Do Explainer Videos Lack Personalisation? (Episode 93)

0:01 Welcome to Get Coached, the Video Made Simple podcast that takes the mystery out of producing videos. I'm your host, Chris Schwager. And today's Get Coached question is from Fiona. And what Fiona wants to know is, how does your business benefit by using explainer videos? And is it worth investing into? This is a great question because if prospects need to understand complex processes in a short period of time, this is a good solution. So Fiona, let me help you understand the application of explainer videos.

0:31 Firstly, what is an explainer video? An explainer video as defined many years ago, is very much animation. It is to define a complex process using music using a narration. And it tries to tell the story of the process behind an organization and does this because often it's complicated when businesses have you know, processes that aren't very visually appealing. They can use the animation as a way to map that through so that people have a visual representation of the process rather than just pages and pages of copy on a PDF, for instance.

1:11 So the explainer videos are usually short round about a minute for argument's sake, okay. But they don't have people presenting in them typically, it's hugely, purely animation and how creative you can be to explain the process by using different techniques within the animation. So sound effects and characters, and voiceovers and different voice actors and things like that. So it's kind of cool, but it lacks personalization.

1:37 So Fiona let's assume a situation, you want an explainer video on your website, but you're unsure where to start. So the some of the things that might get in your way are things like pricing, how long that's going to take and whether it's going to be effective. There are some pros and cons for doing explainer videos. For the cons, it can be potentially costly, it's arduous, and potentially a painful process, because it can be quite time consuming. And a lot of iterations of the animation because you know, the animation can be very subjective as to what needs to happen. And then its approval process, and then there's storyboards and all that sort of stuff that can get in the way. But it can also be so disruptive that when the video is finished, it's actually ineffective. You know, once it gets to market, because it might lack personalization, it might lack the messaging went too far off.

2:33 I actually reviewed a storyboard for a explainer video two weeks ago to give my recommendation on it. And the main things that it lacked, funnily enough was personalization. And also, the messaging was just out of whack, it really wouldn't have been an effective video because it really did lack a good script, good messaging. You know that's the whole point of an explainer video is to explain is to get clarity, right? And if it misses that, what's it doing? So I want to talk to you just for a minute on our client, Bob, who we produce an explainer video for.

3:09 Now, they had a great experience. The video was less than 90 seconds. But we went through the process of showing him storyboards, making sure that is clear scripting the video for him and getting it all really, really clear. The animation still took a long time, and they were waiting for that, because it just takes time, it takes a lot of time, deceivingly amount, a lot of time to get animation looking right. And so you can do a lot of the storyboarding, but it's there's usually teams of people working to make these animation videos, and then you've got the voice and the music and the sound effects as well to go with that.

3:48 The outcome though, is that he got a traditional explainer video, and it served its purpose, it had a good message, it had great production value. And it really did a great job at explaining really complex system within their business. Now, we only would recommend that if we knew that the opportunities for humanization and personalization in other areas of their video marketing was going to happen. And fortunately, these guys had that plan in place at the start. So they were happy to have an animation only explainer video. And with the intention that they would then roll out a lot of personalization, a lot of points of connection through the other types of videos that they have produced, for instance, company testimonial video, which required I think, seven or eight of their existing clients to present on camera. So these are great opportunities. And then there's stuff that we're doing now, which is around their approach. So what makes them unique? How do they differentiate from the market? And the great opportunities to also humanize that experience?

4:50 So now we've got that out of our system. Let's talk about the pros and there are many, okay. People like to watch videos. Everybody knows that. And they want to know how things work. So 96% of people watch explainer videos to learn more about product or service. And when you serve it up in a short, sharp consumable fashion, it does benefit the audience. They understand what you do, and why they should buy from you. And that's the most important thing in moving them closer to your business.

5:27 Secondly, explainer videos improve website engagement and conversions. Three, they save viewer time, and we all know how time scarce people are at the moment, having a video that plays quickly that gets the point is a real valued asset to your business. And four, it improves SEO results. So that search engine optimization, you'd be more inclined to appear in Google searches for instance, by having a YouTube video on your website. And five, you can multi purpose it and use it across multiple platforms, you could use it in your live presentations, for instance, you can use it in your video calls at the start of video calls to get everybody on board and get everybody buying in and singing the same tune. So there are five real pros that we believe really great uses for explainer videos.

6:16 Now, if you can, and you have the budget for putting a presenter in there, then you can have a hybrid, where you have a presenter as well as the animation so the presenter's there to complement the animation. And it's a beautiful way because we always know that people buy from people, they're looking for faces in the buying decision. They want someone to connect to, not just static imagery, not just animated animations, not just animations. They want human connection. And we're such big advocates of human connection at Ridge Films that we really believe having a human interrupt the animation will improve the entertainment value and the engagement value because people's attention is broken. And we believe that that's a really great and valued tool to think about when you're producing your explainer videos. So you could still get your animation done, but include the human element there where there's not a lot of animation that happens.

7:17 Explainer videos help engage audiences, especially in industries that can get really technical, such as legal, financial, and technical services, and Technology Services. Clarity is how it works. As I said, if you can't get that script right, you're really not going to do as well as you should. Get the script right, get the script right, get the script right and you will win. People are more inclined to do things with you because they have the clarity.

7:46 Is it time for you to kick off your video marketing journey? Jump on a 15 minute video call with me so I can talk you through how you can create an explainer video with a clear message that's conversational and gets humanization in there that can benefit your business we've helped hundreds of professionals just like you, why don't you go to ridgefilms.com.au/explainer-videos and we'll include the link in the show notes.

8:10 And check out also the explainer video that we made for Bob box of books. And that will be also in the link in the show notes to go and check out how we've done that. There's also examples of how we've integrated humans into those explainer videos and how effective that can be as well.

8:27 And Fiona thank you so much for asking your question. How does your business benefit by using explainer videos and is it worth investing into? And if you decide to invest on explainer videos to market your products and services? I'm sure this podcast is going to be a great help for you. And for listeners what has you feeling overwhelmed? Submit your video marketing question to ridgefilms.com.au/question for your chance to get coached by me. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.