What is an explainer video

Creative Animation Strategist

If you have seen those short engaging videos on various social media platforms, you probably have an idea as to what explainer videos are. They’re produced for information-sharing, marketing, lead generation, and sales-increasing purposes. For a modern business, explainer video production and marketing are important parts of their online marketing arsenal.

The purpose of this post is to help you figure out all the important things about an explainer video. From what is an explainer video to how to make an explainer video or how to make an animated explainer video, this post is intended to go over all major discussions. You will learn various tips and important factors that help in the creation of explainer videos.

In case you require extensive training, support, and ideas to begin with the said video marketing campaign, search for the top explainer video companies. An explainer video company can use your resources efficiently to generate desirable results.

What is an Explainer Video

Before we learn how to create an explainer video, we must quickly go over what an explainer video is. It’s a short video intended to make the target audience more aware of a certain concept, brand, product, or service.

Normally, a business explainer video will fulfill some part of the marketing objective or help drive the overall campaign nearer to those objectives. The name “explainer video” provides a clear representation of the idea itself.

Through explainer video production, individuals and businesses can help their target audience understand a product, service, and brand. It’s a multi-media asset (i.e., explainer videos) in the pocket of modern businesses using digital marketing tools.

Without wasting the viewer’s time, you can help them understand what your brand, product, or service has to offer. For instance, a 30-second short video will be more appealing to a group of consumers rather than a 3-minute live session, even if both videos teach how to boil an egg.

What Type of Explainer Video Should You Make?

There are various explainer video types to help businesses get creative and increase the engagement rate of their video marketing strategies. For instance, you will find live-action explainer videos, motion graphics explainer videos, and animated explainer videos on the internet. We will get to some understandable examples of explainer videos later, but for now, let’s focus on the types of explainer videos you can create as per your marketing objectives.

· Animated Explainer Video

We will hit it off with general animated explainer videos. Compared to live-action videos, these are more flexible, and the opportunity to land some creative ideas and video shots is extremely easy. Due to animation, there’s a wide range of possibilities about what you can show your viewers. For example, they’re excellent at informing viewers about the software or other intangible products/services.

· 2D Animated Explainer Videos

These provide a more classic look to the viewer and have been in widespread use by marketers around the world. 2D animation might appear nothing more than flat characters piled up to represent different processes, roles, and activities. However, it comprises hundreds of hours of character design, iteration, and frame-by-frame test runs.

· 3D Animated Explainer Videos

You may already know about 3D animated videos. 3D animated explainer videos will get you what you want with your target audience during a realistic survey or live session. It offers rich dimensional imagery through complex animation while 2D resorts to simple flat and two-dimensional digital imagery.

The engagement potential is higher for 3D animation explainer videos because people can preview products from various angles before purchasing them. However, that’s not entirely possible with 2D animation explainer videos.

· Live Action Explainer Video

If a company is selling a physical product or service, one of the best ways to showcase it would be live action explainer videos. Do you know why? Well, it involves a real person interacting, using, and explaining the product or service in front of the camera. It creates an emotional connection with viewers as they can think of companies with different faces.

· Crowdfunding Explainer Video

Crowdfunding videos, as the name suggests, are for businesses that wish to raise money. Crowdfunding explainer videos are flexible, fun, and engaging as they involve both elements including live action and animation (2D or 3D). Such videos run slightly longer as viewers must learn why a product/service is worth raising funds for.

· Motion Graphics Explainer Video

Motion graphic explainer video is a form of explainer video that uses animation to depict ideas and incite curiosity among viewers. It’s suitable when you don’t want to create videos that involve character design and character animation. In motion graphic explainer videos, a company uses shapes and images to replace words.

· Whiteboard Animation Explainer Videos

The artwork represented in a whiteboard animation explainer video appears hand-drawn. The animations also usually appear with an actual hand moving in a set motion to draw specified objects on a whiteboard/chalkboard. If you want to create animated explainer video collections that don’t take much time and use the same template, this is a viable choice.

· Screencast Explainer Video

Screencast shows a person interacting with another digital screen such as a computer, laptop, or mobile phone to show how something works. This form of explainer videos is suitable for introducing a software, application, and website. It’s a quick and effective form of teaching customers how to interact with a certain product or service without reading lengthy articles.

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What Should an Explainer Video Include?

Being one of the best marketing tools that modern businesses have ever come across, you should learn the right way to use explainer videos to your advantage. The overall objective is to familiarize customers/viewers with your brand, product, and/or service.

