Explainer Videos

Reading is in a decline. Even at the advent of audiobooks, created solely to aid the absorption of information at a speedy rate and to improve reading culture, studies have shown that people do not read as much in recent years as they used to. Taking the time to read a 300-page book can, now, be described as a chore.

Even with this decline, the need to be able to disseminate information has not reduced. There is still a need to reach out to clients and customers for products and services by organizations and marketers. Adapting to the needs of the emerging world means that brand marketers will have to look for more innovative ways to spread the word in a quick and interesting way.

This is why Explainer Videos were created. What is then an Explainer Video?

Explainer videos are getting their time in the limelight. Businesses, music videos, marketers, communicators, and websites are using these short, simple videos to get their products noticed by their target audiences. Because marketing a very useful product the wrong way can lead to the product’s failure, the world’s web has created an outlet to reach as many of a company’s target audience as it desires. Companies have spent their time and resources into creating a product that is beneficial to their target audience and drawing their target audience’s attention is not the only effect that these businesses derive from using an explainer video.

Storytelling is one of the earliest arts introduced to us from a very young age. At this age, where our imaginations are still running wild, we can paint pictures and add the details to every character we imagine, with the details of the story told to us. This simple act sparked our creativity and has fed it. According to Buffer, when we are being told a story, though, things change dramatically, according to researchers in Spain. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too. Whiteboard animations make use of the facts above to stimulate and increase engagement between the ‘storyteller’ and the target audience.

The explainer video world is a very wide one. Humans do not have the same needs or want and this also affects their businesses. A company that produces housing or construction equipment would have different wants from a fashion-oriented company. Their differences will be most visible when they are designing their websites, branding, and most importantly, choosing the right type of advertising for their respective companies. Because of the needs, desires, and even the budget of different companies, there are different creative approaches to finding the right explainer video that will resonate with a brand.

The success of animation movies cannot be underestimated anymore. With movies like The Lion King and Frozen grossing very highly on the box office, showing that animation cannot be seen as something to be watched by only the kids. Brand marketers, advertisers, web designers, and brands have noticed how visually appealing explainer videos are by the conversion rates, ability to show creativity and draw the audience’s attention, return on investment, ease of use, and the shortness of these videos and have decided to incorporate these into advertising their products and services.

The differences in the needs between every company vary as much as the difference in each industry and product or service. This is why there is a need for a different type of advertisement to portray each idea, brand, and function. Some companies can use a simple 2d character animation video to explain what their organization does because its services or products are not as complex as other companies. For example, an e-commerce brand does not need an explainer video that will shine so much light on its function as much as a software company would. This is why there is a need for a type of animation that can explain the complexity of the product or service in a way that the target audience would understand. This is what makes 2d motion graphics animation a necessity for organizations with complex procedures.

Realism means the depiction of a subject or topic without adding any supernatural or unreal elements. It can also be said to be describing the subject in all truthfulness by avoiding the addition of exotic elements to it. Humans feel strongly towards things that we perceive are real than things that we think are not. This is why Brand managers, web designers, marketers, and advertisers have decided to incorporate more thought-provoking and relatable approaches to advertising their products. The depiction of a product using characters that are real to the target audience without adding any extra elements makes the product or service one that is more trustworthy to them.

Organizations think of the best way to maximize their return on investment and conversion rates by working on getting the best of both worlds during advertising. Brands have to pay attention to their profit and need to make a calculated decision, looking at their products, developmental costs, and the audiences’ wants, during every budgetary session. This means that they will make an explainer video that will trick their audience into thinking it is of more quality and that more expense was spared in making the video. This exact need is what introduced and increased the need for the creation of 2.5d animation.

Advertising means showcasing an organization’s products in a way that converts the viewers. So there is a need to build the relationship between a brand and its target audience. Brands depend on the creation of a connection between itself and its customers and are in constant search of how to draw more attention from its clients to reach its own goals. Animation is on the rise, but with most organizations choosing to draw and animate its objects, there is a market for building personal relationships between the real people behind the brand’s walls. People need to feel like their voices are heard and prefer meeting ‘the man behind the curtain’. This need is what birthed live action.

Future technology has promised 3d holographic devices that have been immersed into our bodies to make for easy use and seamless and breathtaking performance in its possible holographic capabilities. This has completely revolutionized the tech industry and people have found this idea extremely appealing. Brand marketers, advertisers, communicators, and businesses have taken this interest into consideration by immersing this style into advertising their products. If there is already a mix of 3d and 2d animation that created the 2.5d animation, why can’t there be a fusion of motion graphics and live-action?

There has been a boom in the usage of explainer videos to assist businesses with advertising their new/existing products, explaining problems and new tricks and tips to using their products. From educational to business purposes, explainer videos prove to be relevant in assisting businesses to pass their most important information in the shortest amount of time, leading to higher profits.

People are lazy and do not care to read a page-long text to get the reason for the write-up. According to the research on how little users read, only 20% of the text is read on an average page and users only read 28% of the words on a page with 593 words if they spend all their time reading, which is not possible. Studies have also shown that videos improve learning by up to 400% and an average person only remembers a fifth of what they hear.

With the research and studies on human behavior that has taken place, it is essential to know what explainer videos do and how it helps businesses.

Human resources remain one of the vital aspects of any business. The human resources department is the department in charge of hiring, administration, and training of the people who make up the workforce of an organization. Until recently, Human resources used to be considered as one of the lower levels in the corporate levels of business even when they are in charge of organizations greatest resources.

The job description of human resource managers has grown wider in the 21st century. Spanning from just staffing functions to dissemination of information in the most effective way that would encourage retention. Explainer videos have helped human resource managers in taking out the monotonous job of having to speak to a large number of new hires or training the members of staff for a number of days and letting the information be passed in short bursts, quickly and easily.

