When it comes to letting your audience know about your brand and providing useful information about what your company does, there are a plethora of options nowadays. Enter explainer videos.

However most of the time, you are facing constraints in terms of time or budget. 

Among the tools that can convey important information in a very little time, explainer videos definitely stand out. 
Those are usually great assets for brands especially when it comes to getting the message across.

We will explore a few of the reasons why they are so effective, we will delve into how to create one and how you can get the most out of it for your brand. 

WHAT IS AN EXPLAINER VIDEO? 

Simply put, an explainer video is a brief, information-rich video that explains companies, services, products, and concepts. 

When is well done, it shouldn’t be boring or fictitious. It should be engaging, fun and relatable. 

A great way to communicate what you are all about. The typical duration is 30 seconds to 3 minutes.

WHY USING AN EXPLAINER VIDEO? 

When you re trying to explain something, you need an explainer 🙂 

Among it’s common uses you can leverage introductions and overviews in a very pragmatic and effective way. 

Whether is a quick overview of a company, product or service explainers got you covered. 

They are extremely versatile and easy-to-grasp. Do you recall how happy you felt when your teacher said that your next lesson was just watching a video? The same applies to explainers. 

Works extremely well for tutorials as well. No one likes to read manuals and chase information, explainer videos can provide all of this in a more fun and engaging way. 

explainer videos

 

 

 

Source: Levels Beyond Survey 2014

THEY COME IN A RANGE OF FORMATS 

We’ve been coming up with some explainers in the past though I’ve to say that the execution will depend on budget, purpose and audience. 

Explainer videos can feature actual people or real-life footage to boost relatability. 

The animated explainers extend this range of motion if you can put it in words, you can animate it. 

No need for shooting deadlines, sets, crews and actors. 

It’s a more convenient and manageable type of production for startups and SMB for instance. 

There are also other visual techniques that can be used such as screen capture, this type of explainer is usually applying to tutorials or tech demonstrations. 

If you’re in the process of choosing the right type of video your brand should create you can learn more about the difference between, explainer videos, animated infographics and viral videos. 

WHY EXPLAINER VIDEOS ARE SO EFFECTIVE

Video is an extremely powerful media, it is the most effective at delivering information because it triggers emotional reactions and stimulates certain processes in our brains. 

EXPLAINER VIDEOS AND PSYCHOLOGY 

This format is the most straightforward and therefore effective communication tool from a scientific standpoint. 

The reason is, our multichannel information processing works both visually and auditorily. 

In fact, as uttered by a so-called Dual-Coding theory by A.Paivio in 1971, the audiovisual channels are independently functioning within the brain. 

Each of them can be saturated with a overload of information. 

However, if the content is presented in both visual and audio at the same time, information is easier to digest. 

On top of this as psychological research conducted by L. Margalit shows, our brains can process

Videos sixty thousand times faster than text. 

“Humans are hardwired to avoid demanding cognitive strain, so this tendency toward “laziness” will, more often than not, invite us to choose the information that is easy to process over the form that makes us put out a lot of effort,” Margalit writes.

In other words: Provide an explainer video to your audience, they will click.

EXPLAINER VIDEOS AND THEIR EMOTION EFFECTS 

The emotional components of explainer videos can’t be undervalued as they can connect to the viewers in ways that other media simply can’t. 

A common way to making sure that you can make the most out of your explainer video is voice over.

If we were to rely on plain words on the screen, the viewer may read them with an uninterested glance. However, with a voice-over, you can gain control over the angle and tone you wish your message to come across, boosting emotional involvement. 

The feeling of credibility is then increased and consolidated by a human voice, which is intrinsically familiar when it comes to choosing a product, service or brand. 

Very much alike voice over, music helps us shaping mood. It can be used either to emphasize tone or stories, being a powerful storytelling tool. 
Even if you had the most famous voice-over actor and composers in charge, your video is definitely a visual experience. 

The imagery should be telling the story in a compelling way. 

One more reason to use explainer videos to communicate complex and abstract ideas.

WHY  EXPLAINER VIDEOS ARE WANTED BY THE AUDIENCE 

With time being the most recurring of reasons. The average presentation is no match for a quick and to the point explainer lasting about 2 minutes. 

The audience is according to “sources” rather siting through a short video than a lengthy presentation. 

The additional perk? Showing your audience you care about their time, by delivering information in this format. 

This is extremely helpful when establishing a strong relationship from the very start. 

They are easy to digest in terms of information:

explainer videos

 

 

 

Source: Levels Beyond Survey 2014

You’d encourage your audience to ask questions when pitching something or demonstrating a service or product in person. However, most people feel uncomfortable or rather shy admitting they don’t understand something by asking questions. 

Explainers make all this a thing of the past as they allow for your audience to learn what they want to know, at their own pace in the easiest, most efficient way. 

In cases of demos and the like, you’re also preventing frustrating user errors. Explainers boost the user experience by positioning your brand exactly where and when you want. 

The information is always accessible from anywhere: Video does great on mobile devices. 

In fact, as of 2019 120.5 million Americans watch video on their mobile devices. 

This figure is just bound to grow according to research..

You might already be aware that the average attention span of your audience online is rapidly plummeting. 

THE EXPLAINER VIDEO MAKERS JUNGLE 

Nowadays with video being so much at the center of audiences’ attention, a plethora of companies and video producers have emerged in order to provide such services. 

Choosing the right partner for your brand is no easy feat. 

As previously mentioned the elements to take into account are usually budget, purpose and audience. 

How to evaluate which company can be the best fit for conveying your service or product idea and add value to it. 

I’ve personally tried a few of the platforms for explainer creation however if you want that edge on control over your production and customization, outsourcing is the way to go. 

Recently we were thinking of creating some kind of video that would work as an explainer for our services. 

Coincidentally enough we were contacted by Expansionvideos which provides these services. 

The creation process seems rather straightforward, at the same time offering a greater deal of control compared to any of the DIY online platforms out there. 

They’ve put together a great team of experts and specialist that really knows what they are doing. 

Beforehand I’ve been trying to understand by looking at the way they’re working whether their style fits our message. 

Personally I believe when choosing a partner for something that should reflect your brand, services or products identity is extremely important to evaluate how they can understand this idea and whether they already have some related case studies. 

THE CREATION PROCESS 

I will be breaking down the process we went through in order to provide the most information. 

This should make it easier and save some time in case you are in the process of creating an explainer video. 

After evaluating their showcase, I felt that we could definitely get more into details. 

Emotions conveyed by the visuals are as we mentioned earlier extremely important in order to create a great explainer video. 

The thing I enjoyed since the very start is the fact that their company seems in line with ours in terms of point of contact and structure, I was pleased to get in touch directly with the CEO. 

We started discussing how we could get the message across about what DesignDiverso does with a simple and effective explainer. 

The preproduction phase Is been handled nicely, they’ve set up different stages for this part of the process.. 

First I was asked to provide suggestions on the script and what the video would have been about, they’ve created an online form for me to fill out with all this information in details such as.. 

Then the process was taken over by their PM which replied by sharing a version of the script via dropbox. 

Quickly they followed up with a response stating that they finished the first version of the script. 

I’ve immediately noticed that my suggestions were not taken into consideration so I’ve asked whether they actually read the enclosed file. 

M was prompt in replying, mentioning that my suggestions should’ve been considered in the first place. 

Shortly afterward they came up with a new version focusing more on my insights on the script. 

At every step of the way, the PM was there to make sure we could move forward with the process. 

At this stage, they provided some samples of voiceovers both female and males which I had to choose from. 

A week later, the choice was among the characters for the video. The email came with five different characters, one of them being rather fictional (alien-looking) also mentioning that further customization of clothing and other properties was possible. 

After selecting character and voiceover was asked to choose the clothing for the character, four choices were introduced. 

We went on and chose it and in another week time the first storyboard was ready, I was then asked to review it via a dropbox file that the setup online. 

Dropbox, in this case, makes for an excellent choice as it allows to review the different scenes and parts of the storyboard in great detail and provide insights in real-time. 

Following it the storyboard was updated for one last review. ..

As I’ve been providing plenty of insights myself I realized that this might have been stretching

the process a little further however the PM himself acknowledged that the ending wasn’t exactly clear yet.

Following this last exchange we were all eagerly awaiting to see a first animated version of the video. 

Shortly afterwards they came back with what should’ve been the last storyboard revision.

However we still believed that the ending wasn’t really conveying the message, so after sharing some quick comments and insights on how to tweak it to make it really to the point, they mentioned that in one week we could see the first animated version. 

Timely enough I’ve received the first version of the video. It looked great it is feeling indeed so much different looking at the animated version as opposed to the static storyboard. 

As much as I enjoyed it there was still a couple of things that didn’t seem to match my “vision” yet. 

I’m such a perfectionist.. 🙂 

So after a final quick review, we were ready to roll. 
We added subtitles as most users have audio turned off when browsing, therefore, making an audio-only version rather ineffective.

And tada..! Heres the outcome of our combined efforts: 

https://youtu.be/OfJBeuvWoRs

CONCLUSION 

Overall I’ve felt that the team was really responsive, they know what they are doing and it shows in the work they produce. 

They had no qualms whatsoever going the extra mile allowing me to submit couple more reviews than usually arranged. 

Working with Expansionvideos you get that feeling of having control over your vision while also relying on a great team of professionals for putting it together and delivering it in a timely fashion. 

That is why I can definitely recommend them if you are looking for an explainer video maker game changing partner that will truly make the difference, whether your goal is informing or  drawing attention to your products or services.