Why You Need an Explainer Video for Business

Have you noticed that the most popular animated explainer videos are rarely complicated? We all like doing simple things. If you end up creating a boring video that bombards users with tons of information along with ads and irrelevant references, even your most loyal customers are not going to watch/share it.

Focus on a particular product and weave your video around its solution. Your viewer should be able to describe the crux of your video in a sentence, once he or she is done watching it. That phrase is your starting point!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, your 1 minute animated video can be worth 1.8 million words. The length of your explainer video should ideally be somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes. If you consider that a brief period, try sitting through longer videos that stretch up to 5 minutes. Unless you are watching a killer video, you are likely to abandon the video halfway through. This is because a promotional custom animated video works best as a teaser.

The purpose of your explainer video is to educate your audience. Moreover, viewers know the difference between a good and bad production. Longer videos usually miss the point and your users might skip it to watch a shorter video.

Another purpose of an explainer video is to encourage future action. If you leave them wanting for more, they are likely to subscribe to your website, blog and channels.

Again, if you have a good in-house team to work on an explainer video script that clicks with your audience, go for it. But if you don’t, trust in the capabilities of a professional video production team. There are many aspects that you need to take care of when formulating the right kind of script. Most explainer videos are from 30-90 seconds in length which means you need to write a script of roughly 200 words.

A 1 or 2- minute video doesn’t need to have tons of content. Marketing and animation experts believe that 150 words/minute is a decent word size to begin your project. Divide your script into these four sections:

• Problem
• Solution
• How it works
• Call to action

Of course, this is just a rough guideline. You can come up with your own original ideas or consider this format as a starting point.

It is true that today’s consumers are forgetful, but that doesn’t mean they are forgiving. Bad script or a hilarious tagline can cause you more harm than you imagine. Storytelling remains one of the safest ways to craft an animated explainer video.

Stories are engaging and show the human side of your company to create a stronger bond with your audience.

Once, you have taken care of all these steps, it’s time to find the best video production company to produce your unique animated explainer video.

Most businesses don’t have a separate marketing department. Even if they do, they would still need to hire an explainer video company that has a good reputation and experience in crafting professional animated explainer videos.

When outsourcing your video production, make sure you never settle for a mediocre company that fails to create a video that leaves the right impact.

You might need to explore a few options before you decide on the best one for your project. There are some production companies that work with you from the beginning to the completion of your project, whereas, others might do the animation only and leave the rest to you.

Your in-house resources give you a fair idea of how you want to go about your project. If you have a talented marketing team, you can come up with the concept, script and message of your explainer video. But, if you don’t know where to start, there are many professional video production companies that can help you create killer explainer videos.

You can also work on collaborated projects, but too many cooks spoil the broth.

Research about a particular video production company and avoid making random choices. Your chosen production company must be able to customize original videos according to the needs of a specific business.  Every business idea needs a different approach and a unique script to be a hit among your target users.

Here are some of the best results you can accomplish once you have launched an animated explainer video.

Impressive Conversion Rates

People who watch explainer videos are more likely to buy your products or get in touch with your customer service. That’s why explainer videos are crucial for all your marketing campaigns. The number of shares and views on your video also fascinate potential customers and sparks engagement.

Product Promotion

While long and complicated descriptions can provide valuable info to your potential customers, convincing them to take an action can be tricky. That’s why animated product videos take care of the guess work and elaborates the best features of your service or product without forcing the viewer to make a purchase.

Trigger Interest

More companies are choosing social signals to promote their products and services. Businesses use videos and images to generate interest and spread word about their services. Today, 64% of consumers are likely to make a purchase after watching a video related to the product.

Customers are likely to remember an explainer video that focuses on a fictional journey of a buyer who struggles with a problem and buys the brand’s solution in the end.

Improve Your Ranking

We all know how stale content damages your company’s reputation. Gone are the days when websites contained endless sections and heaps of content. Today, established brands prefer having websites that showcase information through graphs, images and videos. The more informative and user-friendly your website is the better ranking it will receive.

