Design Method
The Business Benefits Of Animated Videos
COVID-19 has been described as a digital accelerant that has forced businesses to adapt quickly to an ever-changing landscape. Your customer’s needs have evolved too. They are searching for solutions to their problems rather than just another product or service. Your business is tasked with finding fresh and innovative ways that meaningfully engage and connect with your audience.
In a socially distanced and contactless digital world, what is your unique value proposition? And how do you convey that message to existing and new customers? It’s never been more important to stand out from the crowd. But the competition for attention is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses.
Many are turning to animated brand storytelling to showcase their mission and the problems they are solving. Explainer videos often leverage animation, video content, and storytelling to bring their message to life. In a digital age, death by PowerPoint or posters overloaded with information will no longer cut it. You need a better way of sharing how your brand adds value. But where do you start? And what is the ROI?
DEFINE YOUR MESSAGE AND TARGET AUDIENCE
An animated explainer video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80% with the right approach. But before you think about creating a video, you will need to identify your message and the goal for your project. What information do you want your audience to take away from your bite-sized message?
You will also need to determine the audience that you want to reach. Your audience’s age, location, and preferred social channels will also play a critical role in the tone of the motion design and visual marketing strategies that you move forward with.
When online, we are all bombarded by content that rapidly turns into white noise. Once again, its graphic design that causes us to stop endlessly scrolling down our newsfeeds and timelines. The key to capturing the attention of digitalsavvy audiences and influencing their decisions is largely dependent on your brand’s ability to stand out from the crowd.
EDUCATE YOUR AUDIENCE AND HELP THEM UNDERSTAND YOUR MISSION
When you hear information, your brain is only likely to remember approximately 10% of it for around three days. But if you pair that same information with a relevant image, 65% of the same information will be remembered. The use of digital illustration and animated visuals can help create powerful associations with your brand.
Research has confirmed that videos help us retain information and improve how we learn. Explainer videos can help your business make detailed information more palatable and share your company’s message. With a focus on education rather than sales, you can also showcase your brand’s unique personality to your target audience.
However, it’s important to remember that your ideal customer should always be the focus of the video. None of your accolades, testimonials, or anything about your company matters, unless you solve their problem or address their burning need. Understanding these basic rules will ensure you not only grab but keep the attention of your target audience.
GENERATE MORE SALES
Dropbox famously credited their explainer video for raising $48,000,000 and an ROI of more than 1,000%. But this is just one of many examples of how video has increased traffic and boosted sales for global brands. For instance, CaseComplete had more modest aspirations of growing its conversion rate by 5%, but to their delight, it increased by 23%.
SEO management platform RankWatch created a 98-second animated explainer video to help improve how they communicated their value. Their goal was to increase their conversion rate by 10%. The video ended up going viral with 48,000 likes in a single day, and signups went up by an incredible 27%.
Animated explainer videos enable you to educate and promote your value proposition within a few seconds. By connecting your story and your viewers, you help your brand become trustworthy and organically increase sales without going into sales mode.
EXPANDING YOUR REACH AND IMPROVING SEO
Video posts have a much higher conversion rate across social channels than any other type of content. By engaging your target audience with your story, many will feel compelled to spread the word about your brand, product, or service by simply hitting the share button. Users will share your story beyond your website and in front of billions of users via Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and many more.
Search engines are also known to favour pages that include video. As your visual story spreads around the world, it will also pick up more backlinks. All of which will improve your SEO and the domain authority of your website.
IMPROVE EMAIL CLICK RATES
Emails that contain video have 300% better click rates. According to GetResponse, Interactive email letters improve click-to-open rate by 73%, and some video emails have been known to have a 96% higher click-through rate. Unsurprisingly, creative email campaigns raise the bar and are much more engaging for customers than a generic email template from a do-not-reply email address.
Ultimately animated explainer videos help you set your brand apart from your competitors. Creative and innovative content that emotionally connects with your audience will not only be sharable but help you be seen as a futuristic company in a digital world.