As a budding entrepreneur or businessperson, you have just started a new business and now you want people to know what you’ve got in store for them. You want to extol the virtues of using your product or service, in a way that leaves customers impressed right away. You want people to choose your products over the other alternatives available in the market. So, how can you accomplish these things and in a manner that appeals to your target demographic?
The answer lies in – explainer videos.
Hear us out. The explainer video is your secret weapon. It can be everything from a great marketing copy, to an educative how-to guide, to a video that helps sell the benefits of choosing YOU over the competition. Or you just want something that helps spread the word about the spanking new product you just launched.
An example of an explainer video that informs what your product is about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixpg0Kq_bEU&feature=emb_title
Maybe you want to explain a very technical concept to your audience, only in a dead-simple way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7wmiS2mSXY&feature=emb_title
Simply put, explainer videos are short online marketing videos that have one job – spreading the word about your company’s products or services in an appealing way.
Here are some benefits of using an explainer video. We take a look at how it makes sense to use one in a business meeting first.
Explainer Video as a Deal Closer
Now consider this scenario. You have in your hands a winner of a product, but before you can release it into the wild, you need to convince your investors of its commercial viability. Sure you can spend hours explaining it in a painstakingly excruciating way, or you could just make a slick and smart explainer video without all the complicated, boring jargon.
“39% of executives have called a vendor after watching a video.” – Forbes
Even if you feel that your product isn’t ‘cool enough,’ you will be surprised to be wrong. A good explainer video for your product basically helps you connect with someone who needs what you’ve got to offer. Pretty cool no?
It gets better. You may feel intimidated by the idea of making an awesome explainer video, especially since you’ve just started out. But there’s really no need to be. Think of it as just another (albeit more effective) way of getting content out to your intended audience.
Sometimes, simplicity is the best policy. A quick, easy explainer can help someone who just needs to know how your product can solve a problem. This approach alone gets a lot of engagement online.
“The average internet user spends 88% more time on a website with video.” – CodeFuel
A Good Explainer Video…..
A good explainer sticks around. It should be 30 to 90 seconds long. You can always look at how other brands are doing it right, and see which one resonates on a deeper level with you. Remember, you are here to solve a problem. Once you figure that out, your explainer video will do the rest.
An explainer video goes far beyond explaining your product. If done right, this video will help bring future leads as people share it on social media. Your explainer video can either be present on:
● YouTube
● Facebook
● Twitter
● Instagram
● Website landing page
● Meetings
It’s not always about selling your product
Suppose you want to lend your voice to a cause or spread a humanitarian appeal. Animated explainer videos can go a long way in convincing people to donate and work towards larger-than-life causes.
Here’s an example of a video that helps explain internally displaced persons (refugees):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFqLNWKk5hg
If done right, you might even get press coverage from media outlets as a result of your explainer video going viral.
This kind of explainer videos can be for longer than 1-2 minutes, as long as they are engaging enough and are well-researched about the subject matter they are talking about.
For this sort of explainer videos, it is imperative that one makes use of professional digital agencies that have a proven track record in telling gripping stories to the intended audiences.
Let’s talk about Numbers
Video is the most preferred format for engaging with viewers. Don’t take our word for it though, here is some data from Hubspot that supports this observation:
“Using video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%” – Unbounce
This is now. And this is how it will be in the future to come:
For brands and business, video is king:
Ok we get it. Video is the future. Now the question is. How do you convince people to buy what you’re offering with an explainer video?
Consider getting professional help
There’s a huge difference between content writing and copywriting, even though most people use these terms interchangeably. Copywriting aims to convince a person about using a particular product or service, without coming across as overly promotional. In a way, this approach is also what makes for a great video explainer.
People need to understand that the most impact-driven explainer videos appear simple and easy to grasp, but a lot of research, effort, fine-tuning and tweaking goes into making it the compelling example you see before you.
For this, hiring the services of a professional creative agency is preferable. Not only do they have the prerequisite skills and expertise to help bring your vision to life, but they also have what it takes to push the envelope.
However, not many people realize this. Alex Safavinia, Creative Director at
Kasra Design opines:
"Unfortunately, we've seen this a lot. Potential clients contact us and say, hey we have cheap offers to do our animated video, why are your prices higher? So eventually they opt for a questionable provider. “
Customers need to realize that their brand reputation matters. Alex continues:
“Then we hear from them after a few months. We hear they lost some of their budget and they can't use the video they made as it was done so poorly. So much that it would harm their brand image.
So at the end, they have to spend on a proper explainer video while they could do it in the beginning and save a considerable amount of their company money."
You may feel it’s expensive to go for a tried-and-tested agency with a proven track record in making great explainer videos, but this is a long-term investment. It can help individuals and businesses save time and costs that could otherwise be lost by using a dodgy provider; not to mention the ROI you can generate with an excellent explainer video that talks about your product in a creative way!
Explainer videos are here to stay. And its high time that businesses integrate it in their overall marketing campaigns for a high return on investment.
Reference(s):
https://www.vyond.com/resources/the-big-list-of-video-marketing-statistics-from-2015/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-trends-preferences#video
