Introduction
Explainer videos are short animated videos that provide businesses the chance to creatively and engagingly describe their goods or services.
Companies may increase company efficiency by using explainer videos to swiftly communicate difficult information and pique the curiosity of potential consumers.
Explainer videos are a powerful tool for conveying concepts, educating viewers on subjects connected to a business’s products or services, and raising engagement levels.
With these advantages in mind, companies should think about using explainer video creation to boost productivity.
Explainer Video Production Process
- Research:
The first and foremost step while creating an explainer video is research. Here, brands must pay utmost attention to investing time & resources while researching their target audience and the type of content they would need to engage them.
Now this includes researching and analyzing the demographic and psychographic behavior of the audience, quality, and composition of competitor’s videos, market trends, etc.
Once companies are done with the research part, it’s time for moving on to the next stage which happens to be the backbone of a video – The Script.
- Script:
It must be crisp, concise, and entertaining at the same time.
Your explainer video script must contain a solid hook and action-taking verbs that grabs the attention of viewers right from the beginning and must illustrate the product demonstrated engagingly.
It’s important to focus on subtly highlighting the benefits and features so that it doesn’t come out as heavy on audiences’ ears.
Once the script is done, it’s time to focus on creating visual assets & storyboards in the form of illustrations, backgrounds, and icons that will help you bring your video’s vision to life.
- Storyboard & Illustration:
In this stage, storyboard artists come together to create illustrative scenes that help them visualize the entire video scene by scene and shot by shot.
The primary purpose of creating a storyboard is to help animators adjust their camera angles and look out for any possible opportunities that can be leveraged for enhanced presentation of the video.
Once the storyboards are in place, a voiceover artist enters the scene and records the entire script as per the storyboards.
- Background Voiceover:
The artist ensures the inclusion of proper emotion, the presence of necessary tone changes, and other nuances for a perfect and effective narration of the entire script as per the video planned.
After the background narration is recorded, it’s time to put to work the final element of the explainer video production process – Animation.
- Animation:
Here, all the elements come together in a post-production environment such as color grading, sound mixing, scene integrations, etc.
At this point, the animators work on animating the scenes and characters so as to add an aesthetic appeal to the explainer video.
Developing Engaging Content
Considering the decreasing human attention span, it’s imperative to create engaging content that keeps users hooked till the end of the video.
To do this, brands must consider what their target audience is all about and how inclined they would be toward a brand’s message.
With videos, brands can enhance their communication efforts by creating such content that not only intrigues them but also resonates with them to a large extent.
While creating content, a special focus should be adding that visual appeal to graphics as it helps in the easy and effective conveyance of a brand’s message.
Well, visuals are not the only part of a great content piece. The role of copies is equally important if you want to capture their attention.
Copywriting is an essential part of any good explainer video as it helps strengthen a brand’s message by providing a guiding context and information for viewers for better comprehension.
Now that you know the process of creating explainer videos and developing engaging content, let’s understand why timing and budgeting play an equal part in boosting the productivity of a business
Timing and Budgeting
Businesses must next focus on scheduling and cost after deciding on the graphics and content for their explainer video.
The secret to creating a successful explainer video is deciding on a reasonable budget.
Companies should account for any additional expenditures linked to marketing or distribution, as well as the costs of the screenplay, animation, voiceover narration, music selection, editing/post-production labor, etc.
Businesses should start looking for suppliers that can offer them the required services at affordable prices after establishing a budget that makes sense for the project’s scope of work and timetable needs.
But when it comes to creating a realistic schedule for the entire video production process, this will largely depend on factors like how much time is needed for pre-production preparations like scriptwriting or storyboarding as well as post-production tasks like color grading or sound mixing, which may take longer than other elements if special effects are being added to the mix!
For instance, if your business has three months from the beginning to the launch date, but you want to create a comprehensive explainer video with complex animations and visual effects, it might be necessary to adjust your timeline accordingly to make sure everything is completed properly in the allotted time.
Optimizing Your Video
In order to make sure that your explainer video reaches the intended audience, you must create a promotion strategy. Knowing who you are aiming for and how to get in touch with them is crucial.
You can even look on popular video hosting platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, or other social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.
Businesses should produce interesting material for their video postings that entice people to watch the video after the targeted platform has been selected.
It’s also crucial to monitor campaign performance indicators, such as views, likes, dislikes, comments, and shares, so that businesses can learn more about the content kinds that resonate most strongly with their target audience.
When optimizing your explainer videos for maximum engagement and results, analytics implementation is also essential.
Companies can use data-driven insights from different analytics tools, like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics, to decide what is best for their business.
Here, the data collected can then be analyzed to understand what kind of videos your audience loves the most or at what stages they seem to drop off. Accordingly, optimization activities can be undertaken to improve the reach and efficiency of videos.
Additionally, utilizing SEO techniques like metadata optimization and keyword research will help increase visibility and ranking within search engine results pages (SERPs).
This implies that consumers may be more likely to find your brand organically through well-known search phrases associated with the products or services your business provides!
Conclusion
To say the least, businesses can benefit from creating explainer videos to communicate their message quickly and effectively, while also providing an engaging visual experience.
Today, videos are one of the most sought-after and results-driven marketing tools for businesses.
If executed in an optimized and strategic manner, the use of videos can be leveraged in attaining maximum productivity and marketing goals for any business.
Author Bio:
Komal Kokate is the Co-Founder & CEO of MotionGility – An Animated Explainer Video Production Company based out of Pennsylvania, USA.