Animated explainer videos are becoming a go-to promotional tool for businesses. They’re very effective at selling a product and increasing conversion rates. This is exactly why companies from all over the world like them: They work and they look awesome on websites.
Explainer videos are the opposite of long sales pages. In fact, shorter explainer videos tend to work better than longer ones. Snappy, concise explainer videos (< 60 seconds long) have a 77% retention rate on average. The longer a video is, the more it moves out of the average viewer’s attention span. More viewers will stop watching without having seen all that the video offers. In other words, explainer videos should be short and packed with a value proposition.
To produce an explainer video that gets you a real bump in your sales, follow the specific steps that this post will guide you through. Let’s go to the first step:
Picking the Right Company
Choosing an explainer video production company can be challenging because a premium price alone can’t guarantee a good result.
PRO TIP: A higher price doesn’t guarantee great quality, and a lower price doesn’t always translate to poor quality.
You can base your judgment on several elements of a good explainer video company.
- Obvious expertise. You need to find a company that understands how they’ll approach a problem just from reading the initial brief you give them. Knowing how they’re going to handle a project from the start is an indication of a positive experience to come since it means that they’ve likely done this process frequently.
- Desire to know its customers. Look for a company that’s really trying to get a deep understanding of your company and its target customers. An explainer video is a type of content that’s targeted to a specific set of potential users. If the production company you work with has no idea who will be watching the video, it’ll be a near-guaranteed flop.
- Own style. Choose an explainer video company that won’t just rubber-stamp all of your requests. They should have their own styles and values. An explainer video company is a creative company at heart, and a good one knows how they want to do things.
- Easy to work with. Working with a company shares your vision is a sure-fire way to ensure your goals are met.
Starting the Project: Writing the Script
A great video starts with a great script. Use these tips to provide the best foundation for your explainer video.
Preparing Calls-to-Action (CTA)
PRO TIP: Although calls-to-action are typically presented at the end of videos, you need to decide on your video’s CTA before you write the rest of the script.
Writing an explainer video script requires an understanding of what action you want viewers to take after watching the video and what they’ll get in return for taking that action.
Calls-to-action are more successful when your product or service resolves specific issues. You need to conduct thorough research to know your target market and their problems that your products can solve.
Writing the Initial Draft
Most explainer video companies include scriptwriting services in their pricing. However, it’s much better for you to come up with the script concept. Why? It’s simple: Nobody knows a company’s target audience better than the company itself. Don’t worry about creating Shakespeare-quality writing, because the production company will help you polish everything before it moves to the next phase.
Here’s how your script should flow:
Presenting your product as the solution immediately after pointing out problems will help viewers associate the two, and make your brand’s name stick in their minds better.
Explaining to viewers how the problem-solving process works shows that you have the real solution your their need.
Time to Get Creative
The production company you hire is the creative team responsible for the development process, so you can spend most of your time thinking about your marketing strategy after the explainer is done. However, it’s not a completely hands-off situation. The production company will need your input along the way to make sure the video is meeting your expectations.
PRO TIP: The creative development process requires your involvement to unleash its true potential, not in the visual creation, but in giving feedback. Don’t hold anything back.
Storyboarding
In the early stages of an explainer video’s development, visuals don’t matter much since they’re rough sketches. In later stages, visuals should match your company’s branding guidelines and appeal to your target customers. This process is a group effort between you and the creative team.
Illustrations and Animation
To make the illustration and animation process smoother, prepare the assets you want to be presented in the video (e.g., screenshots, company logo, data tables). Hand them over to the creative team. It’ll save some time and give the creative team guidelines to work with.
Putting the Video to Good Use
The explainer video you just made may look awesome, but you still need to make good use of it. You can do this by placing it in a prime spot and optimizing the page where it’s published.
Placing the Video
Where you place a video on a page can entirely change the results you get. “Above the fold” (near the top of the page) is considered the best place for your video because it can be seen without scrolling.
As visual content, your explainer video should be the first thing showcased before everything else.
The logic behind placing a video above the fold is simple: For your video to reach its maximum potential, you have to present it to as many people as possible, and the top of the page is best for that.
Here are examples of companies that placed their explainer videos above the fold:
CloudCar
Bubbl.us
BigTime
WizeFi
Optimizing for Landing Pages
Landing pages are the best place to put your videos because videos on landing pages can increase conversion rates by up to 86% (research by EyeView). Combined with the above-the-fold placement, your video will be really hard to miss.
One reason why landing page videos are good for conversion rate optimization (CRO) is that they replace the function of copywriting on your landing page, allowing you to clear out excessive amounts of text.
DesignBoost implemented shorter copy on their landing page back in 2012 when their website was brand-new. They generated a 13% increase in their sign-up rate.
Testing the Video
Explainer videos are not all equal, so your judgment of whether or not it did the job may vary. Try A/B testing the performance of your website with and without an explainer video.
You can also utilize analytics provided by your video hosting site to dive deeper into your viewership data. Free video hosting sites like YouTube provide adequate analytics, but a business-oriented hosting platform like Wistia will likely serve you better.
This table gives you a glimpse of what two major video hosting sites offer you in terms of analytics:
After crunching all the numbers, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t from your own point of view. You can use the data in comparison to your next changes.
Ready to Get Started?
Explainer videos have several purposes. One is as a tool to boost sales. Start nowby gathering information about your customer and the pain points that you can solve. Then use the tips in this post along with the infographic below to help craft the best explainer video for your business and audience.
