Explainer Videos for Business: Everything You Need to Know
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What is an explainer video?
Explainer videos are short, informative videos that break down potentially complicated or abstract topics, products and concepts in a simple way.
They do this by combining explanatory voiceover with relatable characters and motion graphics to communicate a message quickly and effectively.
First, you present a recognisable challenge, then you introduce a simple solution (you!), and finally, you show a better version of life that’s only possible thanks to your product or service.
For businesses, they’re a super valuable tool. They’re informative, educational, memorable, and above all, have the power to boost conversion rates when part of a web, email or social campaign.
They even have collateral benefits like increasing your web traffic, generating better email open rates and improving your SEO.
So let’s take a look at why they’re such a great asset for businesses!
Which business areas can benefit from explainer videos?
Businesses large and small have been tapping into the value of animated explainer videos for years now.
Their versatility makes them a great fit for loads of different business purposes.
Explainer videos for sales
Explainers can shorten the sales cycle and free up your reps’ time by priming visitors on your product landing page.
They can communicate clearly your product’s key features and benefits, then invite the viewer to get in touch as a warmed up lead, without any input from your team.
→ Discover more about how explainer videos can help with boosting B2B sales.
Explainer videos for marketing
Animated video helps you grab attention, keep it and be remembered long after viewing.
Using an explainer video on your site will increase user session duration, leading to an improvement in search ranking and, in turn, organic search traffic. In an email campaign, messages with video have higher open and click rates, and an engaging video on social media is far more likely to net you a thumb-stopping moment on your feeds. They’re especially good for boosting brand awareness and differentiating you from your competition.
→ Explore creative lead generation strategies for 2022.
Explainer videos for internal comms
Internal comms teams often suffer from low engagement. What better way to wake up your staff than with something genuinely different and interesting?
Animation has the power to prime your viewers for entertainment and reinforces the importance of that one message that really needs to sink in.
Explainer videos for information governance
Speaking of low engagement, information governance is something we all know is important but can be desperately dull at the best of times… Once again, an animated explainer video can liven up this challenging topic just enough to get the message to resonate with your staff.
Training and onboarding and education
Getting your business’ staff up to effectiveness quickly is as important now as it’s ever been – especially with the rise in remote working. Explainer videos are perfect for training because they’re consistent, on-demand, remotely-accessed resources that can be used independently from a dedicated trainer.
Explainer videos are versatile by nature. Anywhere you have a challenge in taking a complex or difficult concept and breaking it down in a fun, engaging way, an animated explainer is your best friend.
Check out our blog post about how you can utilise video marketing in your business in 2021!
What are the animation styles used to produce an explainer video?
2D and 3D explainer video
These popular explainer video styles are great for grabbing attention and reminding your viewer of a recognisable situation. The characters are fun and emotive, helping to spark an emotional, memorable response in your viewers, resulting in high engagement.
Motion graphic animated explainer video
Motion graphics usually consist of a voiceover accompanied by a range of moving graphs, numbers, stats and icons, along with some key pullout numbers or phrases.
These kinds of explainers are great for communicating a large amount of information in a way that cuts through the complexity to show your key messages and why they’re so important.
Whiteboard explainer video
Whiteboard explainer videos are popular, extremely simple and surprisingly effective – whiteboard animation has been used by all sorts of businesses from Google to Dropbox, LinkedIn and more.
A digitized hand is used to replicate drawing movements, creating text and images which come to life accompanied by background narration from expert voiceover artists.
Screen capture animated explainer video
These are a levelled-up version of a standard screen-captured video. With animation in the mix, you’re able to really show off the features and benefits of your solution, tool, app or site.
Animated screen capture video can seamlessly recreate the appearance and functionality of your system. They let you emphasise aspects of it in an engaging way with zoom-ins, stylised transitions and pop-outs.
The best examples of business explainer videos
All this talk of video must have you begging for some examples. Well here are a few of our faves!
Crew Nosh
A stylish combination of animated screen capture and 2D animation that brings to life the Crew Nosh meal ordering app.
Spiral Hosting
A fun, 2D cartoon character-driven animation for small businesses looking to set up UK websites. The characters paired with exaggerated voiceover provide a cheeky, memorable video which should resonate with Spiral Hosting’s target demographic.
Babylon Health
Our animated explainer for Babylon Health sticks to the tried and true explainer formula: lay out a recognisable challenge, introduce and explain a solution, then finally present a better way of life now that the solution is in place.
It’s a slightly longer explainer video, but the pacy use of animated transitions keeps your attention high throughout.
NHS
Another 2D animation here – this time taking a more stylish, clean look to match the healthcare theme.
There’s an isometric point of view used throughout this explainer which reinforces the feeling that you’re zooming in and out of one big connected map – a key feature of the Local Care Record itself.
How do you make an explainer video?
While working with freelancers/in-house artists might be more cost-effective at first, it can become costly and difficult to manage as you progress. The other option is working with a full-service animation studio like Nibble, which means that the project management burden is taken off your shoulders.
By bringing together all artists required to complete the animation project (concept artists, character designers, animators, scriptwriters and voice-over artists etc.) under one roof, agencies like us can deliver a seamless and cost-efficient experience for our busy clients.
What is an explainer video production?
At Nibble, we pride ourselves on our collaborative, straightforward approach. We start off by having an initial discussion to understand your goals and how you’d like to reach them.
Once we have a clear idea of what you’d like to achieve with your video, our scriptwriters and designers will share a few ideas after some detailed group discussions. When one of these ideas ticks the boxes for you, it will be further refined by our creative team before being passed on to our animators.
Upon completion, we will deliver an explainer video that delivers your on-brand messaging, giving your viewers an interesting, engaging and, most importantly, memorable explanation. To make the process as transparent as possible, you’ll be able to follow each stage of the process via our custom Project Portal, too!
How much does it cost to produce an explainer video?
Roughly speaking, a bespoke animation created by a professional studio ranges from £5k to £15k.
At Nibble, we don’t believe in a one-fits-all approach. The final cost of the animation is bespoke and based on several factors, such as video length, voiceover and animation style used. We also never use animation templates – we create each style and character from scratch to best fit each business’ branding and requirements.
Contact our team today to get a no-obligation project estimate!
