7of Explainer Videos Tactical Advantages · An explainer video allows you to not only enhance your website’s visual value but also reduces bounce rates. A pop-up explainer video

Tactical Advantagesof Explainer Videos7

7 Tactical Advantages of Explainer Videos

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Introduction

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #1Enhance Your Offer

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #2Hook in Your Audience in 60 Seconds

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #3Boost Your Growth from 0 to 1000

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #4Attract Top Influencers

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #5Survive The Internet

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #6Improve Landing Page Conversion

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #7Facebook + Instagram + Explainer Video = A Happy Marketing Family

Conclusion

About this Ebook and The Author

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In This Ebook


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Why did we write this ebook?We wanted to highlight how good explainer videos can improve your business. This ebook is stuffed with information, ranging from the general benefits of having an explainer video to actionable tips for increasing the impact of your explainer videos.

We brought together every bit of information you need to better understand what you should expect once you have an explainer video and to implement it the way experts have proven is effective. This is basically a one-stop resource for getting to know explainer videos better and for getting the most out of them.

Who is this for?If you’re an entrepreneur who’s trying to establish a startup, or an established businessperson who wants to reinvigorate your company’s marketing, this ebook is for you.

If you’ve tried using explainer videos before and want to get the most out of them, this ebook is for you.

This ebook is for anyone seeking to understand explainer videos better: what they are, their benefits, how to utilize them, and what you can do to get the most out of them. This ebook has all the information to help you decide on and utilize explainer videos, and to amplify their reach and impact, along with examples.

Introduction


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If you are wondering, “What are the benefits of using explainer videos?”, let’s get down to business.

Visually Attractiveto entice people to watch it

Short and Conciseto ensure viewers stay until

the video is finished

What is an explainer video?If you’re a complete stranger to explainer videos, an explainer video is a short presentation of the concept behind a business or a product, often in a form of short animation.

Explainer videos don’t simply explain ideas. They bring attention and focus to how ideas can be easily understood in a short time window. The video format can be a near-perfect package for presenting ideas, products, and services to not only explain but also attract attention.

Why should we prefer explainer videos over other content?Digital marketing competition is extremely fierce. The fundamental goal of any marketer is to attract as much attention as possible, so the company can grow.

As one of the most visually attractive content types in the digital marketing world, grabbing attention is what an explainer video does best. In addition, an explainer video’s biggest goal is to make an idea easily understandable.

Key features of an explainer video


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Enhance Your OfferTACTICAL ADVANTAGE #1

SaaS companies are innovative—sometimes too innovative.People outside the industry might have difficulty understanding their ideas.

“But we have an FAQ and an ‘About’

page for that. Aren’t those enough?”

An explainer video can be very flexible in its animation, making illustrating SaaS concepts much easier. Almost all SaaS concepts can be handled this way, no matter how complicated they are.

No, many people are too busy (or lazy) to read 400 words of product intro and FAQs.

Instead of reading a 10-step tutorial on how to use the software, it is easier for your audience to learn how to use your software by watching a video. A video is more desirable than an explanatory text.

When Dropbox was introduced to the public in 2009, it was an unknown startup. Why?

Dropbox was new.

Dropbox introduced a brand-new concept to the public: a cloud storage service.


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What did they do to become as big as they are now?They introduced this fresh-from-the-oven service to the public using an explainer video.

Shortly after the 136-second video was completed, it was placed on Dropbox.com’s home page.

This video remained up and running on Dropbox’s front page for years. According to Dropbox, it received 30,000 views daily and more than 25 million views overall.

Tactical Advantage #01 Enhance Your Offer

In 6 years, Dropbox has grown from 0 to 100 million+ users, thanks to their explainer video and their paid-ads campaign that redirect to

their explainer video page.

Dropbox increased their conversion rate 10% by using a simple explainer

video on their home page.

This 10% increase led to an additional $48,000,000 in

revenue.

+10%

Tips: Metaphors can serve as effective hooks to show that the business can relate to viewers’ problems. Dropbox achieved its success by using the right metaphor to show it understood viewers’ daily problems.


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Hook in Your Audiencein 60 Seconds

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #2

The human brain is hardwired to process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. This means that you shouldn’t take up too much of audience’s time to ensure that they understand your idea.

An explainer video is a type of micro-content, which is a short-form content optimized and designed to combat information overload.

Visual content, like memes, infographics, explainer videos, or posters allow faster information transfer rates than textual content. But explainer videos stand out from other visual content because they have built-in instructive elements (calls to action).

