With all of the capabilities that apps, websites and software programs provide today, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and turned off a product. In fact, it is likely one of the biggest impediments to adoption and engagement to any tech product; keep in mind that the majority of SmartPhone owners download an app to never actually use it, or only use it once. The solution to this oh-so-common barrier? An Explainer Video. These are animated videos that briefly explain your product or service in a catchy, fun way. But, as with anything, there’s always a danger. With Explainer videos, there are a few common pitfalls that one can easily avoid, and some tricks to really make a killer explainer video. Don’t have an app yet? Well, contact SDI and we’ll build one for you – and create the video that perfectly explains what it does! In the meantime, here is a brief guide to how to make an explainer video that rocks your business. Tip #1: Content is King The old adage, “Content is King” is still just as true as it was when first penned by tech legend Bill Gates almost 20 years ago. A script is all important when it comes to the success of an Explainer Video. The biggest problem when it comes to writing a script? Explaining every little detail. It makes sense right? This is your baby and you want to tell the world all about it. And the world wants to know all about it; but if you overwhelm viewers with too much information users won’t use your product. Of course, the flipside is providing not enough information, thereby explaining nothing. The worst offense though – being boring. There are a few things you need to keep in mind when writing a script: • Conversational, but authoritative voices are ideal. The tone shouldn’t be lecturing or professorial, but it should still come from a position of authority. • Levity is key. If there is one universal truth about the human race, we all love to be entertained. So give the masses a song and dance: be fun, make jokes, even push the envelope a little. A little impropriety goes long ways on the internet! • Focus on what your product does to solve a customer’s need, not all of the features it provides. Features are nice, but users want to know how a service or product will help them in real life. • 200 words for 1 minute at the absolute outside. Ideally, you want to be closer to 150 words a minute. This is the rate at which most people in the US have a conversation. Too slow and people will get bored, too quick and people will miss key information. Since most Explainer Videos should be in the range of a minute to a minute and a half, plan on a script of about 150 to 250 words. So to sum up, your script needs to be funny, but informative, brief, but not too brief. You need to get to the point quickly, proving key facts that best explain your product or service. And you have about 200 words in which to it! Tip #2: Visuals Are Good, But Don’t Go Overboard One of the most common problems people run into with an Explainer Video is spending a lot of money on really cool looking visuals. Everybody likes something that looks cool (again, we love being entertained!), but when it comes to visuals for Explainer Videos, simplicity is best. The reason for this goes back to Tip #1: the star of this little show is your script. Think about what you want consumers to walk away with: a better understanding of all the vagaries of your product or service. Visuals can only convey so much clarity, but an excellent script supported by excellent visual can impart more information than either option on its own. Tip #3: Placement One of the crucial aspects to an Explainer Video that often goes overlooked has nothing to do with script, development, or any other aspect of creating a video. It has to do with where to post your video; as with everything, it always comes back to design! You could make the best Explainer Video ever to grace this green earth, but if nobody sees it, nobody will care about it. So placing your video somewhere that maximizes exposure is key. The perfect place to do this is on a website landing page – i.e. the digital “storefront” of your business. Here are some quick numbers on what a properly placed Explainer video can do for your website (for the full report, see Invodo, a leading industry Analyst Company): • When placed on a landing page, some business owners saw a 144% visitor-to-user conversion rate for websites; • Nearly 50% growth for business using Explainer videos as compared to those who don’t; • Over half of online shoppers use videos to inform their purchases; • Over a hundred million hours of video are watched a day. Tip #4: Strongly Consider Professional Help And no, we don’t mean that happens on a shrink’s couch! What we mean is that this is a vitally important part of marketing your business. It can be essential to the success of any business, tech or otherwise. As such, it deserves real attention. This means you need animators with experience, narrators who know what they’re doing, and a development team that can put it all together. There are a lot of options out there, but with admitted and significant bias, SDI can do all of that and more. We can honestly say we employ the best in the biz – don’t hesitate to get in touch. Give us a call at 408.805.0495/408.621.8481; contact us now for a free consultation and quote.