So, how can Human Resource Managers use explainer videos?

Marketers are people saddled with the responsibilities of identifying goods and services desired by the consumers, creating relationships with them, and satisfying their needs with the products and services on behalf of the organization they are affiliated with. Marketing used to be a door-to-door service with marketers coming to their consumers to talk to their products but with the advent of technology, there emerged a platform to which a large number of viewers can be reached while generating profits.

 Although physical marketing still exists, digital marketing created a better platform for B2B and B2C advertising. With the advent of technology, we are exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day. With this much advertising, how can the viewers get to the products they need? And how can marketers reach their target audience? Newer and more interesting advertising models have to be created to entice the viewers which is what explainer videos do for marketers and businesses.

How can Marketers use explainer videos?

Advertising goes hand in hand with sales. The reason for advertising a business’s products and services is to garner more sales from its target audience. Advertising helps inform the public about the availability of a product or service that can solve a particular problem they may encounter then sales representatives reach out to these customers to facilitate the sales of these products. While advertising is a form of general outflow to information to prospective users, sales is a more personal approach between the salesperson and the customer. All the activities and functions of a salesperson are governed by a sales manager.

A sales manager is the person responsible for leading and instructing a team of salespeople. The sales manager has to lead and instruct the sales team, hire and fire salespeople, perform and assign sales training, assign sales territories, setting quotas, making a sales plan, and a lot of other functions. This is all done easily with the use of explainer videos. So, how can sales managers use explainer videos?

Advertising a company’s products comes in different forms and services and with the advent of the different types of animations; some businesses may desire to use their products as a selling point for the advertisement of the product itself i.e. letting the product speak for itself. Speaking to the target audience, using the products itself, is a form of direct marketing. This style of marketing has benefits which include; relationship building, increase in sales of a new product or an old/existing product, and showing the appeal of the products to the target audience.

What is Stop Motion?

Humans have always been fascinated by the movement of things. From the invention of the first wheel to the successful flight by the Wright Brothers, transformation and movement have always been one of the bases of our daily lives. Advertising has always made use of images and texts and the consumers are already used to seeing these images, texts, and videos in the form of PowerPoint presentations and Word documents when introducing or rebranding a product. What, then, happens when boring, static texts can move? It will create more attention by tapping into our inquisitive minds by evoking a stronger feeling. The need to know is what will keep consumers glued to their screens until the end product is revealed. This simple attraction is the reason that birthed typography animation by web designers.

What is typography animation?

Disseminating information has become very important in the world we live in and because learners live far and wide, traveling long distances to learn what could be taught in a few minutes is not an option available for many. Technical topics or learning how to use an application while watching a live video of someone else using it is still the best way to learn how to use a particular product. Even with existing products, system upgrades can cause easily accessible functions to be stored elsewhere requiring the users to spend a long time trying to find where it is now located. The needs of the consumers for easy navigation and understandability of a product can be explained easily by Brand marketers, communicators, and advertisers using a screencast.

What is a Screencast?

Video advertising is a completely versatile mode of advertising as it enables a business to get across to its target audience, bringing the product and services that solve whatever problems they may have. Creating an explainer video for one’s brand means showing it off on all available platforms so that it can drive the much-needed traffic towards the business and help the business achieve its goals. So, what, exactly, are explainer videos used for?

Creating all these different parts of the video will require some expenses to be incurred but there has to be a difference between an expensive video and a cheap one. It all comes down to the resources put into developing it – whether it is a template/ stock video or it is a custom video.

At Cleverclip for instance, we involve a project manager, a designer and illustrator, a motion designer, a sound specialist, and a voiceover artist in most projects. If you consider what it really takes to animate something, then you’ll understand where the budget goes into.

What are then the differences between cheap and expensive Explainer Videos?

With the rise in video content, making an explainer video to improve product visibility and brand presence has been on the minds of every business. Online explainer video software has been created to assist the D-I-Y-conscious businesses with small budgets and others choose to go with hiring freelancers or explainer video companies or marketing agencies to assist them with the creation of professional videos that give their brand a classy look. Even with all the different ways to make these videos, one thing we should agree on is that there is no free explainer video. How each business labels it, cheap or expensive – should really depend entirely on the results they get from the investment made.

The cost associated with creating an Explainer Video is one of the most important things to consider when choosing to use one to advertise a brand’s products. Advertising a brand’s products and services has always been thought to require businesses breaking the bank for these projects but this is not the case. Every business is required to evaluate its advertisement cost to ensure that it is being spent wisely.

Making an Explainer Video means choosing the right type of video to suit your marketing goals and the product’s needs, which is why giving a specific answer to the cost of an Explainer Video has to do with the factors that should be considered when making the video.

So, how much can and should an Explainer Video cost?

Viewers are bombarded with different videos every day which has led to a shorter attention span, as people first – no longer have the will to consume lengthy texts or articles and, second – they, we, increasingly tend to raise the bar for what we’re actually willing to give a sip of attention span to.

Because of this decline in the number of readers, there has become a growing need to sort out the relevant information from the number of videos viewed and present the information in the quickest time (while the viewers are still engaged).

So, how long should explainer videos be?

Choosing a cheaper type of advertising might be very appealing to new businesses as they are budget-strapped and need to make every dollar count. However, this also usually happens due to a lack of knowledge of the added value, in terms of ROI, that a more expensive option may generate. Spending less also means generating less. 

The one thing that makes a brand unique may be what does not exist in the competing brand, and this can show in the type, and quality of advertising used. Creating an explainer video for free may be very appealing as there might be little to no cost incurred during this, but is this possible?