Viewers don't want to spend their precious time watching videos without any real value for them.

With a faster information transfer rate, the amount of time necessary for getting your audience’s attention is smaller. This is a benefit, considering how hard it is to keep visitors on one page these days.

An excellent piece of persuasive copy will hook your audience, but the combination of speech, text, and graphics will win you more sign-ups any day.

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It only takes between 60 and 90 seconds (160-240 words) to squeeze in the what, how, and why of your product or service.


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The human brain is hardwired to process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. This means that you shouldn’t take up too much of audience’s time to ensure that they understand your idea.

An explainer video is a type of micro-content, which is a short-form content optimized and designed to combat information overload.

Visual content, like memes, infographics, explainer videos, or posters allow faster information transfer rates than textual content. But explainer videos stand out from other visual content because they have built-in instructive elements (calls to action).

With a faster information transfer rate, the amount of time necessary for getting your audience’s attention is smaller. This is a benefit, considering how hard it is to keep visitors on one page these days.

An excellent piece of persuasive copy will hook your audience, but the combination of speech, text, and graphics will win you more sign-ups any day.

Tactical Advantage #02 Hook in Your Audience in 60 Seconds

“By forcing people to understand what you are selling and its benefits, you can increase your conversion rate.

A great way to do this is to withhold your call-to-action button until you get your audience to read what you are offering. This helps pre-qualify

potential customers and get them excited about what you have to offer.”Neil Patel, QuickSprout

Tips: Read an explainer video script out loud in as natural and compelling a way as possible. This will help you estimate the video’s length.

Use Wordstimer.com as a script duration calculator, and Google Stopwatch to double-check the calculated time’s accuracy.

SIGN UP


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Boost Your Growth from 0 to 1000TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #3

Small companies need growth more than anything else, but new users are very hard to acquire.

Building up conversion is the most important thing to do for a small company, not how many visitors that come to your website. It’s how many of them choose to stay and learn more. This, of course, is expected to change the relationship between your business and its visitors into that of seller and buyer.

An explainer video allows you to not only enhance your website’s visual value but also reduces bounce rates. A pop-up explainer video reduces bounce rates significantly since you capture visitors’ attention within the first 10 seconds of their visit.

Crazy Egg enjoys the advantages of an explainer video: They have a web app that provides data about a visitor’s interaction with a website, and they record where visitors click and where they don’t.

Crazy Egg’s service isn’t the most complicated in the world, but getting their message to customers remained somewhat problematic for them.

But in the first month of the explainer video’s use, the budget Crazy Egg had invested paid for itself. According to Neil Patel, the founder of Crazy Egg:

"...explainer video helped me drive an extra $21,000 a month in new income!”


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In addition to being a self-paying investment for Crazy Egg, their explainer video also drove in an extra 64% in conversion rate.

To achieve this success, Crazy Egg did not just "publish and pray" their explainer video. They did lengthy planning for the explainer video’s placement.

Crazy Egg chose to place the video prominently on their homepage so visitors can’t miss it. In addition to the video, they use a compelling headline, social proof, testimonials and an above-the-fold call to action.

Tips: Networking and connections are important factors in speeding up an explainer video’s spread across the web.

Embed your explainer video to your homepage, preferably above the fold, to improve its visibility.

Tactical Advantage #03 Boost Your Growth from 0 to 1000


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Attract Top InfluencersTACTICAL ADVANTAGE #4

startups face the same problem: getting endorsed by a top influencer is a crazy-difficult task.

Reaching out by emails and automated follow-ups is a standard tactic, so most influencers don’t even bother looking past the email subject line. Including a short compelling video is a great workaround.

Uploading a video and sending the link to an influencer is another good way. Great examples of online video hosting websites are YouTube, Wistia, Vimeo and Vidyard.

A survey by Marketing Profs found that including the word “video” in an email, whether subject line or content, has a positive impact on overall engagement and results:

It's a way to stand out, although it does take extra effort to make an explainer video before starting an email campaign.

Including the word “video” in an email improves email open rates and click-through rates by 18% and 26% respectively. It also reduces email unsubscription rates by 26%.

Influencer


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startups face the same problem: getting endorsed by a top influencer is a crazy-difficult task.

don't embed videos to your email campaigns.

The main benefit of embedding videos to your email is that your audience will have a better user experience. Having a video ready and playable within an email saves users from switching from one window to another - which most times is a deal breaker. Sounds great, right?

But then another problem comes up: not all email clients support in-app video playback.

