How to do Explainer Videos: Tips for Best Results

Explainer videos are a vital tool for businesses, as they help simplify complex ideas, educate customers, and increase engagement. With the rise of video marketing, explainer videos have become an essential component of any successful marketing strategy.

The Benefits of Using Explainer Videos in Marketing
Creating Your Explainer Video: Lights! Camera! Action!
Optimizing Your Explainer Video for Success
Strategies for Promoting Your Explainer Videos
Measuring the Success of Your Explainer Videos
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating an Explainer Video
Examples of Effective Explainer Videos

The Benefits of Using Explainer Videos in Marketing

Explainer videos offer a range of benefits for businesses that are looking to improve their marketing efforts. For one, they are highly effective in capturing and retaining the viewer’s attention, as they utilize engaging visuals and concise messaging. This can help businesses to better communicate their value proposition and key differentiators.

Furthermore, explainer videos are highly shareable, as they can be easily shared on social media platforms and other websites. This can help to increase a business’s reach and attract new customers.

Additionally, explainer videos can be used to educate customers on a product or service, which can help to increase sales and conversions. By providing detailed information on how a product or service works, businesses can help customers make more informed purchasing decisions.

Planning Your Explainer Video

Define Your Target Audience and Goals

Defining your target audience and goals is a crucial step when creating effective and impactful explainer videos. By clearly identifying your intended audience and desired goals, you can tailor your message to be more relevant and engaging. In addition, by taking into account the needs and preferences of your target audience, you can ensure that your message not only resonates with them but also establishes a meaningful connection.

Understanding your goals for the video can help you create a clear and concise message that aligns with your business objectives. For instance:

1. Promoting a new product

If your goal is to promote a new product, you can create an explainer video that highlights the key features and benefits of the product. By showcasing how the product can solve a problem or meet a need, you can increase the likelihood of conversion and sales.

2. Educating your audience

If your desired goal is to educate your audience about a particular topic or process, an explainer video can be a highly effective tool. By breaking down complex concepts into easy-to-understand visuals and language, you can provide valuable and informative content that helps your audience to better understand the subject at hand.

3. Increasing brand awareness

Should you aim to increase brand awareness, you can create an explainer video that showcases your company’s story, values, and unique selling proposition. By creating an emotional connection with your audience, you can build brand loyalty and improve customer relationships.

4. Driving traffic to your website

If your aim is to boost your website’s traffic, creating an explainer video can be an effective strategy. One approach is to use the video as an introduction to longer content, such as a blog post or white paper. By providing a teaser in the video and linking to the full content on your website, you can encourage viewers to click through and spend more time on your site.

5. Improving customer support

If you’re looking to enhance your customer support, creating an explainer video can be a valuable tool. By addressing common questions or concerns in a clear and concise manner, you can provide helpful and informative content that can reduce the number of support inquiries and improve customer satisfaction.

Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience and their needs, the next step in your planning your explainer video is to develop a message and script that speaks directly to them.

Developing a Clear Message and Script

Developing a clear message and script is an essential aspect of creating effective explainer videos. Use engaging language, storytelling techniques, and other creative elements. As such, you can create a video that resonates with your audience and drives your desired outcomes.

Here’s an explanation for each of the tips I provided for developing a clear message and script for your explainer video:

1. Define your key message

Defining your key message upfront helps you to focus your message and ensure that your script is both concise and impactful.

2. Keep it simple

Using clear and simple language that is easy to understand helps to ensure that your message is effectively communicated to your audience. Avoiding technical jargon or complex terms can help to make your video more accessible to a wider audience.

3. Tell a story

Incorporating storytelling techniques can create an emotional connection with your audience. Consequently, this makes it more likely that they will remember and engage with your message.

4. Focus on benefits

Focusing on the key benefits of your product or service helps to establish value in the minds of your audience. Therefore, it is essential to highlight these benefits in your explainer video to increase the likelihood of conversion.

5. Use humor

Incorporating humor or other engaging techniques can make your video more memorable and shareable. As a result, your marketing efforts can have a greater reach and effectiveness.

6. Keep it concise

Keeping your script concise and to the point helps ensure your message is effectively communicated. Thus, your audience remains engaged throughout the video.

7. Use a conversational tone

Using a conversational tone in your script helps to make your video more relatable and engaging for your audience. It also helps to create a more informal and approachable atmosphere, making it easier for your audience to connect with your message.

