Today’s entrepreneurs have such a highly-engaging, flexible, and effective marketing tool at their disposal—video content. When done well, it can increase conversion rates, improve brand awareness, and boost sales. Although it is quite popular among modern consumers, implementing a video marketing strategy won’t necessarily lead to success. There’s more to this practice than filming videos and sharing them on social media. You need to do proper research to understand your audience and to keep up with the ever-changing market trends.
Look at the numbers listed below to understand the state of video marketing in 2018.
- 81% of businesses now use video content to market (an 18% increase from 2017)
- 95% of consumers watch videos to know more about products and services
- 85% of consumers prefer to see more brands using video content in 2018
- 72% of consumers would rather watch a video than read an article about a product or service
The data proves that marketers are shifting their focus to video content. More marketers are stepping up to the challenge to supply what consumers are demanding. That is also why competition is at an all-time high. Everyone’s trying to grab consumers’ attention with a video.
Why Make an Animated Video?
Today, you will learn how to make one of the most effective types of video content, animated explainer videos. But before we go into the details, let’s find out why you ought to invest in animation. Is it really worth your time?
- Animation Keeps Viewers Engaged. Competition is fierce now that everyone’s trying to create their own videos. It’s often hard for brands to stand out. But an animated video might just do the trick. Keep in mind that consumers these days have very little patience for boring and repetitive content. But you can come up with something that looks relatively new using animation.
- Animation Makes Complex Topics Easier to Understand. Much like graphs and charts, animations can simplify complex ideas. You can show viewers how certain processes or mechanisms work, and they should be able to absorb and retain that information effectively. Not to mention, animated videos can make learning more fun.
- Animation Is Relatively Cheap. Compared to live-action videos, which require crew members, actors, and a whole lot of expensive equipment, creating animated clips is cheaper. And if you don’t have an in-house team of animators, you can always hire a video production company to do the job.
Take a look at this video to understand why you need explainer videos:
Producing Animated Explainer Videos
Explainer videos are typically short videos. Brands mostly use them to explain their products or solutions, but they can also be used to tell the company’s story.
Whether you’re hiring a video production agency to animate your explainer videos or you have an in-house team of animation experts, you need to know how these videos should be made. This way, you can guarantee that the animated video produced is valuable and effective.
Below you will find a little guide for producing animated explainer videos.
Step 1: Write a Compelling Script
A killer script is the foundation of every explainer video. It needs to be concise yet informative, and educational yet engaging. You can start this step by making a creative brief. This allows you to identify who your viewers are and remember them as you progress in your video production endeavors. To get a rough estimation of the length of the script, read it out loud.
Don’t forget about search engine optimization. Your script must contain the right kind and amount of keywords so the video can rank well on Google. If you publish the video on YouTube, you might want to add those keywords as metatext. It will definitely enable your video to rank high on search engines.
Check out this video for more ideas:
Step 2: Select an Animation Style
The style you choose isn’t merely for aesthetic purposes. It will set the tone of the entire video. Nowadays, there are probably hundreds or even thousands of styles to choose from. Just so you won’t get overwhelmed, here are a few popular animation styles that you might want to use for your explainer video:
- Whiteboard Style
This basic 2D animation is a classic. It is hard to mess things up with such a traditional setup. As you probably know, whiteboard illustrations are mostly in black and white. The animations pop up on a white surface as new concepts are introduced by the narrator.
Whiteboard is considered to be the most effective type of explainer video animation as its minimalistic design enables viewers to focus on the content. It’s also a great choice for corporate videos.
- Motion Graphic Animation
As the name suggests, this style involves constant movement. The animation technique conveys concepts through simple graphics that are designed to be engaging, entertaining, and educational. Overall, it makes the concepts easier to follow.
Note that this animation style requires tremendous skill. Animators must have great attention to detail to ensure that the audio and graphics are always in sync, especially during transitions between frames. For that reason, motion graphics mostly take up so much of the animators’ time. As a result, it’s also more expensive than other animation styles.
- Kinetic Typography
This animation technique uses text to convey the messages in an explainer video. When these animated letterforms are combined with the right background music, it can do more than educate. It can inspire and empower viewers.
Here are other examples of animation styles that might interest you:
Step 3: Choose a Great Narrator
Aside from the animation style, this is probably the most important decision you have to make. Remember that the narrator has to make up for the lack of facial expressions in an explainer video. His or her voice should be charismatic enough to charm audiences and to keep them engaged. Someone with a soothing voice should make a great choice. It should encourage viewers to watch until the end of the video, and it should make the information he or she is relaying easier to remember.
When it comes to recording the audio, you can use QuickTime if you have a Mac. Or you can use Sound Recorder if you have a PC. There are also apps you can download onto your smartphone for this endeavor.
Step 4: Choose Your Background Music
What tone do you want to set? The track you select must complement the rest of the elements of the video. Browsing through hundreds of audio files won’t make this step any easier. It might help if you take a few steps back. Revisit the rest of the elements you’ve chosen, and let it dictate the kind of music your video needs.
Remember that the background music needs to carry weight. It must be able to reinforce what the narrator and animations are trying to convey, but it must never steal the show. It might take you a while to find the perfect track. Instead of focusing all your efforts on finding that one song, you should choose a few options and try them before making your final decision.
Once you’ve written the script, made the animations, recorded the audio, and selected the perfect track, you can start putting the pieces together. Last but not the least, you need to share the video on the right platforms to make it easier for your target audiences to find it.
Remember all these tips, and you should have no trouble producing a high-impact animated explainer video.
Conclusion
Take these tips to heart as you plan for your video marketing strategy. These would help pave the way to success.
Without a doubt, a powerful and engaging business video could be the very thing that helps your business reach its targets. You just have to remember that aside from having it go viral, your video should also be aligned with what your business ideals are and what you’re aiming for.
It’s also best that you allow your video marketing strategy to work hand in hand with other marketing plans you have in place. Just because videos work great does not mean you should stop updating your blog, or discontinue taking care of your social media channels. It’s a matter of finding the perfect balance among all your marketing channels. From there, you can expect to reap better rewards in the end.
To jumpstart the process of creating an efficient video marketing plan for your business, contact us here.