More Traffic

All small and medium-sized companies dream of producing a ‘viral’ video. It is true that popular videos can make or break your business. Even though, there is no fixed formula for making a viral explainer video, the most creatively produced videos are likely to become instant hits among your target users. Naturally, this results in more traffic to your website and social media channels.

Capture Your Audience

The human brain retains less of what we hear but more of what we see and hear. That’s why the best way to capture your users’ attention is to highlight the best features of your products through animated explainer videos.

Since word of mouth advertising is still one of the best ways to attract more customers, you can receive a significant percentage of traffic when your followers share your videos.

No more pamphlets or power-point tutorials are needed to describe the features of your products. All you need is a solid script with a professionally produced video to engage your audience immediately. If you are trying to promote a new service or re-launching a complicated product, the inclusion of an animated explainer video can bring miraculous results.

Increases Your Followers

Thanks to Vimeo and YouTube, explainer videos are no longer confined to your website and social media pages. Create your company channel on these video streaming giants and upload your videos. Since these sites are also smartphone compatible, sharing becomes instant and easy.

Create Your Personality

One of the best benefits you can accomplish by creating an explainer video is to carve your identity in your niche. Professional explainer videos add credibility to your brand and solidify your reputation in the online world.

The average consumer is able to put a face to your name and is likely to initiate an activity to inquire more about a product. Your explainer video can create endless virtual connections that translate into meaningful relations with thousands of users.

Apart from boosting traffic and sales, explainer videos create awareness and serve as effective brand promotional tools. Instead of focusing on reviews and product description, your viewers can base his or her purchase on your explainer video. This is why businesses all over the world share information and advertise their products through animated explainer videos.

Here are a few unconventional ways you can use an explainer video.

Pitching a New Product

We all know how pitching a new idea, service or a product to potential investors or customers can be mind-boggling. But we all want to get it right. When you make an explainer video for a sales pitch, you are equipped with an engaging and repeatable way to reach out to potential customers.

Your video is a slick and professional way to leave a long-lasting first impression on your audience. This is why an animated explainer video can be a key component of your presentation. Begin with your explainer video that finishes with an open-ended question. This gives you a solid base to initiate a solid pitch.

Conventions

You are sure to be surrounded by your competitors at a bustling trade show. Since, all visitors want to get the most out of their time at these conventions, displaying an animated explainer video is a great trigger to spark conversations.

If your video manages to capture their attention, they are likely to initiate a conversation. This is because time-poor physical visitors might stop for a couple of minutes to watch your video before moving along to the next stop.

Email Marketing Campaigns

Videos make your emails looks look great. If you are wondering how to use videos in your email, there are innumerable ways to achieve your targets. For instance, you can offer a guide or a downloadable eBook on your website.

As a visitor downloads the content, his/her email address is routed mechanically into an email nurture sequence. Your first email shares that piece of content, but the purpose of a nurture sequence is to make the visitor move along your sales funnel, steadily shifting the conversation from the content to your company’s services and products.

By the time you send your third or fourth email, the recipient is likely to watch your entire explainer video instead of abandoning it halfway.

Moreover, when marketers use the word video, the opening rate jumps by 19% and click through rates soar by 65%. It also reduces unsubscribe rates by an impressive 26%.

Internal Company Training

If your company provides onsite training to new employees, the first few days are critical. The phase involves sharing crucial processes and important information. But the human brain is not wired to retain every word it learns. No matter how hard we try to focus or retain every bit of information, we are sure to miss a few points along the way.

This is where an animated explainer video comes to your rescue.

Explainer videos have an enormous potential and serve as a training tool. Did you know that 65% of people are visual learners? This implies that a large chunk of your employees may learn well and respond better to videos.

Since an explainer video is repeatable, your new employees can revisit it multiple times to learn different processes and applications. When all your new hires get the same level of info, there are no gaps in training.

Recruitment

Entrepreneur.com reveals that 75% of companies that are celebrated for their impeccable recruitment capabilities rely on explainer videos as part of their recruitment drive.

