Why should you use an explainer video? Explainer videos can help improve your brand’s visibility, grab attention and drive customers to take action.
Content
- Improve Your Brand’s Reach and Visibility
- Grab Your Audience’s Attention
- Drive Potential Customers to Take Action
- Boost Conversions and Sales
- Connect Across Various Channels and Devices
In evaluating the need for an explainer video, take a minute to consider the importance of video marketing as a whole.
There’s no shortage of video-based statistics one could point to in proving its potential value:
- More video content is uploaded in 30 days than has been created across major U.S. television networks in the last 30 years.
- One-third of all online activity is spent watching video.
- 54% of consumers want to see more video content from a brand or business they support.
The volume is high, attention is captured and demand is rising. From every angle you look at it, it’s never been more clear how necessary video is in driving your brand’s success online.
So, if investing in video is a no-brainer for your business, why should you use an explainer video? To answer that question, it helps to understand why explainer videos work among digital audiences in the first place.
In short: it’s science.
You see, our brains crave visual content. It’s more interest-piquing, memorable and easier to process that text. Specifically, visual content – like video – is processed 60,000 times faster than text-based content.
As psychologist Liraz Margalit explains, humans opt for the route of least resistance when it comes to cognitive strain. It’s in our nature to absorb information in the easiest way possible — rather than put forth the effort to decode what doesn’t click naturally.
Furthermore, when content is displayed in the form of an explainer video, absorbing information requires very little investment in terms of time as well. This is important, as most viewers have a finite amount of time to give with the attention of consumers averaging out at about 8 seconds.
To recap: explainer videos are valuable to audiences because of their brevity and simplicity. But what’s in it for your brand?
Let’s break down a more complete answer to the question, “Why should you use an explainer video?”.
Improve Your Brand’s Reach and Visibility
Before you can secure customers, you have to secure their attention. And yet, this is something most brands forget when building out the ‘creative’ behind their marketing strategy.
Just because you find value in your product or service doesn’t mean your audience automatically will. Especially when you consider the rule of seven — a marketing principle that suggests prospects need to come across your offering at least seven times before taking action.
Explainer videos play a vital role relative to your brand’s visibility, especially when you consider that viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in video form. And if it’s a particularly creative and engaging explainer video, you also reap the benefits that come with an audience eager to share it out across their own personal networks.
Grab Your Audience’s Attention
We’ll admit, creativity is a fine line to walk when it comes to your explainer videos. Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of your video is to concisely present your brand in relation to the product, service or process that it’s trying to flesh out.
Get too “out there” with creative and you run the risk of over-complicating the main message.
Explainer videos are great in the sense that they allow you to strike a balance between information and entertainment. Which, at the end of the day, is what consumers want.
The most commonly cited answer among audiences, when asked what type of video content they wanted to see more from brands, was explainer videos (39%).
Explore all of your options when it comes to the types of explainer videos relevant to your business. And then customize it to represent both your brand and the audience(s) you’re trying to attract.
Drive Potential Customers to Take Action
There’s a time and a place for call-to-action (CTA) buttons on a landing page. But with explainer videos, you can take your CTAs to the next level.
With everything you can convey to engaged customers in a one-to-two-minute timespan, it’s much easier to build trust and credibility. Subscribing to a newsletter or visiting a product page becomes much more plausible when your audience better understands the value in doing so — in addition to where or who it’s coming from.
On a related note, you’re likely to drive more potential customers to take action when you simply have more web traffic on account of hosting an explainer video on your homepage or landing page. By 2020, Cisco studies predict that 82% of all consumer web traffic will be video.
Boost Conversions and Sales
When you have more people taking action around your brand, even at the stages of early interest, you’re presented with more opportunities to drive conversions. Which ultimately means more money in your pocket.
On average, it’s been found that video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year than their counterparts who aren’t using video. 88% of brands also report an increase in conversions after adding explainer videos to a product page.
With explainer videos, you’re driving more visitors, keeping them engaged on your website for longer periods of time and providing greater clarity around the products or services you’re selling. It only makes sense that sales would ultimately increase as a result.
Connect Across Various Channels and Devices
One of the great things about explainer videos is their flexibility. They’re adaptable and translatable across just about every channel or device your audience might be on.
This is important when you consider the fact that over half of all video content online is viewed on mobile devices. You have to take into account differences in mobile operating systems, browsers, differing screen sizes and captions when creating an explainer video that’s optimized for mobile viewing.
Additionally, keep in mind where you’re distributing your explainer videos. Aside from distributing across social or other relevant marketing networks, you may also be able to get more bang for your buck in repurposing the content for sales and customer support teams as well.
