Explainer videos are one of the most effective forms of digital video, often used as a way to concisely break down and summarize a SaaS, technical, or service offering.
Explainer videos are designed and used in a variety of marketing channels including website, email marketing, social media, sales meetings, and digital.
Top Tips for Creating a great explainer video:
Always keep your audience in mind
Who are you making this for and why do they care? That should be the first and primary point of discussion when thinking through what the contents will be and how in-depth it is. Some explainer videos are aimed at very specific B2B niches and explainer technology or products to potential buyers who have deep industry knowledge and expect minute detail to be clearly presented. Other explainer videos are more topical, aimed a more casual audience or consumers, and don’t need to go into that level of detail.
Think about why your audience cares what you have to say and what they need to hear to listen. That should be the basis for an explainer video.
What Message do you want to convey?
Once you define your audience and the level of detail needed, you need to decide what exactly it is that you want to tell them, show them or teach them. But the real key – is what action do you want them to take once they’ve watched it? – It could be as simple as book a demo, schedule a sales call, download your app, or call you. The entire script though is built upon the key message that you want to convey, and this is something that will vary dramatically depending on your industry and audience. For a B2B manufacturing firm, it could be showing the advantages in a new type of product or industrial device you released or it could be promoting the core value proposition of a new company.
Best Explainer Video Length
One of the most common questions when talking with clients about explainer videos is what length should an explainer video be. Our suggestion typically is to keep it short and sweet with a highly distilled focused message. Generally, between 60-180 seconds is the right for nearly any company. With more consumer-based firms on the lower and more technical B2B products or services on the longer end. The exception would be certain very specific audience-focused explainer videos where the audience has a deep knowledge of a complex topic, in this situation going beyond 2.5 minutes can make sense if it takes that long to present your key differentiators and unique selling proposition.
Explainer Video Voiceover
In general, voiceovers are a positive. It keeps viewers engaged and makes it less work to watch as they don’t have to read and digest every single word of text on the screen to understand what’s going on. There is a wide range of voiceover styles that will fit almost any type of video.
Explainer Video Visual Style
The visual style of an explainer video can be highly varied, a quick search on youtube will show you many many different styles. It largely comes down to your audience and the message you are conveying. Sometimes incorporating live-action shots or quick clips of your lab, factory or founder makes sense and helps build a more powerful message. Other times, and often with a SaaS offering, animation and motion graphics are the best tool to build a visual identity that fits the rest of your brand and reaching your audience.
Explainer Videos for startups
Startups are one of the primary beneficiaries of explainer videos, as the majority of startups need to be able to clearly explain what they are doing and why anyone should care within 60-90 seconds. Just as we mentioned above defining your audience and the core message is critical to building an effective explainer video for a startup. Crafting the message is even more important though as you need to quickly build interest with potential customers as to why your new firm matters and why they should care.
Startup explainer videos are a mix of styles, often using a good amount of animation and potentially cutting in some live-action shots. For app firms, or SaaS companies showing at least amount of screen shots or screen recordings demonstrating how easy your UI is to use is a great option.
One of the most effective outlines strategies for crafting a startup explainer video is developing the problem and why it is significant than showing your firm’s offering as the solution with a glimpse at how you solve the problem.
How Much do explainer videos cost in 2021?
As always there’s not a one fits all approach. The style, length, potentially live-action shots and location, amount of UI/UX animation or 3d modeling all change the cost. A very basic explainer video can be made below $5,000 then more complex explainer videos that incorporate numerous live-action shots and locations can easily be in the $20,000 range.
As you engage a video production or explainer video company, it makes life easier for everyone to clearly state your target budget from the start. This lets a production agency think through the building the video that’s the best return on your investment which often involves making suggestions on how to keep the production cost at a manageable level.
Where to post explainer videos?
Every marketing channel you can is the answer. Once you’ve spent the money necessary to create the video, you should make the most efficient use of that spend by using the video in numerous ways across many marketing platforms.
Web-based channels are a great fit such as using the video as a pinned post on social media accounts including LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, youtube, and more. Your website should also feature the explainer video prominently, not only does your audience want to see it, video used on web pages heavily boosts SEO.
Email marketing is a great use as well for explainer videos. You rather watch a visually interesting video on a new project or read product literature? The answer is pretty simple, more people will be looking at your email and opening it if they see there’s a video.
Digital paid ads are an effective way to target specific groups of people. Digital ad experts have clearly demonstrated that ads with videos generate 50-250% more clicks than traditional static ads.
Providing explainer video content in press releases is another strong use of explainer content, that will keep your audience more engaged than a traditional press release.
Explainer videos are also commonly used in investor pitches, hiring meetings, sales meetings, and more as a way to show off why your company matters and sum up what it is that makes your firm or product special.
Come this far and decided you need an explainer video? – Give us a shout!
Volan Media is a top explainer video company, having produced dozens of explainer videos, both animated explainer videos, and live-action explainers. We work with you to craft your message into an emotional and powerful piece of content that will further propel your brand forward.
