An explainer video strategy is basically the espresso shots for your marketing campaigns; they are short, punchy, and strong enough to keep even the sleepiest of viewers glued to their screen at 3:00 am in the morning.
Let’s be honest, nobody likes to read a 10-page PDF, except maybe a lawyer, with a crisp story that shows what your brand does, why it matters, and what’s in it for them to care about, while making sure that their popcorn doesn’t get cold.
A lot of people don’t know, but explainer videos are considered to be marketing superheroes in capes, but many marketers still don’t know the true potential of this goldmine of opportunities.
How Explainer Videos Have Become a Quintessential Part Of Digital Marketing?
The current age of digital marketing doesn’t ask marketers to rely on long blogs, chunky PDFs, and brochures that might be thicker than the practical physics book that your friend used to carry in college.
Your friend didn't like carrying the book, because he was majoring in physics, but your customers don’t have all day to go through the marketing brochure which you have sent them.
Explainer videos are like a 30-second reel that shows you the complete recipe, which could have been a 2-page-long recipe. So if you haven’t included explainer videos yet, this is your sign to use them now. If you are still not sure, we have consolidated the top benefits of explainer videos and how you can include them in marketing and branding.
Key Benefits of Explainer Videos
1. Enhancing Brand Awareness
With explainer videos, you get to convert complicated videos, services, or ideas into snackable, easy-to-understand videos that are a visual treat to the eye. This makes your brand instantly recognizable; also, studies have shown that people retain more information when it is delivered through a video.
You can use different forms of animation, friendly or celebrity voiceovers. In addition to this, in videos, you get to infuse your brand colours, so even when your brand isn’t there on the screen, it will still be present subconsciously in the viewer's mind.
2. Simplifying Complex Information
The discovery of explainer videos happened because marketers understood the requirement of simplified media through which you can easily make the audience grasp the information, and make the content engaging.
Explainer videos tend to be short and precise; they provide information in digestible chunks, making sure that the viewer doesn’t feel sensory overload. Generally, the duration of videos is 2 - 3 minutes, in which marketers and brand managers make sure that they highlight the essence of the topic, which would have taken 15 page 15-page-long PDF.
Take the example of Indian Hikes, they have a video for each trek where they explain the entire itinerary. The video holds the compact information of the entire trek, for which Indian Hikes has a dedicated landing page.
Furthermore, our human brain is more inclined towards dual coding, which is “hearing+seeing.” So, a narrator explaining while visuals are being presented on the screen reinforces the point that you are trying to make, and at the same time makes abstract ideas that you had for the brand will also be stuck in their heads.
3. Boosting Audience Engagement
See, you are this deep into the blog, and we are sure you too know about how the attention span of humans has shortened, so marketing teams do all sorts of things to keep the audience hooked.
With explainer video marketing, you could be slipping in a funny character or make your video content around the current viral meme or trend, which makes the message not just heard, but remembered.
Instead of writing down “here’s a policy for you,” let your viewers decide by putting up CTA’s like “choose how this policy can be used in your hard time.”People will share the videos that make them laugh while being relatable, and that’s how the entire Instagram runs on this. As you become relatable in explainer videos, you will make them laugh and, at the same time, teach them something important about your product or services.
4. Driving Higher Conversion Rates
With explainer videos, you can boil down complex features into simple benefit-driven messages.
If you wish to provide simple benefit-driven messages, explainer videos are the best choice to use as they help in dialing down complex features, making it easier for your audience to understand what’s in it for them.
Likewise, it doesn’t matter how creative you try to make your product guide, or put an infographic in your email marketing campaign, the audience is going to prefer an explanatory video as it clearly demonstrates the use case of the product along with the troubleshooting techniques if the product doesn’t work according to its desired nature. As a result, it leads to less friction in the decision-making process.
5. Improving SEO & Website Metrics
SEO and website metrics go up as bounce rate takes a dip, Google isn’t hiding how much it likes to reward websites when a larger number of users stay on the website for a longer duration. When you drop well-planned and entertaining explainer videos on your homepage or product page that are able to keep users hooked for a 60-second mini-story, Google notices that and the extra dwell time sends your website into the good books of Google bots.
Besides this, explainer videos result in longer session duration. If visitors of your website are watching a video attentively and not skimming or bouncing off from it, then you crack the most important code of SEO; Google bot will mark your content relevant and engaging, making your website rank higher on Google’s Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
Try to remember when was the last time you searched for something, think…, now during that search, if a video pops out in the SERP page, there are higher chances that you went ahead and clicked on it. A well-designed thumbnail of your explainer video can grab users’ attention on SERP, leading to skyrocketed CTR.
6. Supporting Social Media Campaigns
Again, this is the change that you are already seeing right now, open any social media platform, be it Instagram, be it Facebook, or WhatsApp. Everywhere you are going to find videos, tons and tons of videos.
In short, social media apps push videos harder than static creatives. When you dial up the creativity in explainer videos and cut them down into snackable clips using tools like Lifeinside.io, your content is going to earn more reach because algorithms do prioritize formats that hold viewers and make them stop from scrolling.