Each of these companies claimed that incorporating videos led to finding better-qualified candidates. Videos motivate the applicants to join a new or leading company. It also reveals the human side of a business and displays its creative side.

Most explainer videos have interesting characters that represent the interesting work culture of a company. Everyone still talks about DropBox’s amazing usage of puppets to make a thoroughly enjoyable video. You can use animation to achieve the same effect.

Paid Ads on Social Media

In the past, we were restricted to just static adverts on Twitter and Facebook. But today, a whopping 68% of marketers publish video content on Facebook while 87% of them find it an effective strategy.

Animated explainer videos on Facebook and Twitter are great ways to reach potential customers and investors. Since you can target your users better on Facebook, the platform allows you to handpick your core audiences. By reaching out to users based on their interests, location and demographics, your videos can create a huge effect on your sales and brand promotion.

Landing Pages

It seems as if it’s in our DNA to pay attention to cartoons and animations. That’s why companies invest a lot of money to create human-centric videos that are heavily stocked with professional-grade animation and incredible detail to make their landing pages look good.

For instance, in this regard BNA Smart Payments has a good reputation in international eCommerce. The company provides a hassle-free payment system to a wide range of businesses for selling internationally. The brand used an animated explainer video on their landing page to explain their approach.

These are just a few of the myriad ways your animated explainer video can work for you to land you followers, clients and investors.

Most businesses like to perform a test to measure what drives more conversions. For instance, a company can test a home page with and without an explainer video. There are many tools that can help you run the test without needing to be a developer.

You can also embed gates at different sections to analyze which sections do better. It is a good idea to compare your results with a previous analysis on the average time viewed. This will give you relevant parameters to monitor results.

Also, different characters in the video lead to different reactions.  It also helps create two different versions of your animated videos, each with a different character that follows the same script to know what works better. The length of your test also depends on your site traffic and how many results do you need to conclude results.

Explainer video companies comprise of artist and graphic designers. However, a few of these companies also have concept or script writers who can come up with a convincing script to make your video a success.

However, if you choose video production services that only hire graphic designers and voice over artists, you will need to work on an idea and prepare your own script.

Provide relevant and updated information about your company, including stale or outdated content in your video means you are only throwing away your money.

Typically, the information you need to provide revolves around these questions:

• What are your company’s services and products?
• What makes you better than your rivals?
• Who are your buyers?

It’s not about the price. However, you need quality to make a successful explainer video. It is important to choose a company that is fully aware of the latest trends and techniques of video marketing and animation. Most companies have their own unique style whereas others mold their work philosophy to cater to their clients’ needs.

To find a trustworthy and committed animation team, you must review their past work and look for authentic testimonials. You will find that the best video production companies don’t just make animated videos. They foster relationships to know about their clients’ work culture, products and services.

Moreover, top production companies also recommend suggestions or changes to your script and ideas so you can make a better impression. The animation team works with you to add sound effects and a soundtrack that resonates with the culture of your organization.

Your involvement helps create your own animated video to bridge the gap between your company and your potential and existing customers.

Another consideration is the time it takes to finish a project. Most companies take 4 to 8 weeks to create a highly professional animated explainer video. Popular video companies offer a 24-hour window for reply to feedback while some have 24/7 customer support system.

When you are looking for the best video production company to create an animated explainer video, a good package usually includes:

• Concept and characters
• Illustration
• Animation
• Script writing
• Background music
• Voice-overs

You can also hire your own voice actors or outsource music that you can use legally to trim down your budget.

Summary

• Identify a problem and propose a solution to capture the attention of your target customers
• Hire a professional video production company to create a high quality animation explainer video
• Provide updated and key stats related to your company
• Approve or ask for changes in the video
• Publish

Final Thoughts

Making an explainer video for business is more than just an animation, but needs a team of creatives collaborating to craft an effective video. Once you approve the video, it’s finally time to publish it on the right platforms at the right time. Don’t forget to monitor the progress as it identifies the channels that proved instrumental in the success of your video.

Hire seasoned professionals to create the best animated explainer videos to propel your business.