Educating Businesses On How Their Explainer Videos Should Be Made
Only those products that solve a certain consumer problem and make their life easier go on to make history.

Think Xerox to Pillsbury’s pastry mix.

The other side of the story lies in how well you communicate the value of your product. And, more importantly, how early in it’s life cycle.

When you consider the burgeoning competition and the consumer’s diminishing attention span, it becomes even more imperative that the right decisions are taken sooner rather than later.

Moreover, for every one product, there are 10 different alternatives. So how do you stay ahead of your competitors and be the best brand in your field?

The answer is Presentation.

It is never enough to just have a great product. It is equally important to strategize a brilliant communication agenda for your Product/ Brand. In today’s lingo that also entails a strong visual marketing plan – Infographics and Explainer Videos.

So before we get into how to make a great Explainer Video, let’s deal with these questions: What exactly is an explainer video and why do we need one?

An explainer video is a short description about your brand or product. It should explain two things. One. What is the product? Two. Why should people buy it?

And why do we need one?

1. Mayer and Anderson’s research concluded that video led to 74% increase in the viewer’s understanding of the brand’s product and services.

2. Forbes mentioned that 75% executives watched at least one work-related business video every week, 50%watched business related videos on YouTube, and 65% even visited the marketer’s website.

3. A survey launched by the Online Publishers Association claimed that 80% visitors could recall the ad that they had seen in the past 30 days, while 12% of these viewers even purchased the production the ad video. (Here are more video marketing statistics you should check.)

In fact, much of the success that Crazy Egg and Dropbox enjoy is credited to the quality of their explainer videos.

Having a video is almost a trendy thing to do. But, that’s no reason to get one! A well-made video increases your visibility and gets you closer to your Target Audience. So it is very important that a lot of thought and effort is put into the construction of it.

What Role Should Businesses Play In The Making Of Their Explainer Videos?

A) An Involved Team Member: Contribute in the creation of your product story, ensuring that it resonates with your target audience!

It’s you who know the story behind your product. You know the feedbacks that your customers drop. In short, you know your business. But a copywriter knows how to spin a story that can go viral.

So, you need to extract your important product information from file and memory and pour them into the hands of a capable copywriter, and watch as his thoughtful fingers relentlessly hammer the keyboard to produce a product story that resonates with your target audience.

Always keep the following in mind:

• Purpose of the explainer video: What do you intent to achieve through the video? Is it sales? Or, is it for brand exposure? Or, is it to encourage funding for your product? Make the team clear about your intention.
• Type of the video: Determine what type of explainer video you would want made: 2D animation, whiteboard animation, 3D animation, screencast or live cam recording. Discuss with the team to come up with the right nature of presentation suitable for your product.
• Share your video idea: Obviously, you have done the research and watched several top explainer videos. And, now you might have vague images of how your explainer video should turn out. Communicate your video idea to the team.
• Listen to the expert, and learn: You might have seen a successful explainer video, and think “OK, I’ll have my explainer video made just like this one.” We do agree with Picasso’s “great artist steals” adage but experts will tell you that brand building is not entirely about copying successful brands; it’s about innovating on what is already present. The same principle applies to the creation of explainer videos. Remember, different products require different ways of presentation.

B) A Critical Reviewer: Put yourself in the audience’s shoes and check the impact of your explainer video!

10 seconds is the attention span that people in general have for a video.It’s even lesser, i.e. 5 seconds, for YouTube users who often have their fingers or cursors hovering over the “skip ad” button.

So you should ask yourself: “Can this explainer video keep my target audience engaged till the end?”

So, here are 4 points startup businesses should consider when reviewing their explainer video:

1. Product Story: Does the video explain what your product is and why people should buy it?

People react more to stories than to information. In fact, if you study some successful explainer videos, you will see that they present their product through a story which people can connect to. While stunning graphics and visual effects can help attract the audience, it’s only through a good story which induces emotions that your audience would turn into buyers and supporters.

2. Easy Understanding: Is it made for a non-technical audience?

The script should be tailored for the understanding of the average audience. Either simplify the script or explain the technical jargons with proper visual examples. For instance, many people wouldn’t understand about certain medical terms but they might get it from the visuals. The job of an explainer video is to educate the audience, not confuse them.

3. Ad recall: Will they remember the video? Did they get the message?

Obviously, a good explainer video is memorable. It connects with you, and leaves imprint on your mind, and before you know it, you have become a brand follower.

4. Brand Awareness: Will they be interested in looking up my brand? Will they become subscribers?

Unlike movies, explainer videos are not meant as pure entertainment. We have a business to do. We want the audience to take some action. Know your brand. Fund or buy your product. Subscribe to your site, so that you can generate leads. In short, a good explainer video converts. It generates traffic, lead and revenue, and essentially helps your startup business grow into a field leader.

C) An Analytics Fanatic: 

And finally, always keep a close eye on the performance of your video. Is it making any kind of difference to your product understanding or marketing efforts?

Google Brand Lift and YouTube Analytics can help you track, and improve, the performance of your explainer video.

If your video is increasing your Conversion Rate, well done! You did it. Take it to the next level now.

• Run YouTube Ads
• Embed it in Guest Posts
• Reach out to Aggregators and Bloggers

In short, shout it out loud. Capitalize on its success as much as you can.

If you couldn’t make the magic happen, go back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong. As is often the case, it’s not the medium that’s in fault here. Maybe the story wasn’t communicated right or maybe it was your marketing efforts that need more fuel.

In short, we call it the CIA strategy- Critical Involvement and Analytics. If you give your video all three, you will have a winner. Guaranteed.

Conclusion:

An effective Explainer Video is a result of spending hours on disseminating the correct information to your agency. It is best to spend that time extracting out the details behind your product and business before getting into the concept and the scripting stage so that the actual production process doesn’t involve strategy changes of any kind.

So, think your brand needs that perfect Explainer Video? Crackitt can help you get closer to your goals.

By: Deepasha Kakkar

Let's crackitt for you.