Only two-thirds of email clients today can play embedded videos. Gmail, which holds a 40% market share for webmail, isn’t one of them. Neither are Outlook (23%) and Yahoo (21%). However, email clients with new technology such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Outlook 2011 for Mac, Apple Mail 4 and Mail Pilot can.

An easy workaround is to add a thumbnail from the video to the email and link it to a landing page.

Tactical Advantage #04 Attract Top Influencers

Tips: Incorporate an element that links your explainer video to a newsletter, email outreach, or any marketing campaign.

Avoid directly embedding video in emails. The majority of email clients do not have built-in video players.

TOCCSUBJECT


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Unlike other types of content, explainer videos are evergreen.

Use one of the transcripts from your videos as a source for blog posts and articles. If you’re producing a series of video tutorials on a particular topic, compile all of the transcripts to make an ultimate guide, or even an e-book.

Survive The InternetTACTICAL ADVANTAGE #5

Video marketing is easier to do now than in the last few years, thanks to modern technology and the internet. Utilize what's already been invented, along with commonly used technology, and you're on your way to get amazing results from your video marketing.

Physical content (brochures, pamphlets, etc.) will decrease in popularity as the online world continues to expand.

An explainer video, on the other hand, is an evergreen type of content that will linger around as long as computers and the internet exist. Even major companies like Red Bull, Adidas, and Nike have been using videos as frontliners for their content marketing. However, competition will be more difficult down the line.

Video content is also a highly repurposable content.

One of the very first things you should do with your videos is transcribe them and add the transcripts to the website pages where your videos appear to improve video SEO.

65% of marketers in the U.S are planning to increase their video marketing budgets in 2016.


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Tips: An outdated explainer video (due to product/service changes, market trend shifts, etc.) can work well as a resource for an article, animated GIFs, and images.

Tactical Advantage #05 Survive The Internet

9 out of 10 B2B organizations use video content to some

degree.

72% of them find it improves their ROI.

an explainer video shows:


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Improve Landing Page ConversionTACTICAL ADVANTAGE #6

An overwhelming amount of text drives visitors away from your website.

Try surfing the internet for any subject and you’ll find yourself sick of text, words, and sentences marching upwards as you scroll through them.

To win the fierce competition online, you have to stand out. The creative use of moving objects in a visual format, followed by an entertaining overview of the who, what and why of your business, separates a good explainer video from a bad one.

Take a good look at your landing page. Most likely, you have a “Welcome” blurb. This won’t cut it in a highly competitive market. In less than a minute, a well-made explainer video can show visitors what they need to know about your business:

Who You Are What You Do Why Choose You


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And that information is precisely what your visitors want to know right off the bat when they come to your website.

And instead of wasting their time with a lengthy “About” page, you’ll only take a minute or two of their day. A video can show off your products and how they work. You can communicate a lot by giving visuals, not just describing with the written word.

Your ultimate goal on a landing page is to get conversions. But, if used effectively, they can increase your brand awareness too.

A remarkable video on your landing page, theoretically one that resonates with your demographic and gets your business message communicated, can (and will) create a more memorable experience compared to a page with a humongous chunk of text.

Tips: Place an explainer video above the fold for visibility.

Use an email opt-in gateway to gather more leads off of said video.

Tactical Advantage #06 Improve Landing Page Conversion

Unbounce reports that including a video on a landing page

can increase conversion rates by 80%.


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Facebook + Instagram + Explainer Video =A Happy Marketing Family

TACTICAL ADVANTAGE #7

The distribution platforms for online video content have shifted drastically over the last 18 months.

If you’re creating video content for your website by embedding it from YouTube and not putting those videos onto Facebook as well, your brand or business is losing distribution, not to mention relevancy.

Facebook has more daily minutes watched than YouTube, and Instagram is now much stronger than before, thanks to 60-second videos allowed on the platform.

However, cross-channel promotion on Facebook is not something you should look into. Facebook and YouTube are competitors, and Facebook wants to encourage its users to watch and upload native videos on Facebook.

Facebook’s latest newsfeed algorithm places an enormous weight on videos, otherwise known as “reach.” This means that video content is treated as superior to other forms of content.

Tips: Instead of linking out to another site, upload videos directly to Facebook. You’ll have better odds of being discovered by the community and new fans.


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On other channels, overlooking visuals, color, lightings, filters and other aesthetics is forgivable as long as the content itself is worth watching.

Instagram, on the other hand, was created to gather people with creative minds to share their creations with the community. .And over the years the community on Instagram has gotten better, and thus the content quality expectations are also high.

