Explainer videos are a cost effective and useful way to get your products and services under the nose of staff and new customers. So why doesn’t your business use them?

Animated explainer and product videos have a unique place within the world of content marketing. They are statistically recognised to help convert browsers into customers, they increase brand awareness and have a special ability to break down complicated processes into easy to understand segments.

Done correctly and creatively, explainer videos are an engaging tool that enable brands and businesses to communicate by using a mixture of narration, visual storytelling and music as a bridge to better connect with customers.

So why aren’t more businesses implementing explainer videos throughout their content marketing? Historically, the corporate and B2B sectors have been quick to recognise the value of explainer videos. They are actively used across marketing, training and internal communication channels as a means to disseminate information quickly and efficiently.

But when it comes to the B2C sector, explainer videos find much less space among content marketing strategies. We at Snackable think that’s a bit of a shame. Their myriad use and unlimited application is bound only by the creativity of the team that script, illustrate and animate them. With 2020 proving to be nothing if not tricky when it comes to operating businesses as usual, they are also proving a great way to circle around social distancing restrictions.

Here we outline a few of the sectors primed to utilise 2D and 3D animated explainer videos alongside insights into their practical application.  You’ll be carving out additional real estate for explainer videos as part of your ongoing content marketing plan in no time.

Crowd-Funded Projects and Pitches

Problem/solution scenarios

One of the most effective ways to sell a product is to highlight a real-world problem and showcase how a product or service solves it. Telling this story can sometimes be challenging but explainer videos offer a flexible way to explore subject matter that might not immediately lend itself to the visual. Think areas like IT solutions, finance and insurance.

Break down complex subjects

Explainer videos are expertly scripted by copywriters who spend time understanding a product or service, which in turn puts them in a position to succinctly break down any complex terminology and pull out the important ‘sellable’ parts. This means that an explainer video is focused on driving a specific outcome. It could be something broad like awareness, something specific like problem solving or action driven such as signing up or visiting a website.

Perfect for pitches, monetary raises

Explainer videos are useful not only as a business to consumer tool but also as a business to business tool. They can be used to help train staff on new products, they can be used to help investors understand new market propositions or used as sales tools to help teams better convert new customers.

Software Sold As Service (SSAS)

Market positioning

It’s the role of new businesses offering new services to the market to communicate how their offering fits into the day to day life of their customers. Explainer videos are fantastic tools in this regard and are used by big firms as a way of humanising tech products, making them feel approachable and easy to use – even when the reality may be quite the opposite.

Breakdown user journeys

Explainer videos are also used as a way to signpost users around a product or application. Smartphone apps and software companies use lots of short explainer videos to explore specific tools or draw attention to useful areas of an app or digital product. They can also be used to remind users of ‘desired’ or ‘preferred’ ways of working in order for them to get the most out of a service.

Add more visual interest

Let’s face it, software and technology is fundamentally pretty boring to look at. The branding and the life we give it through creative input is what makes a brand like Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, Monday or Asana feel like an approachable (even friendly) tool. Explainer videos are often used to help position a product. The tone and style can be used to align customers with core values as well as impart information.

E-commerce

Direct drive to sign up and purchase

Explainer videos are action and information driven which makes them great tools for selling. When it comes to ecommerce, there is almost no better tool for driving action than animation. You can quite literally ask the audience to do something without it feeling like a command. Brands and companies like ASOS, The Iconic, Amazon and eBay use explainer videos and animated content to drive customers to purchase, to sign up or to move around their site in a friendly and straightforward way.

Brand and TVC

Position products or services

The financial, software solutions and IT sectors have long used explainer videos to great effect but big consumer facing or retail brands have more often leaned on live action capture to help communicate their brand’s positioning in market. Yet, Australia’s biggest companies are waking up to the advantages that animation and explainer style videos afford them. They can be fast to make, extremely cost effective and compliment other types of marketing material including live action capture.

Segment marketing channels

Explainer videos should be part of a campaign or communication strategy. It is easy to make a video about a lot of different subjects or areas and target or promote them to different groups of people. Not only does this make the information in the video more relevant to the user but it also helps build a web of communication that’s far easier for a viewer or consumer to understand and remember. A good example of this are national and regional TVCs. In the same way that live action capture TVCs can be edited to target a country as well as regions within that country, explainer videos can be adapted to do the same.

Staff training and corporate communications

Alleviate 1-1 staff training and retraining

Explainer videos offer businesses many advantages when it comes to communicating with their own teams. Not only do they offer staff an engaging way to retrain and absorb new, sometimes complex information but the cost efficiencies can be huge.

Create online courses 

Explainer videos can be created and strung together to create educational courses to help train and inform staff. Used to great effect by tech companies, insurance behemoths and government bodies, they act as a scalable resource. They can be used to help streamline health and safety protocol and can be embedded into almost any digital communication channel.

Create digital on-boarding

Getting new staff up to speed is never an easy process. This is why businesses turn to explainer videos as a way to onboard new employees. Whether individual or created as part of a larger course or programme, animated and explainer videos are a useful and effective tool for keeping the cogs in any organisation turning smoothly.

For more information and guidance on how explainer video can help your business, reach out to the Snackable team today for a free consultation.