So, those are some factors that your explainer video must include regardless of the type of videos you’re creating. Check out the list of the main ingredients that every explainer video cookbook has:

· Name of the Company

In an explainer video, you don’t want the viewer to keep wondering who made the video and who it’s coming from. Make sure you mention your company’s name to inform potential customers about the steps you’re taking to engage with them. Introducing your company to viewers is among the primary purposes of creating an explainer video.

· Brand

Just as how your company’s name gets audience exposure with explainer videos, your brand should get the same attention. Sharing only the company name will do little unless you advertise and showcase your brand in the most effective and eye-catching way.

When you’re planning to introduce a brand or revive an existing one, it’s a good idea to mention it in the explainer video. Of course, how you mention it in your explainer video will depend on the type of content and message you’re delivering (i.e. subtle or obvious).

· Products, Services, and Concepts

You have to make your explainer video easy to digest and informative for the viewers without taking too much of their time. So, once you show the company name and showcase your brand, it’s your product’s/service’s turn.

You can share information about the manufacturing process of your product to show the efforts involved in delivering it to the doorstep of the customers. Or, you can provide a quick overview of the service that you’re offering to let viewers know what processes it involves.

You have to name the product/service and share information about it in a manner that piques the viewers’ attention. Besides, the attention span of people scrolling through social media news feed is comparable to a toddler.

What Makes a Good Explainer Video?

Now that you’ve skimmed past the basics of what an explainer video is, let’s take a look at what makes a great explainer video. Various factors affect the quality, effectiveness, and impact of an explainer video.

There’s a common criterion that nearly all types of explainer videos must fulfill. So, bear with us and learn the five things that every explainer video has in common irrespective of its category:

1. Short Length

You don’t want your viewers and potential customers zoning out and leaving your explainer video that took hours to produce. Since people have short attention spans like toddlers when it comes to surfing through social media, you have to keep your explainer videos short.

Ideally, companies cap the runtime of their explainer videos between 60-90 seconds. But the more effective and impactful explainer videos that result in higher engagement rates have a runtime of 1 to 2 minutes. Plus, you should keep in mind that most users zone out within the first few seconds of the video if it doesn’t pique their interest.

2. Strong Call to Action (CTA)

You must have an objective, i.e., something that you aim to achieve through the explainer video, right? It must be higher click-through rates, engagement rates, lead generation, or more conversions.

Whether you encourage the viewer to purchase your products/services or recommend signing up with your email updates, your CTA must be strong and strategic. Placing it at the end of the video is an ideal approach.

3. Focused On Solving a Problem

Even before you produce the explainer video script, make sure you learn about the problem that your product/service solves or the concept/issue your brand is addressing. Whether it’s a how-to-use product video or an explainer video talking about service quality, discuss the problem that your products/services solve.

4. Match Brand and Target Audience

Every effective and attention-grabbing explainer video has the perfect blend of style, brand tone, and ideas. You know your target audience as per their qualities and demographics. Plus, you have to represent a tone and communication style for your brand.

5. High-Quality

From the script to the production and release, every process of creating an explainer video must be top-notch quality because that’s how you impress existing and potential customers.

Why Do Explainer Videos Work?

Online video marketing has resulted in considerable sales revenue, engagement rates, and customer base growth for many companies. Here are the reasons why you should include explainer videos in your marketing strategy:

· Video is Easier to Digest

It’s no surprise that watching a video is fun, informative, and easier compared to reading articles that don’t even have any pictures sometimes. Customers prefer taking a sneak peek at the product and service before purchasing it. But, they don’t like reading long passages and reviews either.

By summing up all the good qualities of a product/service in a short video, you can improve customer engagement and make it easier for viewers to digest the information.

· Explainer Video Saves Resources

Pitching the same idea and concept in a unique way every time you are face-to-face with investors and clients can be frightening for your sales team. Nonetheless, you can make things easier for your sales department by opting for explainer video production.

To reduce the workload and relieve the tension, you can create explainer videos that sum the intended message while discussing the product/service.

· Provides an Emotional Experience

Videos connect with viewers on an individual level because of the voiceover, music, and visual effect. Comparatively speaking, explainer videos exhibit more emotions than lengthy text-based articles. With that said, you can enhance the emotional connection in your explainer video by influencing those factors.

· Videos Result in Solid Return on Investment (ROI)

Videos help you gain more viewers and, thus, more customers for the future. That’s because videos are quite easy to watch, interact with, and understand. Plus, the social media platform features make video sharing extremely convenient. Also, when a video rises in popularity, it automatically starts to appear in the news feed of relevant users.

This increases the engagement rate even further and potentially drives more conversions as an increasing number of people watch your explainer videos. Hence, there’s considerably better ROI in explainer video compared to other forms of marketing.

· Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand these days. You can’t expect to gain more customers, higher sales, and increased brand awareness without aiming for higher search engine rankings. Video marketing helps you land higher on SERPs, and that particularly helps you get more traffic.

When you have the desired amount of traffic, you can make sure that the video content and engagement are high-quality to result in the desired conversion rates. Easier to watch and understand, videos are among the most desirable forms of content on the web.

· Improved Conversion Rates

If you have videos on your website rather than lengthy text passages, you have a higher chance of engaging with visitors. Search engines divert more traffic to websites with a higher engagement rate, and with explainer video production, that’s exactly what you will be doing. So, you can expect improvements in your website conversion rates after creating high-quality explainer videos.

· Targeted Customer Approach

You can adapt your explainer videos for a general audience or target a specific audience for your business. You can share animated, motion graphic, and live action explainer videos on your choice of social media platforms. Plus, you can target specific keywords and when/who to show your explainer videos.

· Wide Range of Application

Of course, you can create and post explainer videos on the internet for a variety of applications. The list of purposes for an explainer video includes:

- Introducing new a new product/service

- Company presentation

- Brand news/awareness

- Employee training

- Customer relationship management

How Effective Are Explainer Videos?

In the visual marketing field, explainer videos have quickly climbed up the ladder of being one of the most influential and effective tools. Explainer videos bear more importance now when compared to other visual marketing methods.

Compared to a regular campaign, explainer video marketing delivers nearly the same amount of information and message but within a short time (i.e., 1-3 minutes). Learn about some other reasons why explainer videos are so effective:

· Remains Memorable

It’s easier to understand information in small chunks. In addition to that, learning and understanding concepts becomes even more fun, engaging, and interesting when it’s in a visual format. If you produce a high-quality explainer video that uses proper strategy, craft, and ideas, you can leave a lasting impression on the viewers. Hence, they may remember it for longer than usual.

· Triggers Emotions

Explainer videos trigger emotions like no other form of marketing. While the primary reason behind that is the use of visuals, you must note that voiceovers, music, and detail play critical roles as well. Creating an explainer video involves using emotional marketing strategies, tips, and techniques.

It helps to connect with the viewer on an individual level and tell a story. Once inspired, viewers feel motivated to act upon the message received through an explainer video.

· Visualizes Data

Data visualization is one of the most intriguing concepts. Imagine yourself assembling complex furniture with the help of a 20-page instructions manual. That much data is extremely difficult to digest instantly and may not even appear understandable if you lack the vocabulary.

Explainer videos are effective because they summarize the hard-to-comprehend information into a visual format. You will find it easier to watch a furniture assembling video and following it rather than reading a 20-page text-based manual.

· Simplifies Complex Concepts

Simplification of dense concepts and topics is another major reason why explainer videos are so effective. Something that appears boring in text format may be highly appealing in a visual format. Often, videos are engaging, fun, and relaxing to watch.

You can stick to a precise script and summarize dense concepts into understandable imagery for your viewers/customers. With animations, illustrations, and other digital imagery, you can make it easier for viewers to memorize and comprehend your viewers.

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Things You Can Do With an Animated Explainer Video

In simple words, an animated explainer video informs website visitors about your company, brand, and products/services within a minute or two. However, that’s not the only specialty of animated explainer videos. Nowadays, explainer videos can help a sales and marketing team in various ways. Some of the things that you can do with an animated explainer video are as follows:

· Sales Pitches

Presenting a product/service idea to potential investors or higher management officers before them can make you nervous. But, getting the main value proposition of your product/service across the board of directors becomes easier with explainer videos. It also makes a professional impression on everyone in the meeting while helping them think that you’re full of creativity and focused on the product/service.

· Shows/Conventions

Like a sales pitch, you can share your message and get the value proposition of your product across the viewers with the help of an explainer video. How does an explainer video help here? At shows and conventions, you can display your animated explainer videos to grab the interest of viewers and turn them into potential customers or even possible future business partners.

· Email Marketing Campaigns

To avoid making your email marketing campaigns look bland, you can incorporate explainer videos in them. Related to the subjects of your email workflows, you can craft an explainer video and share it across your email address nurturing sequence to better engage the customers.

· Email Signatures

You can add enticing video thumbnails in your business and customer emails to attract views to your explainer videos. Since hundreds of millions of emails are sent regularly, it presents a huge opportunity to let people know about your product/service.

