Businesses are taking this to heart, as animated explainer videos are becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool. It's not easy to decide whether investing in a video is a good idea for your company. It's even harder to figure out if the expense will bear fruit.
If you're uncertain - you're not alone. Many businesses in the industry, at various levels of growth, wonder if explainer videos are the right marketing strategy.
Explainer videos aren't just the latest trendy fad for start-ups and the edgy Silicone Valley set. By 2018, video content will make up 79% of all traffic, up from the current 66%.
By the end of 2016, video ad spending in the U.S. will jump from 12.8% in 2015 to 14.3%, exceeding a staggering $9.59 billion dollars, taking over as a significant portion of digital ad spending. The total projected amount of money spent for digital ads by the end of 2016 will be an astonishing $67.09 billion.
A breakdown of the categories within digital ad spending, projected for the end of 2016, include the following:
Your business has a choice - either be prepared to adapt and utilize this marketing tool, or fall by the wayside. Explainer videos are a proven method of capturing audiences and producing interest in your company, product, services, etc., and all business types are jumping onto the bandwagon.
Animated Explainer Videos, when done right, can captivate viewers, generate substantial leads - are likely to be shared and linked to social media, and they have a proven success rate among businesses. Putting your entire marketing 'eggs' in the explainer video 'basket' will be an investment that continues to generate a long-term payoff.
Audiences are a fickle sort, and their attention spans are even more so. Visitors tend to click from website to website in a fleeting manner. A common and frustrating issue for businesses is how to make a visitor's stay go from momentary to lingering. Difficult considering that the average attention span of a regular, text-based website is 8 seconds. So you need to make a huge impact right from the second a person hits your landing page.
The average attention span jumps up to a startling 120 seconds when a video is involved in some way. Animation videos stand out from other online video marketing, and audiences retain their attention spans longer with this style of video.
Text based websites are becoming the dinosaurs of the marketing world, and can be a danger to companies who want to be easily searchable. A customer can find a video based website much easier than a text based website because Google gives priority to video content, resulting in 53 times more chances of it appearing on the first page than any text-based website!
Now that you know animated explainer videos are truly vehicles of viewer captivation, you need those viewers to become solid leads. There's a 1500% boost in engagement when a business features a video versus text alone. Visitor engagement equals people hanging around your site, and potentially becoming customers.
Now that you know animated explainer videos are truly vehicles of viewer captivation, you need those viewers to become solid leads. There's a 1500% boost in engagement when a business features a video versus text alone. Visitor engagement equals people hanging around your site, and potentially becoming customers.
So if you want that lead to transform into a spending customer, it behooves your business to incorporate an animated explainer video because it can increase conversion rates by a dramatic 20%.
When companies include an explainer video, they get a form of free marketing and advertising because people are prolific in sharing videos on social networking sites.
Did you know that videos are 12 times more likely to be shared on Twitter than links and texts combined? Twitter users share 700 videos per minute, and Youtube uploads of videos over 100 hours per minute. Facebook states that more than 50% of Americans visit their site watch at least 1 video daily, and 76% of Americans who use Facebook say that they discover videos on it.
Essentially, explainer videos are like a supplemental form of free marketing. Businesses can spread the word about their company without doing any additional legwork. Interested visitors will do it for you!
You may be concerned that an explainer video might only be a productive marketing tool if you fall into the 'right business genre.' But statistics have proven that explainer videos are successful regardless of the industry. Simply put, people like videos, and they don't want to waste time cycling through pages of text. Further, hard data can't be argued with - 52% of business marketing professionals say that video is the online content with the best ROI's.
A few specific case studies prove just that.
Crazy Egg's conversions shot up to 64%, and they enjoyed $21,000 in extra monthly revenue just by creating an animated explainer video for their landing page
Dropbox made a $50 million increase in revenue and a 10% rise in the conversion from their explainer video.
ReelSEO published a survey that indicated that 96% of B2B agencies use video in their marketing campaigns, averaging 73% positive results to their ROI.
This data is all great news, but there are some challenges - Yes, there's going to be some challenges involved with implementing an explainer video in your marketing technique. You would be surprised at some of the common issues that arise when you decide that you want to go ahead with your plans.
Certainly, there are other challenges that may arise, but focusing on the core problems can help you stay on track, and ensure the money you invest produces a quality explainer video that increases viewership traffic, and gains you customers and revenue.
Finding a reputable company to write your script and make your video may be problematic. The average video can cost anywhere between $2,000 and $20,000 depending on the length and quality. This budget is a significant expense to the front if you are not guaranteed of a quality outcome.
Just because you have a video doesn't mean you have viewers. So getting visitors to hit your site is a potential issue.
Creating enough incentive for those viewers to buy or engage your service in some way is also a concern.
Depicting your brand, services, or company’s products as a solution to a perceived viewer problem can be tricky indeed.
Which leads to the next challenge - making sure your video portrays your brand correctly.
Let's take a direct approach and present some solutions to the previously addressed challenges. Having a good understanding of your business's explainer video goals prior to beginning the implementation process is a solid place to start.
Do your research ahead of time. That includes who you decide to hire to design and create your explainer video. Make sure that you choose an experienced company that has a proven rate of success in this field
Planning a good SEO campaign social media strategy is important because it gives you a better chance that your excellent explainer video reaches its target audience.
As for encouraging viewers to become customers, the chances are favorable that if your video hits all the sweet spots, your possibility of winning over an audience and turning them into a client is high. Online Publishers Association states that 46% of users take some action after watching a video.
Overall, your explainer video has to be a representation of your company in the right way. NEILSON Wire shows that 36% of online consumers trust video ads. If you keep it entertaining, relatable, professional, and unique to your business, you can build the brand association.
Video Caddy has learned through immense research and experience that visual storytelling isn’t just some new marketing tactic. It’s a time-honored tradition of sharing important information. VCD can help both large and small businesses telling the story of their brands through powerful videos, impressive animations, and eye-popping infographics. To learn more, contact us and avail of expert consultation and a free quote.