Once you have a well-crafted message and script, it’s time to think about how you can enhance your video’s visual elements to create an engaging and memorable experience for your viewers.

Customizing Explainer Videos Visuals to Your Target Audience

Customizing the visuals of your explainer video to your target audience is an important consideration. To achieve this, it’s crucial to understand your audience’s demographics and characteristics, such as age, gender, education, and cultural background. By doing so, you can select visuals, language, and tone that resonate with your audience and establish a meaningful connection. This level of customization can greatly improve the effectiveness of your explainer video and increase the likelihood of engagement and conversion. For instance:

1. Age

If your target audience is younger, you may want to use bright and bold visuals, trendy language, and upbeat music to appeal to their tastes. If your audience is older, you may want to use more muted colors, a more formal tone, and classical music.

2. Gender

If your target audience is primarily female, use visuals and language that are more feminine. For example, pastel colors, flowers, and soft music. Similarly, if your audience is primarily male, you may want to use more masculine visuals, such as dark colors, bold fonts, and action-oriented music.

3. Education level

If your target audience is highly educated, using technical language and detailed visuals can appeal to their knowledge and expertise. In contrast, for a less educated audience, simpler language and easy-to-understand visuals may be more effective.

4. Geographic location

If your target audience is located in a specific region or country, you may want to use visuals and language that are familiar to that area. This could include local landmarks, cultural references, and slang terms. By doing so, you can better connect with your target audience and make your content more relatable to them.

5. Industry

If you are targeting a specific industry, consider using visuals and language that are relevant to that industry. This could include technical terms, industry-specific jargon, and images of common equipment or processes. By doing so, you can better engage with your target audience and establish yourself as an authority in that industry.

Having covered the topic of planning for your explainer video, it’s now time to move on to the next step: creating the video. This involves transforming your ideas and plans into a polished, high-quality explainer video that effectively communicates your message to your target audience.

Creating Your Explainer Video: Lights! Camera! Action!

My article titled Video Marketing Tips: How to Create Compelling Video Content offers an in-depth guide to the following topics, providing readers with an extensive overview on:

In addition, when it comes to creating explainer videos, using animation software can be an effective and efficient way to bring your ideas to life. There are a variety of animation software options available, ranging from simple and user-friendly programs to more advanced and professional-grade software.

Animation Software

There are a variety of animation software options available for creating explainer videos. Here are a few examples:

For Beginner:

Powtoon: This is a cloud-based software that allows users to create animated explainer videos without any previous animation experience. It offers a drag-and-drop interface and a library of pre-made templates to make video creation easier.

Moovly: This software offers a range of templates and libraries to help users create explainer videos quickly and easily. It also includes a range of features for adding animation, text, and images to your video.

Animaker: This cloud-based software offers a range of templates and pre-built assets to help users create animated explainer videos quickly and easily. It also includes features for adding voiceovers, music, and sound effects to your video.

Doodly: This software is specifically designed for creating whiteboard-style explainer videos. It offers a range of templates and pre-built assets to help users create professional-grade whiteboard animations quickly and easily.

Renderforest: This is a cloud-based video maker that offers a range of templates and tools for creating animated explainer videos. It also includes features for adding music, voiceovers, and text to your video.

For Novice:

Toon Boom: This software is specifically designed for creating 2D animations and offers a wide range of tools for creating professional-grade explainer videos.

Vyond: This software offers a range of customizable templates and a user-friendly interface for creating professional-grade explainer videos. It also includes a range of features for adding animation, text, and music to your video.

For Expert:

Adobe After Effects: This is a popular software used for creating motion graphics and visual effects. It offers a wide range of features and tools for creating high-quality explainer videos.

Blender: This is a free and open-source 3D animation software that offers a range of features and tools for creating professional-grade explainer videos. While it may have a steeper learning curve than other software, it offers a wide range of capabilities for creating highly detailed animations.

Adobe Animate: This software is specifically designed for creating 2D animations and interactive content. This makes it a great option for creating explainer videos with interactive elements. Moreover, it includes a range of features for creating animations that are optimized for the web.

After producing your explainer video, it’s crucial to optimize it for search engines in order to improve its visibility and reach a wider audience.