· Internal Company Training

Talking about the onboarding process, it can be quite hectic to help the newcomer adjust in the workplace. Plus, you have to share a lot of information and most of it can be in text form. Through explainer videos, you can summarize lengthy processes for the newcomer and help them get started rather quickly.

· Recruitment

Recruitment explainer videos help potential candidates and willing applicants to learn more about your company, brand, and product/service. Moreover, you can use explainer videos as a form of test during recruitment to learn about applicants’ knowledge and skills.

· Paid Adverts on Social Media

Posting static content such as images with text or plain text is an obsolete form of social media marketplace advertising. Today, marketers at countless companies believe that posting videos as part of paid advertising campaigns on social media is crucial. Without videos, they believe, it’s difficult to engage customers and hold their attention for longer.

Where to Use Explainer Videos?

Explainer videos can be your income-churning assets on the internet. So, what are ideal places to place them if you want to gain more customers, increase sales revenue, and make your product/service successful? Let’s find out!

· Homepage

Your website is probably one of the first places to insert your explainer videos. You can have your website visitors stay on your website for a tad bit longer by posting high-quality explainer videos.

· Email Campaigns

Sending out bland emails or even the ones with a single static image might not be as effective compared to emails with explainer video links. Since the video won’t open in the email (it will take the user to an external link), you must make the thumbnail catchy.

· Sales Meetings

Starting your pitch at a sales meeting with an explainer video can help relieve some pressure off your shoulders. It will help the room get a read of your value proposition, product, and service before you talk about them.

· Landing Pages

Landing pages have to pique visitors’ interest. If they fail, visitors will not only leave the website but will prefer not to come back soon. So, explainer videos, with all the visual appeal, can hold visitors’ attention for a few minutes.

· Retargeting Ads

You can easily target a specific type of audience through social media advertising/marketplace features. Explainer videos can help you form retargeting ads for people that don't have any connection to your brand.

· Sales Outreach

Reaching out to people on social media is easy, but the main competition is engagement. You can grab the users attention with the help of creative, illustrious, and engaging explainer videos.

· Social Media

You can post your explainer videos on multiple social media platforms at once and review the results at a later time. It will help you get the best social media outreach as you will be on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so on.

· Conferences, Presentations, and Events

These are some of the places where you can make a lasting impression on all participants, guests, and potential investors. By showcasing your product/service idea once it’s ready, you can create the necessary hype for it in the market.

· Crowdfunding Sites and Campaigns

Crowdfunding explainer videos are the perfect tool to raise money while engaging with customers. When raising money for something that’s not even in the market yet, you have to convince investors and participants well. So, an explainer video can help significantly.

Explainer Video Creation Process and Time for Creation

Using time smoothly, we will now learn how to create explainer videos. So, let’s take a brief look at the explainer video creation process:

The Early Stages of Production

All types of explainer videos go through the three-step process to reach completion. Those three steps include:

1. Pre-Production: It’s the stage where you work with a video production agency, gather ideas, write the script, and keep the video concept fresh in your mind.

2. Production: It’s the stage where the decided plan is put into action. So, animation, voice acting, and similar things take place.

3. Post-Production: It’s the editing phase where you fine-tune the end-result of the video production stage.

What to Know Before Creating a Good Explainer Video?

Creating a good explainer video might sound easy and satisfying after learning about all the things you have to incorporate. However, making an optimized and engaging short video isn’t that easy. You must consider a few things beforehand. Check out the tips that will help you keep your explainer videos satisfying, engaging, and result-achieving below.

· Don’t forget the concept of sticking to the ideal explainer video length respective to the social media platform you’re using. It takes only a few seconds before users decide to jump off a social media page or post and start scrolling. A few popular social media platforms have varying ideal video lengths include:

o YouTube: 2 minutes

o Facebook: 1 minute

o Twitter: 45 seconds

o Instagram: 30 seconds

· If you’re posting the explainer video on your landing page for higher website traffic, better SEO, and higher rankings, keep the video silent or at least provide a mute button. This will prevent scarring the visitors away as they scroll through their feed.

· Keep the whole website mobile-friendly for SEO purposes and upload your explainer video accordingly.

· Opt for auto-play on different social media platforms based on the captions you’re using for your videos.

· Track the performance of your explainer video using the right tools and metrics. Make necessary changes for higher engagement and better results.

· Place a strong call-to-action (CTA) at the end of the explainer video if you wish to encourage your visitors/customers to take action.

· Team up with an explainer video production company/agency if necessary to produce high-quality content and if you lack in-house talent.

