“Every business needs video. They inspire us to take action, whether you are building your brand or want to make the best impression possible.” – Vimeo 

What is an Explainer Video?  

You’ve probably come across the term “explainer video” and wondered, “what is that?” Well, to put it simply, an “Explainer Video” is exactly what the name suggests: it is a short video that explains what your business or product is all about, in simple language that everyone can understand.  It is an effective way to communicate the why, how, and what of your brand to a large audience.

One of the most popular explainer videos was made for Dropbox back in 2009. This explainer video helped launch Dropbox from a small file sharing startup to the $3.3 billion company it is today, with over 500 million customers.    

How long should it be? 

There are two differing opinions among marketing experts regarding video duration: some say “the shorter the better,” due to increasingly shorter human attention spans; others say “length is relative,” because they believe that if the content is relevant enough, a potential customer will not actually care how long it is. No matter what side of the boat you are on, a survey from Wistia shows that viewer attention spans are significantly higher in the first 30-60 seconds, then begin to drop dramatically passed the one minute mark. 

How many explainer video types are there? 

There are four main types of explainer videos, each one catering to a different type of business and audience:

1. Screencast videos – are a simple low budget type of video that showcases how your product works. These videos are more about educating your audience and work well for customers that want to try before they buy. 
2. Cartoon style videos – are all about storytelling. They usually have a comedic style that offers a warm, human approach that is great for building trust in your brand. 
3. Whiteboard animation videos – are engaging videos because the content is drawn in front of the users’ eyes. These videos are great for explaining complex information in a straight forward way, although they have less eye-candy graphics as the other types. 
4. Motion Graphics videos – are an elegant solution for more serious types of businesses. The tone is usually relaxed, using attractive graphic elements in motion to clearly describe a product.

Now that you know what an explainer video is, here are a couple of reasons why you should create one for your business: 

1. Video is more impactful than text  

One reason why video is more effective than other advertising mediums is because learning through the combination of audio and visual representations is far more engaging and produces better results than solely text and/or static images. Watching a video triggers the two main sensory inputs: hearing and sight. On their own, each of these channels has a limited capacity for input and can become dull, but the audio-visual combination makes a more impactful experience, while keeping viewers interested for longer than just reading or listening would. This drastically increases information retention and comprehension.

2. Video is a great marketing tool  

This year, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic, according to Cisco. The importance of video marketing has never been greater than it is now. More companies are launching video marketing campaigns, and more small businesses are achieving success because of it. 

Video has become one of the preferred marketing tools, not only because it comprises all other mediums like text, voice, and animation into one experience, but because a video can now reach the widest markets via YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, and other platforms. To talk numbers: YouTube receives more than one billion unique visitors every month – that’s more than any other channel, apart from Facebook.  

3. Video ranks better than text in search results  

Currently, videos have less online competition because the number of videos online are fewer than the number of websites, and therefore have a better chance of reaching audiences who search for a specific keyword. To be exact, videos are 45 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google than text results. However, just like website articles, videos must have sufficient SEO to rank well on search engines – this consists of optimizing the thumbnail, title, description, and tags. 

4. Video communicates faster  

If you were 10 years in the future, would you be reading this article or would you prefer watching it? As video continues its online ascension, it’s an interesting question to consider. 

To put it simply, video is the future of information and communication because it’s faster than any other medium. What a video can explain in one minute, might require 15-20 minutes of reading time to comprehend.  

5. Video prompts shares  

One of the biggest advantages of a video is that it helps you reach a wider audience within a short time, and without spending too much of your marketing budget. 

Whether it’s YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, or other video platforms, video has quickly become one of the most impactful ways to speak to an audience. According to recent studies, if you want your site visitors to share and interact with your content, delivering it via video is the best way to go. Consumers are more likely to share and comment on content if it’s delivered through video instead of text. There is no other form of marketing that can offer such impressive results at such a low price. 

Conclusion 

Explainer videos are a powerful medium to leverage for brands looking to tell complex stories in a comprehensible way. With online videos becoming a necessity in recent years for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs, small businesses that fail to include video in their content marketing strategies may be overlooking a potential goldmine.

“Marketing is an exercise in minimizing the effort that our prospects have to exert to trust us.” – Sean Flaherty

By providing knowledge to your customers in an easily accessible and understandable way, they will be far more likely to enter the Trust Threshold for your brand.

References:

Sean Flaherty (2016, October 21). Connect: Creating a Mission Statement for Your Software Product.

Common Craft (2009, November 16). Dropbox Intro Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4eTR7tci6A

Barb Darrow (2016, March 7). Dropbox Claims Half a Billion Users. http://fortune.com/2016/03/07/dropbox-half-a-billion-users/

Wistia. How to Increase Your Video Viewership. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-increase-viewership/

Cisco (2017, June 7). Cisco: Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2016-2021. http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networking-index-vni/complete-white-paper-c11-481360.html

Sean Flaherty (2015, November 25). Trust-Transparency-Marketing.

Sean Flaherty (2016, October 4). Trust: How to Use Technology to Generate Trust.

YouTube. YouTube for Press. https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/press/

Eric Guerin (2013). What the Heck is an ‘Explainer Video?’ http://www.adeliestudios.com/explainer-video/

Brenna Clarine (2016, September 29). 11 Reasons Why Video is Better Than Any Other Medium. https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/11-reasons-why-video-is-better/

Joel Chudleigh (2015, August 5). 10 Statistics That Show Video is the Future of Marketing.

Michael Litt. Video Marketing Metrics: Get the Latest Research Report. https://www.vidyard.com/blog/b2b-video-marketing-metrics-research-report/

Liraz Margalit Ph.D. (2015, May 1). Video vs Text: The Brain Perspective.