Optimizing Your Explainer Video for Success

Tips for Video SEO

Here are several tips to keep in mind when optimizing an explainer video for search engines:

Conduct keyword research to identify relevant and high-volume search terms that align with your message.
Use those keywords in your video title, description, and tags to help search engines understand the content of your video.
Optimize your video thumbnail to create an eye-catching and informative image that entices viewers to click.
Include closed captions in your video to improve accessibility and increase the amount of text available for search engines to crawl and index.
Embed your explainer video on your website or blog to improve website traffic, dwell time, and overall search engine rankings.
Use schema markup to provide search engines with additional information about your video, such as its length and topic.
Share your explainer video on social media platforms and relevant websites to increase its visibility and engagement. This can lead to more views, backlinks, and improved search engine rankings.

Strategies for Promoting Your Explainer Videos

Once you’ve created an effective explainer video, the next step is to promote it to ensure that it reaches a wider audience and achieves your marketing goals. Without proper promotion, even the best explainer videos may fail to generate the desired impact. In this regard, it is important to develop a robust promotional strategy. This can help you to reach your target audience and maximize the ROI of your video marketing efforts. Here are the following strategies that you may consider:

Sharing your explainer video on social media platforms is a great way to increase its visibility and reach a larger audience. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are popular social media platforms that can be used to share your video.

social media platform. This image complement the topic on Maximizing Your Video's Reach through Social Media Platforms

Facebook allows you to share videos directly on your business page. Furthermore, you can use Facebook’s post boosting feature to increase your video’s visibility to a wider audience. Twitter is great for sharing short video clips and can be used to reach a younger audience. LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that can be used to target a B2B audience. Finally, Instagram is ideal for sharing visually appealing videos and can be used to target a younger demographic.

By sharing your video on these social media platforms, you can increase engagement with your content and encourage sharing and re-posting by your followers. Additionally, you can use social media advertising to target a specific audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. This increases the likelihood of your video being seen by the right people.

Expanding Your Reach through Paid Promotion

In addition to sharing your explainer video on social media platforms, it’s also worth considering paid promotion options to increase its visibility. Two effective options are YouTube advertising and sponsored social media posts.

YouTube advertising allows you to promote your video to a targeted audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. Furthermore, you can create pre-roll or mid-roll ads that play before or during other videos on the platform. This increases the likelihood of your video being seen by people who are interested in your product or service.

Sponsored social media posts, on the other hand, allow you to promote your video to a targeted audience on social media platforms. You can create ads that appear in users’ feeds, increasing the likelihood of your video being seen by the right people.

Both of these options allow you to increase the reach and impact of your explainer video. However, it’s important to carefully consider your budget and target audience when creating and running these ads. This ensures you get the best possible results.

Online Video Directories and Platforms for Promoting Explainer Videos

Submitting your explainer video to online video directories and platforms such as Vimeo or Wistia can also be an effective way to increase its visibility and reach a wider audience.

These platforms allow you to upload your video to their site and provide additional features such as customizable players, analytics, and hosting options. Vimeo and Wistia, for example, are popular platforms used by businesses to host and promote their videos. Vimeo has a strong community of creatives, while Wistia focuses on hosting and analyzing video performance metrics.

By uploading your video to these platforms, you can increase the likelihood of your video being seen by people searching for relevant content or browsing through the site’s video library. Additionally, you can embed your video on your website or share it on social media, making it easier for viewers to discover and share.

Embedding Your Explainer Video on Your Website or Blog

Another effective strategy is to embed your explainer video on your website or blog. This can improve website traffic and increase engagement with your content.

Embedding your explainer video on your website or blog is an effective strategy for promoting your video and increasing its visibility. By doing this, you can improve website traffic and increase engagement with your content.

Embedding your video on your website or blog makes it easier for viewers to access your video without having to leave your site. It also provides an opportunity to provide additional context or information about your video, which can increase its effectiveness and impact. Additionally, embedding your video on your site can improve your site’s dwell time, which can positively impact your site’s search engine rankings.

To embed your video on your site, simply copy and paste the embed code provided by your video hosting platform. To maximize the impact of embedding your video on your website or blog, make sure to place it in a prominent location. Additionally, optimize your video for website performance, such as by reducing the file size and optimizing the video thumbnail.

Promote Your Explainer Video in Your Email Signature and Newsletters

Including a link to your explainer video in your email signature and newsletters is a simple and effective way to promote your video and encourage views. This strategy can help to increase visibility and engagement with your video among your existing audience.

