos are among some of the most popular types of video content on YouTube. This is because educational videos can benefit both the audience and brands involved.
Have you ever thought about how people learn or what they learn about new things at this age? Whether it’s a leaky faucet that needs a quick fix or the techniques to take professional photographs, educational videos have it all.
Marketing goes beyond telling the audience about a brand or services. It is actually about teaching your audience something that can help them become more efficient, smarter, or pros at using your products. Put simply, living in a “know-it-all” age; people are interested in learning all the life hacks that could make their lives easier.
All the audience wants is a better, faster, and smarter way to do things. And if they like it, they share it with other users or viewers. Think about companies like Seamless, FlyCleaners, and Uber.
By simply offering marginal improvement in services and efficiency over others, they triggered sufficient groundswell of customer interest. Using explainer videos, you can create useful content that will keep your audience informed and knowledgable.
Guess what! Their theory is relatively straight forward. They share useful and interesting information with their customers to gain credibility. It not only reflects positively on the person who shares the information but also makes him/her feel good about helping others.
Therefore, brands and businesses capitalize on educational videos as they tap into people’s innate desire to learn and help others learn. This is probably one reason why 60% of YouTube searches begin with “How to”, showing a growing demand for educational videos.
How about using this innovative tool to improve your marketing tactics and increase organic engagement on your website? From answering your users’ questions to helping them find solutions, the rising trend of educational videos can do pretty much everything.
In this article:
- What is an educational video?
- Why an educational video is worth your marketing effort
- Types of educational videos
- Informative Streams on Social Media
- How-To Videos
- Online Video Courses
- Educational Webinars
- What Benefits an Educational Video Can Offer
- Answers Audience’s Question
- Covers Difficult Subjects
- Builds Trust on Brands
- Generates Leads
- Works as a Marketing Funnel
- How to make an Educational Video
- Pick an Idea
- Research Your Audience
- Write a Script
- Create a Storyboard
- Record Video
- Enrich and Edit the Video
- Best Educational Video Companies
- Final Thoughts
What Is An Educational Video?
Educational videos are informative videos; hence the name suggests that. However, they are not entirely educational. They blend information and entertainment to provide the audience with helpful content on things they care about.
Educational videos incorporate important information that current customers or potential customers need to know. Brands in their educational videos ensure that they provide the information that enriches knowledge and improves the brand’s recognition.
That is what makes educational videos important for marketing businesses and brands.
Why An Educational Video Is Worth Your Marketing Effort
Creating an educational video is a daunting task. From coming up with an idea, planning to shape pieces and have a follow-up, and tracking the response, there are many tasks you need to tackle.
However, when your platform has the potential for videos and your viewers’ penchant to respond and interact with them, they become something worth your marketing efforts, especially if they are educational videos!
Keep in mind that the audience always appreciates the value you provide via educational content that helps and entertains them. But what is more to it? You get a chance to portray your business as a voice in your domain that offers quality content and becomes the go-to reference in the working sphere by building brand credibility and recognition.
Educational Video Examples
Western University
How to prototype your career
Makers Making Change
How to volunteer to make accessibility devices
Prime Inc.
What is CAR T-Cell Therapy Mechanism?
Health & Social Care of Ireland
Why is the MMR vaccine important?
Types Of Educational Videos
Educational Videos on Social Media
A live stream on social media is an excellent way to impart information to the target audience in real-time. This is one of the common and popular formats for educational videos that can demonstrate a fresh product or educate viewers about innovative and exciting things in the industry. Plus, broadcasting on a social media account doesn’t require video editing and isn’t very costly. Responding to the comments of your viewers then and there is the icing on the cake. This type of video even allows you to initiate a dialogue with your viewers and customers.
Educational Videos on How-to Topics
It is another comprehensive way to improve your authority as a professional service provider in the industry. How-to videos are useful for the audience keen to learn new things about your market. Viewers can navigate the process of a task that is difficult to do without any help.
It doesn’t end here. How-to educational videos are ideal for sprinkling in services or products your brand offers without creating a high-budget advertisement. For instance, if you’re into a business that designs and sells kitchenware, creating how-to videos for preparing delicious meals can promote your brand.
Online Video Courses
Do you want to monetize your business knowledge?
Create and publish online video courses as a smart way to do that. This can be your break to go as deep as you’d like to on given industry topics. You can put your video courses on your website for purchase or promote them via different marketing channels.
Educational Webinars
Need to increase lead magnets?
Offer a free educational webinar for information to your potential customers. This type of educational video is undeniably a great way to attract new leads and expand your database. A webinar is a live event that brands host through web servers or other platforms.
