Graphic design and Animation blog for Designers, Special Effects Artist and Animators.

Explainer Videos are a great tool to introduce and explain a new product or service that your brand is launching. Usually, 60-90 seconds long, brands and video marketers use explainer videos in order to help their target audience familiarize themselves with the new product.

If you’re looking for a marketing strategy in 2020 that makes your product successful, then video marketing and leveraging explainer videos is a great idea. But before you jump on the bandwagon and get animating, these are the 10 essentials you should know about 2D animated explainer videos.

Fill The Creative Brief With Care.

If you’re hiring a 2D animation company, then you’ll most likely receive a creative brief form to fill in your requirements. Most people don’t give the brief its due care, making it harder for the animators to understand their vision with the 2D explainer video.

Always remember that this is the source document that includes all initial video details, so how good a video is made in the end depends highly on how well you managed to explain your needs and requirements in the brief form. A form with vague, generic requirements will end up in a vague, generic video, remember this.

The creative brief has questions like these:

• What is your target audience?
• What is the tone you’re aiming for with the explainer video?
• Do you have a preferred animated explainer video style or inspiration?
• What length are you targeting for your video?

Fill the brief with a clear plan in mind to share your vision in a crystal clear way with the animation team.

The Script Is The Key.

The script is one of the most crucial part of a 2D animated explainer video. The script needs to be concise and still be able to clearly establish the overall message of the video.

These are the things that your script should focus on:

• The Problem (20 seconds)
• Your Solution (10 seconds)
• How Your Solution Works(25 seconds)

If your script is covering these aspects, then your explainer video is most likely doing an excellent job of explaining your service or product to your target audience.

Animation Style.

It is imperative for businesses to understand and opt for the kind of animation style that works for a specific industry and the relevant target audience.

Does your target audience like cartoonish videos or sketchy illustrations, or a more professional animation style? Before you make an animated explainer video, knowing the preference of your audience is vital. Once you know the answer, then you can start the process of storyboarding and animating your 2D explainer video.

Keep The Animated Explainer Video Short.

Keeping your product’s animated explainer video concise is really important to ensure that your video length is not outside the attention span of your audience.

The main goal is to establish the “hook,” which prompts your audience to take the next step in the consumer journey.
The next step could be going to your website, downloading an app, or simply making a purchase. The last thing you want is for people to exit the video without watching the entire thing. Here’s an attention span chart from Neil Patel that showcases the average attention span of viewers.

On average, the average words per minute in a 2D animated explainer video should be around 120-150 words, giving your audience the breathing room to digest and understand the information you’re providing.

Add CTA – Call-To-Action

A Call-To-Action is an excellent addition to your 2D animation video since it guides your audience to the next step in the journey.

When a viewer watches a video, they are watching because they are interested and a CTA can prompt them to take the next step in the journey. In the last 5-10 seconds of your video, add a small section that establishes the answer for “what’s next,” prompting them to take action on the video by clicking a button and going to your website or hiring your services.

The worst-case scenario for a CTA is no-action taken, which in comparison to a video with no CTA is the same. Whereas, even if your CTA can push the client to just go to your website and scrolling through it, that’s a win for your brand and the product/service’s animated explainer video.

Focus On Value And Benefits.

Plan your explainer video in a way that it focuses on value and benefits, rather than specifications and features. What does that mean? That means that rather than blurting out the technical details such as “6-inch screen” you can frame this feature as a benefit by saying “Watch your favorite TV series on your phones, with screen size and quality that makes you forget a TV screen.”
What this does is showcase the usefulness and value behind the technical specification. By focusing on real-world benefits, you can humanize these technical details for your audience to understand why they should purchase your services or product.

Adding Humor Can Be Great.

The one thing that most people get wrong is how they understand their target audience. At the very core, all CEOs, CTOs, CMOs, and corporate leaders have one thing in common, they are all human, and they do feel the need to be entertained.

Adding a bit of humor can be a great way to increase their engagement, and this works better if your target audience isn’t corporate and is actually working dads and moms, or casual people who don’t work in Fortune 500s. Now, this does not mean you sacrifice your main goal for humor but integrating something unique within the overall video concept can help improve your video’s outlook.

Professional Voice Over.

While people focus a lot on production quality, animation style, and script – they often forget that poor audio and voice over quality can impact their video in a significant way.
Imagine a video with a crackly voice and a poor enunciation – most people will notice it and might not want to continue watching that video. The script is important, and so is the delivery of the script’s content. It needs to be well delivered and polished and for that, you should look for a professional voiceover expert.
There are three platforms that we’d suggest: Fiverr, Upwork, and Voices.com.

Investing in good voiceover quality can drastically improve your video’s performance on the internet, and you should definitely make this investment.

Have a Strong Marketing Plan.

When your video is completed, how are you going to ensure that it goes viral and attracts the kind of attraction and engagement that fulfills your ROI criteria?

For this, you need to have a well-laid out a marketing plan, which includes leveraging your social media platforms, email campaigns, newsletters, and press releases that can help generate the buzz about your video or the service/product for which the video was made.

In the absence of this marketing plan, your video will most likely get lost in the deep sea that is the internet, so make sure you have a settled plan that is set to make your video buzz.

Embed Your Video On Your Website.

Adding your video to the website will require you to make necessary changes to the website if you haven’t already made them.

According to Forbes, an average user is likely to spend 88% more time on a website with a video, as opposed to other websites.
Integrating your 2D explainer video can help your website increase consumer engagement, reduce your bounce rate, and increase your revenue through your website. So add your animated explainer video on the header or in the middle of your homepage and satisfy your Video Marketing’s ROI requirements.

Conclusion:

If you’re looking to invest in video marketing and 2D animated explainer videos, then these things can help you not only to create the best-animated explainer video but also ensure that it performs well on the internet, giving you a great return on your investment.

In Video Marketing, the magic percentage is 88%, since that’s the percentage of video marketers that are satisfied with their ROI according to Animoto. And these tips will make sure that you end up among those 88% marketers.