By including a link to your video in your email signature, you can promote your video to anyone you communicate with via email. This can be particularly effective if you have a large email list or if you regularly correspond with people in your industry.

Similarly, including a link to your video in your newsletters can help to promote your video to your existing audience and encourage them to engage with your content. Be sure to include an eye-catching headline or thumbnail to entice viewers to click on the link and watch your video.

Creating a Series of Explainer Videos

Creating a series of related explainer videos is effective in keeping your audience engaged. It encourages them to share your videos with others. By creating a series, you can cover different aspects of your product or service in more detail, and provide additional value to your audience.

When creating a series of explainer videos, consider organizing them around a specific theme or topic related to your product or service. Be sure to provide a clear and engaging introduction and conclusion to each video. Also, include calls-to-action that encourage viewers to engage with your content or take action.

Encouraging Word-of-Mouth Marketing for Your Explainer Video

Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful tool for promoting your explainer video and reaching a wider audience. Encouraging your current customers or clients to share your video with their network can be an effective way to increase its visibility and impact.

To encourage word-of-mouth marketing, consider reaching out to your existing customer or client base and asking them to share your video with their network. Provide them with a clear and compelling message about the value of your video and why it’s worth sharing. Additionally, be sure to ask for feedback and suggestions on how to improve your video marketing efforts. This can help to improve the effectiveness of your content and better align it with your audience’s needs and preferences.

Remember, word-of-mouth marketing is based on trust and credibility, so be sure to provide high-quality content that provides value to your audience. By building a strong reputation for quality and expertise, you can attract more viewers and increase the likelihood of your video being shared and promoted by others.

Once you’ve put in the effort to create and promote your explainer video, it’s important to measure its success.

Measuring the Success of Your Explainer Videos

Measuring the success of your explainer video is crucial for evaluating its impact and determining the effectiveness of your video marketing efforts. There are several metrics and tools you can use to measure the success of your explainer video, including:

1. View Count

This is the number of times your video has been viewed. It’s a basic metric that can help you gauge the popularity of your video and its reach.

2. Engagement Rate

This is the percentage of viewers who engage with your video in some way, such as liking, commenting, or sharing. It can help you determine how well your video is resonating with your audience and whether it’s achieving your marketing goals.

3. Click-through rate (CTR)

This is the percentage of viewers who click on a link or call-to-action in your video. It can help you determine how effective your video is at driving conversions and achieving your marketing goals.

4. Conversion Rate

This is the percentage of viewers who take a specific action after watching your video, such as making a purchase or filling out a form. It can help you determine the ROI of your video marketing efforts and whether they’re generating tangible results.

Additionally, there are several tools and platforms you can use to measure the success of your explainer video. For instance, Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics, and social media analytics tools. These tools can provide insights into metrics such as view count, engagement rate, and CTR, as well as audience demographics and behavior.

Now that we have covered the importance of planning, creating, promoting, and measuring the success of explainer videos, let’s explore some mistakes to avoid when creating them. By avoiding these common mistakes, you can create a more engaging and impactful video.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Creating an Explainer Video

common mistakes when producing an explainer video

When producing an explainer video, there are some common mistakes that you should avoid to ensure its effectiveness and impact. Here are some mistakes to watch out for:

1. Ignoring the Target Audience

Ignoring your target audience’s interests and preferences can result in a video that fails to connect with and engage your intended viewers. This can lead to reduced effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals and limited impact on your intended audience. By taking the time to understand your target audience’s needs, wants, and preferences, you can create a video that speaks directly to them and resonates with their interests.

2. Over Complicating the Message

Over complicating the message or using technical jargon can confuse and alienate your audience. This can result in reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals. By keeping your message clear, concise, and free of unnecessary technical terms, you can ensure that your video is easily understood and resonates with your intended audience.

3. Not Having a Clear Message

Not having a clear message can result in a video that fails to effectively communicate the value of your product or service to your intended audience. This can lead to reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals. By crafting a clear and concise message that effectively communicates the value of your product or service, you can ensure that your video effectively resonates with and engages your target audience.

4. Neglecting the Script

Neglecting the script can result in a video that lacks a clear and compelling message, which can lead to reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals. By investing time and effort into crafting a well-written script that effectively communicates the value of your product or service, you can ensure that your video resonates with and engages your target audience.