Benefits of Using Educational Videos
Let’s take a look at the benefits a powerful educational video can offer. An ideal educational video;
Answers Audience’s Questions
When an audience is looking for useful information, it is your brand’s job to provide it. An educational video is a great opportunity to help leads find answers to their questions and advise them when they are straight-up asking for it.
Covers Difficult Subjects
It is the best feature of an educational video. It takes the pain out of complicated topics by making the content easy to understand. Even if there’s a difficult subject, a well-designed educational video never feels too complicated.
Many successful businesses take a complex B2B idea and try their best to boil it down to accessible and clear content for their audience.
Educational Videos Build Trust
Did you know that YouTube invests $20 million in brands that make educational videos? It also helps many companies and firms find educational YouTubers for producing sponsored content. It does this because educational videos are tremendously helpful in positioning your business as a source of useful knowledge.
Educational videos can make your brand a reliable name for the customers and help you attract new customers, although you are just teaching in the videos and not selling anything. Precisely, a good and comprehensive video can make leads trust your brand.
Educational Videos Generate Leads
Once you’ve taught leads or audiences something new that they liked or benefited from, they will consider what else they can learn from your educational videos. In other words, if your educational video is worth the audience’s time, it will trigger their curiosity and interest, and promote your brand.
Works in Your Marketing Funnel
Educational videos are the awareness stage of your marketing funnel. That means when the audience starts educating themselves, brilliant educational videos not only engage them but also prove your knowledge and capability to prospects.
As they are infinitely flexible, they keep audiences informed.
How To Make An Educational Video
Brands get 66 percent of potential leads per year because of quality content in their educational videos. You need to equip yourself to develop and execute educational videos that can positively feed your marketing strategy. Here are the steps you can to follow to make an educational video for a better market presence and educate your audience:
Pick an Idea
Choosing an idea before jumping into the video-making process is of paramount importance. You must choose an idea that mirrors the mission of your company and speaks to your potential audience. If you are a startup, it is possible that people watching your videos haven’t heard about your brand before. So you must think of the content that can introduce and define your brand.
You should be clear about what you want to teach or show your audience that reflects your brand positively and subtly. Another thing to consider is that you are not making an educational video to advertise your brand overtly. Advertising has different features, and incorporating them into your educational video may affect the message, topic, tone, and purpose of your video.
Therefore, you must know how to present yourself and add those aspects to the video.
Research Your Audience
Knowing how you should portray your trademark in an educational video is only half part of the journey. The other half relies on how much you understand your audience. When you know your audience, it helps you refine your educational video’s tone, story, and, most importantly, your message. You must know the vital information about your audience that affects their choices and decisions, such as age, income level, sex, ethnicity, and other important factors. It’s important to understand their demands, needs, interests, and common habits to determine the type of script you should develop to inspire and answer their questions.
Take all your targets and accumulate their interests and information with their profile. This background knowledge or research can help you develop and communicate a message for a specific audience. Before you start writing a script for your educational video, define your topic. Educational videos assimilate a whole range of different approaches to maximize the benefits for the audience. From offering insights on a broader subject to teaching how to do something, you can opt for anything depending on what you want to deliver. You need to be sure to choose the topics that are relevant to your viewers.
It is better to look internally into the common FAQs and reviews about your services and products. It is one of the best ways to tie those questions and interests into your educational videos. If it doesn’t seem to give you enough knowledge, using surveys and social media platforms is another tactic.
Write a Script
A script serves as a blueprint for your educational video. It helps you get your point across to appeal and provide value to the intended audience. You don’t need to be a professional writer to create a script for your educational video.
If you have an idea, you can start with making an outline that covers the basics that include;
- the main topic
- the fundamental information you want to include
- characters, scenarios that support relevant information
With these answers, working on a basic script is relatively easier. When you get to pen down your ideas on paper, it enables you to refine and improve your message. Also, you can remove the unnecessary parts, and check what exactly you want to cover in the subject.
Create a Storyboard
After the script comes a storyboard, which is typically a series of pictures of keyframes within a story of an educational video. A storyboard allows you to sort out things visually, and bring them to life.
Creating a storyboard requires you to take your scenes and sketch them in chronological succession. Additionally, you need to work on the main visual components of those sketches and basic descriptions explaining the scenes, elements and voice-over script.
Putting all these together is a great way to get an eagle’s eye view of scenarios, characters, script, and pace. It lets you assess the order of scenes and how your video lays out information or pulls together everything in a video. An in-depth storyboard is necessary to break down each scene in the video and point out what each scene tends to communicate.
