5 explainer video styles for your business
You might think that video content is not suitable for your business, but first, watch ‘5 Explainer Video Styles for Your Marketing Toolkit’ – you might be surprised how versatile video content can be!
so, what is an explainer video?
A short, usually 1 – 3 minute video, that explains a product, service or brand in an accessible and engaging way.
Having an explainer video on your landing page, besides giving proven benefits to SEO and conversions, is like being able to give an elevator pitch to every person who passes through your website. You can rely on the video giving the best impression of your business every time, and leaving a memorable message in the mind of the visitor.
So, you recognise the benefit of an explainer video, but are still not sure if it will work for your business?
what style of explainer video does your business need?
Any style of explainer video can be used for any business type, it just depends on your tone and manner as a brand, and on the personas of your target market. However, it can be overwhelming when trying to figure out what would work for you – so here are some hints!
Character Based Explainer Videos
If you don’t have a specific product to sell, or you feel your company’s biggest selling point is your ethos or personal service, a character based explainer video can be a real winner. Friendly, and sometimes humorous, these work well for more abstract concepts – such as reliability, friendliness and trustworthiness. Character based animations can also be a great way to highlight how your product or service is essential in your consumer’s life – demonstrating relatable scenarios. Characters can be fitted to your target personas or conversely can be designed to avoid association to any particular culture or ethnicity – using animals, aliens or even personified objects in situ! A common misconception with character based explainer videos is that they are always childish or cartoony – this need not be the case at all. Characters can be styled to perfectly fit your brand image, whether it be sober and professional or quirky and irreverent.
For example of an animation using a Character Based style click here
Software or App Demo
On the other end of the scale is the Software or App Explainer – you have a concrete product to explain – and it’s probably mighty technical. You could, of course, record a screencast and record your voice behind, but nothing lets a high-tech solution down more than an amateur presentation. When physical products are photographed for ads, they are lit, polished and digitally tweaked to perfection, to give the very best impression – your software or App deserves the same attention. App or Software demos usually involve showing the main features, in a stylish 3 dimensional way. These demos can then be used on landing pages or website features pages, as a video, or embedded as a gif, like the one here, to play automatically.
Icon Style Explainer Video
If you feel your audiences are more traditional and a character based animation is not for you, but you still need to convey more abstract concepts, you might consider an icon based animation. This makes use of imagery in icon form, to convey the sentiment without assigning it to any particular persona – so this might be a good solution if you are planning on distributing across different languages or cultural backgrounds. Icons are great for helping viewers instantly associate offerings with visual cues – i.e. a diamond for quality, or a shield for protection.
Check out an icon based explainer here.
Infographic Style Explainer Video
If you have a particularly data driven product, service or company, an infographic style animation could be perfect for you. For example our client Artemis asked us to create an infographic style animation to highlight their new investment product. Infographic style animations are a great way to spice up what could potentially be dry information or a complicated message and to engage target audiences. Animation and graphic layouts can be used to pull out the key information your want the viewer to take away, and giving the visual aid helps to make sure than information sticks. Infographic style can also be helpful when you have strict brand guidelines to adhere to, as much of the visual elements are typographic, and can be designed around your marketing framework.
Take a look at this style used for Artemis here.
Motion Graphics
While many of the above categories touch on motion graphics as an animation style – what we are referring to here predominantly, is the use of motion graphics overlaid on film footage. This can be a very effective way to add interest to the traditional video formats, such as talking heads, or interviews. Graphics can be used to introduce topics, as title cards, with interviewee names, with type to highlight key words and phrases being said, or with diagrams to illustrate points. Techniques such as motion tracking can be used to integrate graphics into the scene and bring the format into the 21st century. This style is well suited to brands that use film, talking heads and photography as their principal house style, but want to take this a step further to better communicate messages. There are loads of ways motion graphics can be used with film footage and for a few inspiring examples, check out our film + motion graphics reel below.
So there you have 5 styles of explainer videos! To find out more about any of the styles, or how an explainer video might look for your business, get in touch and we’d be happy to bounce some ideas around.