5. Being Too Long

Being too long can result in a video that loses the attention of your audience and fails to effectively communicate the key benefits and features of your product or service.

To create an effective explainer video, it’s important to keep it short and to the point, focusing on the most important and relevant information. By doing so, you can ensure that your video is engaging and effective at capturing the attention of your target audience and effectively communicating your message in a concise and impactful way.

A good rule of thumb is to aim for a video that is between 60-90 seconds in length, as this is typically the sweet spot for maximizing engagement and effectiveness.

6. Failing to Engage Your Audience

Failing to engage your audience can result in a video that fails to effectively communicate your message and achieve your marketing goals.

To create an effective explainer video, it’s important to make it engaging and visually appealing to capture and maintain your audience’s attention. Incorporating visual elements such as animations, graphics, and illustrations can help to enhance your message and make it more interesting and memorable.

Additionally, using storytelling techniques or humor can help to create an emotional connection with your audience, making your video more engaging and impactful.

By keeping your audience engaged throughout the video, you can effectively communicate your message and achieve your marketing goals.

7. Ignoring the Importance of Audio Quality

Ignoring the importance of audio quality can result in a video that is difficult to understand or hear. This can lead to reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals.

cannot hear or understand. poor audio quality

Good audio quality is essential for making your video clear and easy to understand, so it’s important to invest in high-quality audio equipment and recording techniques. This can include using a high-quality microphone, ensuring proper sound levels, and minimizing background noise.

Additionally, it’s important to carefully edit and mix the audio to ensure that it’s clear and balanced. By prioritizing audio quality, you can ensure that your video is easily understood and effectively communicates your message to your intended audience.

8. Neglecting Mobile Optimization

Neglecting mobile optimization can result in a video that is difficult to view or navigate on mobile devices. Consequently, this can lead to reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals.

With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets for video viewing, it’s important to ensure that your video is optimized for mobile devices. This can include using a mobile-responsive player, choosing a video format that’s compatible with mobile devices, and optimizing the video’s file size for fast loading times.

By prioritizing mobile optimization, you can ensure that your video is easily accessible and viewable on all devices, and effectively communicates your message to your intended audience.

9. Overusing Animation

Overusing animation can result in a video that is visually overwhelming and detracts from the impact of your message. As a result, this can lead to reduced engagement and effectiveness in achieving your marketing goals.

While animation can be a powerful tool for creating engaging and visually appealing videos, it’s important to use it judiciously and purposefully. This means using animation to enhance your message and convey important information, rather than using it for its own sake.

Additionally, using a mix of animation and live-action footage can help to create a more dynamic and engaging video that effectively communicates your message.

By using animation thoughtfully and purposefully, you can create a more effective and impactful explainer video that resonates with and engages your target audience.

10. Not Including a Clear Call-to-Action

Not including a clear call-to-action in an explainer video can be detrimental. Therefore, it is important to include a clear call-to-action in your explainer video to effectively engage with your audience and achieve your marketing goals.

In an explainer video, it’s important to include a clear call-to-action that encourages viewers to take a specific action; such as visiting your website, signing up for a free trial, or making a purchase. Accordingly, this call-to-action should be prominently displayed and communicated clearly and succinctly. This is to ensure that viewers understand what they need to do next.

Additionally, it’s important to ensure that the call-to-action is relevant to the message of the video and the needs of your target audience. If the call-to-action is not relevant or compelling to the viewer, they are less likely to take action, reducing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Now that we have covered the common mistakes to avoid when creating explainer videos, let’s take a look at some examples of effective and impactful explainer videos.

Examples of Effective Explainer Videos

Dropbox – “What is Dropbox?” – This explainer video uses simple and clear animations to explain the benefits and features of the Dropbox file-sharing service.

Slack – “So Yeah, We Tried Slack…” – This explainer video uses humor and storytelling to demonstrate the benefits of the Slack messaging platform for team communication.

Crazy Egg – “How Crazy Egg Works” – This explainer video uses a combination of animation and live-action footage to showcase the features and benefits of the Crazy Egg website optimization tool.

Dollar Shave Club – “Our Blades Are F***ing Great” – This explainer video uses humor and storytelling to introduce the Dollar Shave Club subscription service and its unique selling points.