Record the Video
There is a plethora of tools that can help you create a quality educational videos. You must get a hold of these tools to make your live video recording process seamless by simplifying and enhancing its quality for your audience.
Mentioned below are some of the tools you need to record an educational video:
Audio Recording
Ideally, you should have a laptop and touch-screen tablet with a premium-quality stylus. This will ensure that you effortlessly annotate visuals and present your work. Handwriting can also add a personal touch, but if you work with a non-touch-screen laptop or a tablet with no stylus, it is still possible to make videos.
Screencast Software
There are programs such as “Explain Everything” that allow marketers to re-record and easily pause specific segments of the video. Working with such tools removes stress and pressure of capturing a perfect take. It is better to look for a program with an embedded annotation device and quality video editor.
Microphone:
This is one tool that many video makers overlook when planning and executing an educational video. However, it is helpful to work with a pair of earphones and an external mic. The equipment improves the sound quality and ensures that the video doesn’t contain any background noise.
Animation Tools
Animating educational videos boosts their overall quality and makes them stand out among other videos. Animated videos are also more mobile-friendly. According to the latest statistics from RendrFx, 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with their friends. But crafting a video needs the right knowledge and keen attention-to-detail work.
Surely, you need to take professional animators’ assistance if you don’t know how to do it. You need to work with an animator to make sure everything turns out according to your idea and vision. The visuals and actions should support the description and explanation you want to make while keeping dynamism intact.
Enrich and Edit the Video
There is no denying that editing plays an important role in making your educational video a success. It is a process that puts all the components of video into the right place. Remember that editing doesn’t mean you should just put scenes in the right order. However, it is about compiling all the major elements – sound effects, music texts, and voice-over in a way that they not only work together but also make sense.
At this stage, the main thing you need to remember is to keep your pace dynamic without getting frantic. Going too fast may confuse your viewers. Educational videos are all about teaching, so finding a perfect balance between available time and conveying the information is important.
Furthermore, try to keep your videos concise. The audience watches long videos only if they like the subject. Shorter pieces are more effective and outperform longer videos when it is about conveying a message. Of course, it doesn’t mean you should cut out vital material to finish in the given duration. Make sure you cover all the essential components without overstaying or repeating anything.
The ideal length of an educational video is 2 to 3 minutes. You can use narrative techniques and visuals to accommodate the length.
Best Educational Video Companies
Creamy Animation
Creamy animation specializes in developing explainer videos that can take your educational videos and corporate communication to the next level. They have a creative team that is professional in crafting comprehensive and inspiring videos. They make high-quality training videos by using engaging visuals and simplifying complicated concepts. It helps people enrich knowledge and learn how to use brand products. They have been working with different industries and know what professional corporate videos require to give long-lasting effects.
Melty Cone
Melty Cone is another reputable educational video production agency in NYC. The agency provides video marketing services in New Jersey, New York, and beyond!The customers rely on their work because of their professional approach. Their videos account for 80 percent of internet traffic. The agency’s main objective is to get your message to the target audience in a unique and attention-grabbing way through effective videos to impress customers.
Weedesign
Weedesign is another good choice for video making agency if you want to boost marketing and educate your clients. Weedesign makes high-quality educational videos. The agency believes in designing creative videos to help brands make their customers learn.
Sky21 Media
Sky21 Media provides a full-service video creation company. It emphasizes narrating a story in a fun and engaging manner. Many brands love working with Sky21 Media as working with their team, and the process they have is easier. The reputation matters for it. That is why they take time to ensure they are the right fit for your brand and the goals you are looking to accomplish. The agency works with small to large companies such as 3M, Toyota, Orange Theory Fitness, and Lexus
The DVI Group
The DVI Group specializes in tailor-made video content. No matter what you want to teach to your customers, the company helps you tell it in a unique way and ensures to put your customers at the center of your brand goals and ideas. Working with an approach of “Your customer is our customer,” DVI Group creates instructional videos that move your viewers to action.
Final Thoughts
According to Cisco’s survey, 82 percent of customer internet traffic comprises people who are expected to watch educational videos daily to learn and expand knowledge by 2021. That means it is the right time for your brand to make educational videos that target audiences.
They need to start building a strategy to incorporate comprehensive educational videos to connect with customers. Thus the article includes everything you need to know about creating an effective educational video for your audience. You may seek the help of professionals and contact professional video making companies to help you produce informative and entertaining videos.
Larry Mutenda is the Founder and Creative Director at Creamy Animation. Larry is a multi-talented designer with over 20 years experience in advertising and marketing, and has a passion for fine art and design.
