Explainer videos are the perfect way to capture a B2B audience. If you’re looking for the most effective way to explain your business, products and services clearly and concisely on your website and social media channels, an explainer video is the way to go! With 70% of the top 100 search listings now including video, it’s the perfect time to get your business higher up those rankings too.
There are so many different formats of explainer video that can be created to tell your brand stories, such as Live Explanation, Animation and Whiteboard. Whichever of these you decide upon should reflect your brand personality perfectly and it takes precision planning to ensure you get it right.
So how do you get started? We’ve put together our top 5 tips to help you get your message across in a captivating sixty-second explainer video.
1 - Writing a Killer Script
Explainer videos are usually around 60 seconds long. That’s a lot of information to squeeze into approximately 150 words! Establishing your voice within this short space of time is so important, and this stems from knowing your audience and the story you are trying to tell.
Finding your audience - this is vital to the success of your explainer video. Are you looking to reach a small, specific audience? Or are you trying to appeal to a broader audience to raise general brand awareness?
Finding your story - You need to develop a statement that encompasses your company’s vision and values, covering what you aim to do, what problems you aim to solve and how you can solve them. Then you can use this statement to build a story about where you have come from and where you are planning to go.
Make sure when writing your video script you keep it short and sweet, speak in the 2nd person (you, your), use simple language your audience will understand and try to include a little humour!
2 - Use Recurring Elements
Using recurring elements throughout your video will help to keep your audience captivated. Visual cues work really well, as do characters. These give your audience someone or something to relate to throughout the video, keeping them watching right until the very end.
Brand concepts and stories can be difficult for an audience to fully absorb in such a short amount of time, but giving your audience an emotional connection allows them to understand the point you are trying to convey on a much deeper level. It also makes your video all the more memorable!
3 - The Tiny Details
Getting the details right will make for a much stronger video in the end. It’s not just the script that needs to reflect your company story; the production elements do too.
Sound - Make sure your sound is professional and slick. If you’re using an actor or a voice over, make sure they have a professional voice and are able to read your script clearly. If you’re using music, make sure you carefully select an on-message track and ensure it doesn’t bury the vocals.
Visuals - Choose the visuals that suit your product the most. In a B2B environment, classic and minimalist visuals are fail-safe.
Movement - In the literal sense, make sure something is always moving on the screen. If the video becomes stagnant, the audience will quickly lose focus. Even if the movements are small, if a second of stillness passes by the viewer may lose interest. Movement can be helped by using ‘filler’ shots of people walking, on their mobile phone, or their hands on a keyboard etc. Using 2 angles means you can switch to keep things moving too.
4 - Simplicity Is Key
While bearing in mind everything we’ve said above, also remember that your video needs to be simple. Focus on the story you’re telling and make the solution easy to understand at the end of your video.
It can be easy to try and cram too much into your sixty-second video, but when it comes to watching the video your audience won’t be able to digest all of your key messages in one minute. If you have multiple messages to communicate, why not consider creating a series of explainer videos instead?
5 - Prove Your Point
You’ve agitated a problem your viewers have within the first 30 seconds of your video; now you need to prove that you can be the solution. You need to give them data, facts and figures to make sure they see that you are authentic in your claims.
Case Studies - these are a great way to demonstrate social proof and they also provide another emotional element for your viewer to relate too.
Reviews - Any testimonials you have are also a great way to prove that you can do what you’ve said you could do. Also, any big wins you have achieved are a great way to show that your brand is capable of meeting your prospects’ needs.
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With so many moving parts to consider, it can be easy to get a little lost in the video production process. If you’re looking for a helping hand, get in touch with our Managing Partner, Philip Martin, at philip.martin@dma-partners.com to discover how we can help you create and execute a winning B2B video strategy from start to finish.
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