How to Tweak Your Marketing Campaign with Animated Explainer Videos

Animated explainers are all the rage among marketers today.

And no wonder:

In search results, animated videos have a Source: studiopigeon.com[/caption]

#1. Give your SEO a boost

All it takes is producing an animated video and embedding it on your homepage or landing page. By doing that, you will encourage visitors to stay longer on your site and that in turn will motivate Google algorithms to position your page higher in their search ranking.

You will get your brand even more exposure by bringing your video to YouTube. It will also ensure that your video lands high in Google search results. Google and YouTube are playing for the same team now. The videos hosted on YouTube rank high in the search engine, especially if the title and description contains the right keywords. Don’t forget that YouTube itself is the second largest search engine on the Internet, so it pays to publish your video there.

Video and SEO go hand in hand, and this one is a good example. RealtyNinja.com placed an animated explainer on their website that describes to new visitors what the service does. Instead of talking about its features and benefits, the video simply illustrates what it’s like to use the service. It keeps visitors on the website for a longer period and boosts its SEO.  

#2. Increase web traffic

A study from Forrester Research demonstrated that it’s 50 times easier to achieve a page 1 ranking on Google with a video.  

Publishing a video on YouTube and investing in SEO will help you reach a higher position on the platform and redirect more traffic to your website. Animated explainers in your email newsletter, blog posts, and social media will also drive more people to your site.

Here’s a good example of that type of video use. The explainer from Spotify is fun and engaging. Following the music, viewers are motivated to watch it until the end and head over to the website to learn more about the product.  

How to make sure that your animated explainer video increases web traffic and sales? Your video needs to instantly grab the viewer’s attention and engage customers as they watch it.

Optimising your video for SEO is key – make sure that search engines can easily tell what your video is about. You can do that by adding a title that is based on keywords users search for. A well-optimised video will bring incredible organic traffic to your site.

#3. Create a captivating social media presence

Animated explainers offer the best way to deliver your business message in a straightforward and enticing way that social media users find attractive. Consumers have incredibly short attention spans these days. They especially love to browse social platforms and watch short animations in silent mode.

Animated videos can seriously enhance your social media efforts because they are versatile and engaging. Therefore they instantly attract users and resonate with their emotions. And that’s also why animations are so shareable. Videos shared on social media are also mobile friendly and appeal to consumers who access social networks from their mobile devices.

This video from DocuSign is a good example that shows how a complex product or service can be transformed into an attractive offer. A simple video like that works wonders on social media.

#4. Bring on high-quality conversions

Consumers spend 100% more time on landing pages that include a video than on all other types of landing pages.  

It’s no secret that video brings more high-quality conversions. And the same goes for animated explainers.

Rypple (now work.com), a platform for social performance management operated by Salesforce, added an explainer video to their homepage and saw a 20% increase of leads generated from the website. 75% of viewers watched half of the video, and 50% of them watched it until the end.

Now that you know why it’s worth to invest high-quality animated explainer video for your brand, here are some things you should know before getting in touch with the animation studio.

#5. What length should you be aiming for?

Recent research from YouTube shows that the attention span of an average viewer is 63 seconds.  

That’s a little over a minute, and it’s enough time to get your message across. In fact, experts claim that the first seven seconds of the video make or break it – if viewers don’t find the video interesting within that period, it’s not very likely that they will continue watching it until the end.

That’s why your job is to convince your viewers in the first 7-10 seconds of the video to continue watching. In general, the best length for an animated explainer is between 60 and 90 seconds. Over a half of videos published last year was less than 2 minutes long. 

#6. Consider cartoons

It might come as a surprise, but cartoons are exploding in video marketing. Perhaps it’s because we associate cartoons with fun and childhood – they instantly put us at ease. One thing is clear – consumers love cartoons, and if you’re looking for a fun and quirky way to deliver your business message, they are a top pick.

Cartoons are a flexible medium and can serve to provide different types of messages. There are also very shareable and bound to engage your target audience. A simple cartoon animation is also cost-effective and a perfect entry point for marketers who are just starting to experiment with different types of content for their campaigns.

Use these 6 tips and tweak your marketing campaign to include animated explainer videos that will engage your followers, bring you an incredible ROI, and boost your bottom line.