On the other hand, with explainer videos, you will be leaving the extra workload of creating 15 different posts about the same offering. A single well-defined explainer video can be used as:
- A 60-second teaser video for LinkedIn.
- A 15-second story that you can put up on Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and even on Facebook.
- A subtitled snippet for Twitter/X.
- Finally, a full version of the explainer video on your YouTube channel and on your website.
Same core message, but it is optimized for each funnel differently, while your brand’s voice remains constant, and you don’t have to worry about falling under creative fatigue.
The sales team in your organization knows that the cold audience isn't going to convert unless you keep them entertained while educating them about your product or services. Explainer videos slide perfectly into paid campaigns and work as awareness-spreading or consideration-stage assets. It helps your digital marketing team to warm up the lead pool and also lowers the cost of retargeting.
Best Practices for Creating Effective Explainer Videos
Finding the perfect balance of budget and creativity is important; it could make or break your entire marketing campaign if you are not careful enough. Given below is the list of best practices and strategies that can move the needle in the right direction:
1. You Need to Start with the Audience Before Thinking About the Product
When creating an explainer video, you first need to ask yourself, What problem will users face when they start using the product? Think about issues, troubleshooting techniques that could come in handy. Once you make the list of the problems, you have to define them properly before talking about the solution.
Frame your video script around the pain points, then provide transformation, and finally, the solution. You need to remember, when creating an explainer video, you have to focus on clarity. Once that is crystal clear, you can move on to being humorous, quirky, and clever. A witty video that doesn’t solve any confusion is a waste of resources, creativity, and budget.
2. Keep the Video Short
We are living in Instagram’s Reel era, so the attention span of viewers is pretty ruthless; you have just three seconds at the start of the video to convince them to watch the full watch. On the other hand, if you make anything more than 2 minutes long, your video will feel like a product demo and not an explainer video. Finally, be sure to use concise storytelling; every single frame of your video should earn its place to be there.
3. Focus on Benefits and Not Just the Feature
Everyone has an advanced AI engine right now in their pockets in the form of a smartphone, so you need to spam your audience with a list of “Top 10 Features,” instead of showing them how your product is going to save 10 hours of their week. Always remember, you have to find a way to translate features into benefits that will eventually turn into an emotional payoff.
Industries That Benefit Most from Explainer Videos
Most of the industries can take some help from explainer videos to take the edge off their sales representatives. But there are some sectors like startups, SaaS, E-commerce, and educational, that allow you to squeeze more ROI due to their complexity, competition, or customer education needs.
Explainer Videos Are The Smartest Investment for Your Modern Marketing Needs
Clarity and engagement are the two crucial currencies that every digital marketer needs to grab right now. We hope you now have much better clarity on the benefits of explainer videos, as we have said, they can simplify your complex ideas, and make your content feel more humanizing.
With the help of explainer videos that you can make with online platforms like Lifeinside.io, you get to take off the extra burden of creativity from the marketing and branding team, releasing the pressure of deadlines from them and making them focus on more important things that yield better sales numbers.
From the above benefits, you can clearly see that using explainer videos in your marketing campaigns will save you a lot of budget, and at the same time, these videos can be the front-runners for trust-building assets.
It is time for you to equip your band with one of the most powerful marketing tools that has a proven record of success.
Stay relevant in persuasive marketing and stay on top of your competition.
Frequently Asked Questions;
1. Why are explainer videos important for businesses?
It simplifies complexity and captures your attention fast to build trust along with credibility. People buy from those brands that they understand and trust. Using an explainer video makes your business feel more professional, transparent, and approachable. For businesses that are working in industries where the most important factor for conversion is credibility, explainer videos become quintessential.
2. How do explainer videos increase conversions?
Here’s a brief list of things that explainer videos do that lead to an increase in conversions:
- They help in simplifying the value proposition
- It will also help you build trust quickly
- With explainer videos, you get to tap into both logic and emotion of your customers at the same time
- Your CTAs become more compelling
3. Are explainer videos effective for startups and small businesses?
Yes, big brands in every industry are spending millions of dollars on ads and campaigns, using explainer videos that are filled with humour. You can give a small business or startup of yours the same level of polish and professional-looking videos that can even compete with Fortune 500 competitors, thus leveling up the playing field.
4. How do explainer videos improve SEO?
Search engines work by seeing how long people stay on one website. With explainer videos, you give them audio and visuals, which they can skim through for about 60 to 90 seconds before moving over to the written text. The longer users stay on your website the higher your ranking on Google’s SERP.
5. How much does creating an explainer video cost?
The cost for making explainer videos depends on a number of things, like style, length, animation, and how much of a custom design you wish to add to make your brand stand out. A simple explainer video can cost up to $500 from start to finish, and for live action, a premium studio-based video will cost between $10000- $50000.
If you do not wish to spend that much, you can go with online explainer video platform Lifeinside.io, where you can start creating videos for just $99 a month, which is a fraction of the amount that you would otherwise pay to the studio.
