If you’re a marketing manager or work in the marketing department you may have come across the phrase before but what are explainer videos? And more importantly, do you need one for your product or service and will it actually make a difference in boosting your online profile and increasing your profit margins with greater sales. Let’s dive in and take a look.
What are explainer videos?
Explainer videos are often the term used to describe an animated video that is used for business purposes. This can be on the front page of your website as an overview video or it can also promote a product or service in a more general way. An explainer video, or animated video might also be used for post sales support or internal communication. Whilst an explainer video is mostly animated, it isn’t always and shooting an explainer video with, say, a smart phone or a regular video camera is perfectly acceptable as well.
Different types of animated video include character animation. This is where we use animated characters in a scene to show particular features and benefits of a business offering. This is particularly useful when filming a subject in the correct setting is difficult such as a care home for the elderly or a health and safety video.
Motion infographics are also worth exploring if you are pondering the question what are explainer videos? Motion infographics, in a nutshell where we have statistics or graphical numbers or data which is shown in an animated and fluid way. This is way more engaging for the viewer than charts and graphs which are solid and static.
For companies who sell physical products they may wish to consider and explain a video in the form of a 3D animation. 3D product spins give the viewer the chance to see your products from every angle. There are numerous benefits to 3D animation over regular video. Industrial sectors such as military and aerospace often use 3D animation because it is obviously impossible to film a promotional style video in a war theatre. Using 3D animation as well as the scenery gives us the option to showcase products without endangering life.
As a side note, if you are a marketing manager with a trade show coming up on your calendar, it is well worth taking the time to plan which video content you can film there. If you are doing a product demonstration, ask your colleague if you can shoot it on your smart phone. This is awesome content for your social media channels. This will help with engagement and to reinforce your brand. Make sure you include a strong call to action to drive traffic to your website. Hopefully there you will have a more professional explainer video which will boost the conversion rate and get those viewers to enquire and purchase. Sometimes trade shows have an official videographer who is representing the organisers of the event. Make some enquiries beforehand and see if you can take advantage of their presence and utilise your trade show stand as a backdrop.
If you are still pondering at this point what are explainer videos? My further advice would be to research on YouTube how to create your own. Your smart phone has a 12 megapixel camera which is extremely good quality. Try and take advantage of this and pick up some tips from influencers on how to shoot high-quality video on your smart phone.
Visit our portfolio page – Click here to see examples from Tweak Video
If you need some ideas, pop me an email matthew@tweakvideo.com
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Thanks for reading this short guide on “what are explainer videos?”.
Matt, Founder, Tweak Video Limited