That’s why you should post a video that visually “qualifies” with the community’s unwritten standards. The culture in the Instagram universe is that there’s a personality behind the visuals. Therefore, taking the time to choose the color composition, designing characters, and arrange in-frame objects is important.

With the new 60-second video limit duration on Instagram, explainer videos might be the content to fit this role. The intense dislike of subpar ads used in some outbound marketing campaigns on Instagram creates a huge opportunity for inbound content marketers to make their brands stand out.

Tactical Advantage #07 Facebook + Instagram + Explainer Video = A Happy Marketing Family

Beware:

Buying ad space on Instagram is easy, Instagram community judges ads content as substandard. Tread lightly.


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There are numerous benefits that explainer videos can bring to your business, ranging from fundamental features, such as providing better presentation of your product, to focusing on visual attractiveness and drawing more attention.

With its colorful and flexible nature, an explainer video provides you with nearly limitless opportunities to discover which visual and animation style can represent your product (or brand in general) better.

The short duration of explainer videos keep viewers hooked long enough for them to take action.

While most of the time an explainer video is not a portal to a direct sales, it is a strong tool for driving leads down the conversion funnel.

The combination of an interesting product concept, stunning visuals, and a modulated voice over is an undeniably practical tool that makes viewers relate to, and thus take action on, certain problems.

Conclusion Explainer videos are a way to stand out from thousands of typical outreach messages in a niche that will eventually end up in most influencer's trash folder.

In addition to the outreach potential, explainer video has a great range of functions. It’s a perfect tool for filling up a website’s homepage to keep any visitor informed of what the website has to offer, and it’s easily shareable content across multiple social media outlets.

Ultimately, unlike typical persuasive marketing content, an explainer video is instructive.

Not only can an explainer video help bring in more leads, but it’s also a huge advantage when it comes to reaching influencers, which of course

can mean a lot for your product’s growth and reach.


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There are numerous benefits that explainer videos can bring to your business, ranging from fundamental features, such as providing better presentation of your product, to focusing on visual attractiveness and drawing more attention.

With its colorful and flexible nature, an explainer video provides you with nearly limitless opportunities to discover which visual and animation style can represent your product (or brand in general) better.

The short duration of explainer videos keep viewers hooked long enough for them to take action.

While most of the time an explainer video is not a portal to a direct sales, it is a strong tool for driving leads down the conversion funnel.

The combination of an interesting product concept, stunning visuals, and a modulated voice over is an undeniably practical tool that makes viewers relate to, and thus take action on, certain problems.

Explainer videos are a way to stand out from thousands of typical outreach messages in a niche that will eventually end up in most influencer's trash folder.

In addition to the outreach potential, explainer video has a great range of functions. It’s a perfect tool for filling up a website’s homepage to keep any visitor informed of what the website has to offer, and it’s easily shareable content across multiple social media outlets.

Ultimately, unlike typical persuasive marketing content, an explainer video is instructive.

An explainer video points out the factors that lead the viewers to conclude:“I might need this for one of my problems, and now I know

how to use this solution.”


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How Can You Use This eBook to Get More Sales?

What kind of tactical advantages you can get from an explainer video?

Consult our experts in explainer videos and see how we can help you!

We’re professional, fast, and affordable.

We’re powered with a talented team who breathes your ideas in and exhales them back as creatively stunning explainer videos.

BreadnBeyond.com/videos

Need convincing?Check out what we have created for startups from all over the world at


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About this eBookThis eBook was created by Breadnbeyond to help individuals and companies understands the process to create an explainer video, as well as how an explainer video can help them grow their business.

Breadnbeyond is an Indonesian based studio that specializes on explainer videos and visual animation to help businesses and startups grow.

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond and co-founder of MilkWhale, both are awesomely creative companies that produces awesome explainer videos and kick-ass infographics. Andre and his team produce awesome explainer videos and kick-ass infographics that help clients boost their web traffic and conversion rates.

About Andre Oentoro

About BreadnBeyond

More InformationVisit Breadnbeyond's website for more ideas and inspiration.

To learn more about Breadnbeyond, contact us directly at +1.877.619.3488 or [email protected].

You are welcome to republish excerpts from this eBook, as long as you link back to www.breadnbeyond.com for attribution.

Please also share this eBook in its entirety with anyone you think would be interested.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

License.

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to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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7of Explainer Videos Tactical Advantages · An explainer video allows you to not only enhance your website’s visual value but also reduces bounce rates. A pop-up explainer video