Anyone given the option to either read a text-heavy website or get the same info by watching a one-minute video would obviously prefer to watch a video.
And with people spending more time at home watching videos, having an explainer video to showcase your products or services is critical for getting your key messages across to your audience quickly. In fact simply uploading an explainer video to YouTube with the right metadata can make a huge impact in helping customers find your business online.
But before we dig in any further, what exactly is an explainer video?
High-level definition
An explainer video is a short, animated marketing video that simplifies a complicated concept (see examples on our portfolio here). Typically explainer videos are added to a website’s homepage or product page and make it easier for audiences to quickly get your most important messages, but they’re also used in digital marketing campaigns (YouTube, email, social media, etc), events, and closed-door sales presentations.
Explainer videos are like salespeople who give the perfect “sales pitch” over and over again.
What they do
Explainer videos are like the swiss-army knives of the marketing world. The most common benefits our clients see are increases in organic search engine rankings, lifts in sales and revenue, and higher online conversion rates overall.
They can be used by almost every vertical in every industry, so whether you’re in technology, retail, healthcare or any other industry, chances are explainer videos will improve your business. Here are just a few things they can do:
- Drive sales:
- Proactively address potential deal breakers
- Showcase all the features and benefits of your product or service
- Deliver the “perfect pitch” every time
- Improve marketing campaigns:
- Including video in subject lines increase email open rates
- Video is engaged with more than other mediums on social media
- Videos can complement other ongoing campaigns
- Lift search engine rankings
- Keep people on your website longer
- Drive organic traffic via YouTube
- Increase website pageviews
- Enhance branding
- Give your business a more “human touch”
- Show you understand the needs of your customers
- Videos are easily shareable, helping you reach a wider audience
Questions about making a video? We’re here for you.
How they help (case studies)
Our team has helped numerous businesses leverage the best of what explainer videos can offer, and chances are we’d be able to help you too! Below are a few of our case studies from some of our past explainer video projects:
Lifting sales and organic search engine traffic
Initially launched as a computer repair shop software-as-a-service (SaaS) product, Washington-based RepairShopr needed to expand into other markets to continue its growth. Expansion meant that it needed to optimize its website and gain customers in new verticals.
The team partnered with Sharp Eye to produce a 90-second explainer video to help increase time spent on the site, boost organic search engine rankings, reduce customer churn rate, and drive new sales.
After three months RepairShopr was able to drive 3,000+ new sales (compared to the previous 3-month period) while the video gained 15,000+ organic views on YouTube. Read the full case study here.
Nurturing and converting leads
Canadian SaaS company Athena Software looked to produce a series of animated videos to showcase its products’ key features/benefits. Their plan was to showcase the videos in a series of email marketing campaigns that are sent to prospects interested in their technology.
Working with us they created a series of animated explainer videos that were tested against email campaigns that didn’t have video content. They embedded video thumbnails in the emails and included the word “video” in subject lines, thinking that doing so would increase open and click-through rates.
The results were impressive. The team saw their email open rates skyrocket from a baseline 1.5% to 23.4%, while their email click-through rate lifted from 3.5% to 12.5%. Read the Q&A and full case study here.
Boosting eCommerce rankings to #1
Mainstays has become one of Walmart’s most well-known brands, offering a variety of products including highly-competitive bedding furniture, such as bed frames, mattresses and more. The team knew they needed a high-performing product page on the Walmart.com website that would showcase features and proactively addressing FAQs.
It worked with the Sharp Eye team on a number of animated product videos that would help drive online engagement and help it reach page one on the Walmart.com website for keywords related to bed frames (the website operates similar to a search engine, where webpages “compete” for online attention).
After less than one month of showcasing the explainer video on the Mainstays’ webpage for bed frames, it earned a position on the coveted page one, position one, along with “Bestseller” status on the website. Read the full case study here.
How to make them
Making an explainer video can range from being cheap and easy to expensive and difficult. It depends on your needs, budget and the level of involvement you’re willing to put in.
There are, for example, a number of DIY animation tools that allow you to make them using pre-made templates. Or you can hire a full-service studio like ours to handle all of the details for you.
Below are the top reasons why you’d want to choose either option (reach out to us if you have any questions, we’re here to help!):
- Full service agency
- Handles all the details for you
- Experienced in video production/video marketing
- You get full control over the look-and-feel
- Frees up your time to work on more important things
- DIY animation tools
- Uses pre-built templates
- Can be made fast
- Can be made cheap
- Can be made by yourself from the couch
Conclusion
Explainer videos are one of the most powerful marketing tools around. They’re proven to drive new business, increase your organic reach, educate your audience and more. And since explainer videos are typically animated, the only limit to what you can do with them is your own (or team’s) imagination!
Ready to get started on your own? Contact us here to get started today.
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