Explainer Video Production Time

Creating an explainer video out of a pre-made template will take only a couple of days, depending on the complexities and elements you include in it. However, a fresh animated explainer video can take anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks of time. Meanwhile, here are the main elements to create a great explainer video:

· Research: point to a specific problem that your product/service helps with and create a concept/idea to produce.

· Script: create a video script that packs all the right words to target the main customer pain points.

· Storyboard: create a story incomplete correlated with the script, to sum up the whole concept into a 90-second (ideal length) explainer video.

· Voiceover: to make complex concepts or products easier to understand in a good explainer video, choose an optimal narrative voice.

· Character and Graphics Design: work on the animation using the perfect tools and create characters that not only represent the brand but also connect with the viewers, product, and service.

· Animation: ensure high-standard animation processes and video formats to make it comprehensible and easier to watch for viewers.

· Music and Sound FX: the music or VFX sound must match the video details and the brand you’re representing.

Explainer Video Examples - Top 10

Here are our top 10 picks of the best explainer video examples that will help you grasp the overall concept of short video marketing:

1. ALPACADABRAZ 3D NFT Promo: Animated Explainer Video

Using vibrant color combinations, 3D characters, and vivid animation detail, Lemons Animation Studio has presented a solid example of an explainer video that’s fun and engaging.

2. World of Tanks Blitz Cup Promo: Animated Explainer Video

A promotional explainer video for World of Tanks Blitz Cup by Wargaming, Lemons Animation Studio used the classic color combinations, music, VFX, and 3D character design with awesome animation.

3. Elixir Game Launcher: Animated Explainer Video

Lemons Animation Studio combined pure in-house talent for this one. Through smooth animations and precise frame-by-frame creation of this explainer video connected with a matching sound/VFX, the studio outdid itself.

4. Dollars Shave Club: Live Action Explainer Video

The company was unlike any other brand in the market at the time, and with the use of humorous live-action and engaging use of music makes it one of the most viewed explainer videos.

5. Apple Watch: Storytelling Explainer Video

Fitting the music, narrative, and images perfectly, Apple created a masterpiece for its upcoming masterpiece at the time.

6. Spotify: Animated Explainer Video

In this animated explainer video, Spotify seamlessly informs podcasters about how they can use data from users anonymously to improve future episodes.

7. PayPal: Live Action Explainer Video

The explainer video is like a musical comedy where PayPal uses a sense of humor, music, and great storytelling to inform customers about their speedy services and fast transactions.

8. Dropbox: Motion Graphic Explainer Video

Using stop-motion animation and graphical representation in the explainer video, Dropbox highlights the problem of accessing the same files through multiple devices. Thus, the company presents a solution.

9. Uber Eats: Animated Explainer Video

Through animation, narrative, colorful character designs, and music, Uber Eats tells the viewers how it’s transforming the restaurant industry via its modern application within a minute.

10. Amazon Go: Live Action Explainer Video

Through excellent-level character depiction, storytelling, and narrative voice, Amazon Go has outdone itself once again by introducing all important features of its latest development to customers in under 2 minutes.

Common Explainer Video Mistakes

As a word of advice, consider learning about the common first-timer explainer video mistakes that most companies make. By learning about six of those mistakes, you can maximize your effort and end results:

1. Placing Filler Content

Keep things concise and to the point. Stalling viewers before reaching the main point can result in the loss of potential customers.

2. Leaving Viewer’s Interest Behind

Customers will review your company and watch the explainer videos for their benefit. So, make sure you talk about their interest and relieve their tension throughout the video.

3. Going for Cheap Video Scripts

Often, beginner explainer video marketers try to get done with the task quickly, so they opt for cheap video scripts. Make sure you’re working with a high-quality video production agency and getting engaging video scripts.

4. Ignoring Video Quality

You must never ignore the video quality, no matter what. The quality of everything, including animations, sound, and so on, will matter a lot when it comes to engaging your viewers.

5. Creating a “Too Formal” or “Serious” Video

Try to insert some casualness and a friendly tone in the video to keep your viewers interested. Being too serious and formal can take the fun away from the explainer video concept.

6. Forgetting Marketing

Consider the marketing channels and platforms you’ll be using to get your explainer videos across the target audience. When you ignore the medium, you risk losing the audience, and creating videos regardless means wasting effort.

Conclusion

The overall concept of an explainer video is to captivate the user/visitor/customer. By getting their attention, you can get closer to your sales and/or marketing objective. You have to make your explainer videos seem like all the hype and trend on social media. That’s one of the main reasons why you also have to come up with a positive and encouraging CTA.

It can take some time before you start gaining the positive impacts of your explainer video. Remember, tracking the progress and using analytics tools can help you stay on track with your current objectives.