As you may come up with another project in the future, we compiled some of the best practices to make your explainer video thrive well on any platform.
You can generate results, see growth in your business, and get the upper hand over competitors.
Let’s see some vital points when producing explainer videos and using them for certain purposes.
#1. Skillful Team is Key
Before anything else, having a skillful team is necessary for producing top-quality explainer videos. You’ll need an experienced scriptwriter, storyboarder, illustrator, and animator. You can also call an explainer video company to do the job.
Not stopping there, the post-production stage is also vital. So, having an excellent digital marketing team is a must to make your video wander without trouble in cyberspace.
#2. Keep Your Script Video Crisp
Learning from your mistakes, keep your video script crisp by making it as compelling as possible. The role of a scriptwriter is vital in developing a script, so having someone creative with a good sense of word choice is paramount.
Also, a scriptwriter should be able to make a converting script. They should be able to build a smooth transition between giving valuable messages and promoting a product or service at the same time.
#3. Set Realistic Goals
You must set goals before executing the video production. An explainer video can be used in various industries, from healthcare to genset service companies like DPS Power.
Whether you want to improve brand awareness, traffic, engagement, or boost conversion rates. Keep it realistic so that you won’t feel burdensome throughout the project.
#4. Study Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience allows you to find the best style for your explainer video. Moreover, you can develop a robust video marketing strategy only if you understand your audience’s needs to approach them effectively.
As mentioned above, You can run demographic or psychographic research to identify your target audience. Also, find platforms where you can find the target audience the most.
#5. Learn From Competitors
Competitors can be a great source of inspiration. Learn their video and study their efforts to generate viewers. If you’re a marketer, it would be best if you also examine their marketing funnel.
There are marketing tools that can help you do competitor research. Again, platforms like Ahrefs and SEMRush can come in handy to study your competitors. Even though you may need to spend more money on those tools, the result will always be worth the price.
#6. Master Video SEO
No matter how flawless your explainer video is, without SEO, it won’t perform best anywhere. So, take your time to master SEO strategy and build a robust strategy for your video product.
Mastering SEO includes finding the best keywords and how to include them in your meta description. Inputting keywords in the title, tags, and description will boost its visibility on search engines.
Moreover, consider adding closed captions or transcriptions in your video. It can level up your SEO games and is also helpful for those who want to watch it without sound. Plus, it may help you be a step ahead of competitors.
#7. Monitor Your Video Over Time
Lastly, always monitor your video performance over time. Examine the analytic pages where you publish your video. Almost all social media platforms have an analytical page that lets you see many metrics, such as viewers, engagement, clicks, and conversion rates.
By studying the metrics, you know which platforms drive the best results and which don’t. You’ll also notice some problems with your video. Knowing what you need to fix helps you build a more powerful strategy in the future.
The Essential Components of an Explainer Video
Just because one of your explainer videos fails to generate impact, you can’t just let yourself surrender. Instead, it’s time for you to face the challenge with a better version of a video, strategy, and, most importantly, you.
Explainer videos will remain a trend for the next decade. More marketers will use it as their marketing tool, and many institutions and organizations will use it to raise brand awareness.
So, even if your explainer video once failed, it’s always worth trying again. If you plan to do that,, here are some essential components you need to pay attention to:
Script
Before entering the production kitchen, your video script must be ready on the table. It will narrate the video and convince viewers through words. If you aim to convert viewers, include a solid and clear CTA at the end.
You can consider the previous graph to create a storyline suitable for today’s audiences. As humans’ focus span gets shorter, it’s better to go straightforward from the start.
For a marketing video, mentioning your target audience’s pain point is vital. Then, introduce your product or service as the best solution for their problems.
Storyboard
Storyboarding is the first stage of making a video come to life. It’s a stage where the creative team visualizes your script. In a nutshell, a storyboard is the sequence of rough visualization of your video before it’s animated.
You will see your video in the form of images. Each of the images visualized through a storyboard will have explanations related to the scene. Later, animators will continue the work by giving movements.
Graphic or Animations
The most significant and, perhaps, time-consuming process is creating graphics and animations for explainer videos. It’s a stage where creativity and skills come as the primary weapons to create pleasing visuals.
You need to put more effort and pay extra attention to this stage. As visuals become the main aspect of an explainer video, your animations and graphics must be flawless to stand out among competitors.
Voiceovers
Choosing a voiceover actor can be tricky. You need to browse over thousands of talents and select one that can liven up your video and is suitable for your audiences.
A voiceover will be the main audio aid for your explainer video and play a major role in making it sell. Some famous voiceover websites to hire an actor are voiceovers.com, voices.com, and voice123.com. You can also hire a voiceover actor from freelancer websites.
Background Music or Sound Effects
Adding background music and sound effects is necessary to make your explainer more driving, appealing, and engaging. Without extra audio aids, your explainer video will somehow feel empty.
Picking background music and sound effects also requires skills. If not, your audio and visual aids won’t blend harmoniously. Many websites provide royalty-free background and sound effects for your video.
CTA
Call-to-actions or CTA is fundamental if you want your video to have high conversion rates. Commonly marketers put a clear and powerful CTA at the end of their videos to drive more actions by audiences.
You can use CTA like buy, sign up, subscribe, download, join, or other powerful words that can drive audiences to perform specific actions. Moreover, it’s also possible for you to input more than one CTA, but make sure to mix gentle and strong CTA to avoid being too pushy.
About the Guest Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video production company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email/Gravatar: [email protected]
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro
