Category: Explainer Video

From our experience of working with various organizations, we have seen them evolving their methods of explanation from simple power point presentations to explainer videos. Many people ask us if creating an explainer video is worth it as compared to the investment required for creating multiple videos. Explainer videos are not only used for explaining the services or usability of the product to customers, or even pitching an idea to investors, they are being increasingly used to train internal teams and employees in different departments to improve their understanding of the company’s processes, and also to improve their presentation skills so that they are capable of serving the customers in a better way. Explainer videos can be a characteristic of your company representing it with the right color theme, company logo, graphics and animation. The videos don’t have to be high in quality as in this case they are not meant for mass audience. As you may have to create multiple explainer videos to cater to different needs of your employees, a descent video quality is more than enough. Highlighting specific issue and information is extremely important. The video should be comprehensive in nature and contain a link for further information that might be directed to a specific URL on your website or blog. How well can you utilize the power of explainer videos to serve as a training material? 1. Empower your sales and marketing team Sales team is the interface between your company and your valuable customers. Attaining knowledge about the customers, a deep understanding of their needs and forming a suitable proposal, forms an essential part of their job.  But are they prepared to do so? Do they lack confidence?  Do they conduct themselves well? Are they presentable and self-motivated? Are they able to meet their targets? Are they good in receiving customer feedback and reporting the same to the sales head? There are so many questions that worry you to ascertain if the performance of the sales team is up to mark. Explainer videos can be effectively used by the marketers to train their subordinates. Every marketer understands his marketing goals and ultimately needs suitable tactics to influence the customers. Depending upon your target customers, your sales force needs adequate training to pitch your services or product to the customers. Conduct a performance audit of the sales team to find out where they lack and what are the major challenges they face on the field? Create an explainer video that empowers your sales force. Besides serving their training needs, it might also serve as a tool of motivation and inspiration they could always look up to. Even if your sales team is globally dispersed, an explainer video can be used to explain the functioning of production or service processes (which of course is important) to have a better understanding of their organization. 2. Simplify IT processes for your staff Information Technology is the most dynamic field of work as the software technology evolves rapidly. In IT industry, there are new versions of software released frequently. In such a case, it becomes imperative for your organization to train your staff on a new version. For this, you plan to develop self-training modules that help you to save significant amount of time in providing physical training to every employee. It further helps you to save training costs like hiring training facility and professional. But to provide a support that helps in beginning self-training, an explainer video can be used to answer frequently asked questions and provide general instructions. Explainer video can be innovative in its approach by simplifying a complex IT process through graphics and animation, and stimulate the employees to go ahead with the training. Apart from that, the existing IT processes could be complex enough that it entails you to create a series of explainer videos to help them diagnose and resolve an issue independently. Such videos can include software installation process, software update process, running the software through a security check and so on. 3. Inculcate communication skills across the departments The process of development of communications skills is not limited to the sales and marketing team. For an organization to function properly and as a cohesive team, all the employees need to have excellent communication skills. Seamless communication enables free flow of information across the organization. It not only helps them to interact with each other with ease but also with the vendors and the customers. An explainer video focused on the improvement of telephonic communication skills increases the productivity of your customer service team. Apart from that, presentation skills are equally important. An employee is an asset for the organization and carries its brand image. The way the employees present themselves in a meeting or during their interaction with their colleagues, clearly reflects the classiness in their work, organization culture and etiquettes. Though both communication and presentation skills can be developed through conditioning and experience, an explainer video makes this process more systematic & organized. It can rather hasten the development process with its visually enchanting form. Enhancing the soft-skills of your employees is far easier in a friendly and a jovial environment of explainer video than enforcing them through a circular of strict code of communication without ensuring the implementation part. 4. Relieve your HR department We quite often observe that the HR department is loaded with unnecessary and unproductive tasks for no reason. Rather than focusing their energies on employee benefit programs and policies, they are caught in answering frequently asked questions by the employees. We are not negating the importance of communication between employees and HR department but when the same is limited to itself, it is a sheer waste of HR resources. Employees are often confused about procedure for leave application, claims and reimbursements, tax filing etc. If the same queries could be answered in the form of one to two minute long videos, it sheds off massive load from your HR team. Companies with an employee size of 100 or more

In this age of fast communication, nobody has time to listen to your long stories patiently. The ability to pitch your company’s story to investors, stakeholders, vendors and customers becomes a deciding factor for the success of a company. Nobody is interested in knowing the details of a new company until they know the gist of it. You might go on for five long minutes explaining about your company as it is your baby and can explain everything about it. But this does not solve any purpose, neither for you nor your listeners. At the end of the explanation, you’ll still notice listeners’ detachment, misinterpretation and confusion about your company. This happens because it is hard to gain attention of the listeners for a long time, especially, when your company or services are entirely foreign to them. They have no emotional interest in your company. You have to be careful not to sound rhetorical and over pitch your company’s story. The 60 seconds’ magic The idea of 60 seconds is important because it serves as a benchmark for you to be to-the-point and answer the basic questions about your company in this stipulated time frame to engage the listeners. To begin with, you need to be able to answer within this time what your company does, what problem it solves, how it is different from others and why the listeners need to bother about you. Once you are successful in doing so, their attention would be at your disposal. With this backdrop, the following points brief about how this can be achieved practically. 1.      Take it easy  First impression is the last impression. While briefing about your company, you have to keep your calm, stay pleasant and not get aggressive in introduction. Mind it, you can be aggressive in approach with respect to your marketing strategy but you can’t be aggressive with your customers.  Customers today are much more aware and have the ability to judge the businesses. Take pride in your business proposition and be confident to introduce it. 60 seconds is a lot of time to introduce your company. Practice one-liners following the clock that answers all the basic questions as mentioned above. The impression created by you in the first 60 seconds will help you to take the conversation forward. 2.      Explain clearly the existing service gap in the market and how you fulfill it The point of differentiation is very important to share while you introduce yourself. Do not underestimate the knowledge and awareness of your listeners. Do not try to form an unwarranted image in their mind. Specify clearly how you differentiate from others. You need to be able to convince that none exists in the market that matches your service levels and offers what you do. Many entrepreneurs fail at this stage of explanation as their mere focus is to tell the customer what they do, leaving the only message that they too offer this service or they too exist among several other businesses. 3.      Create a brand image The reference here is not being made to massive brand building exercise taken up by large corporations with hefty budgets. In its simplest form, a brand represents its target customers, speaks of its value and vision. A brand image can be formed only when your brand stands apart in the crowd. Brand image can be associated with both tangible and non-tangible factors. Tangible factors include your corporate identity package (for example, your visiting card or company logo in this case), company souvenir (if you intend to use), dressing sense and your physical appearance. On the other hand, non-tangible factors include your confidence, clarity, and a smile on your face.  Besides that, share two to three important facts about your brand that highlight your company. 4.      Rehearse in front of a camera You don’t want to lose your customers or investors while you are still trying to build up confidence by pitching your company’s story. By the time you gain perfection, you will lose a significant number of people. There is not going to be any change in the fundamental questions and the answers pertaining to them. Rehearse your answers in front of a video camera and see the recording. Repeat it continuously until you eliminate that hesitation, stutter and stammer from communication. What you get at the end is a confident person, fluent in communication skills and prepared to hit the bull’s eye. 5.      Keep a tab on the market Though you have a completely different story to share with your listeners, it is important to know what your competitors are doing or have done in the past. As a start-up company, you get to learn a lot from them as they have gone through this phase, committed mistakes and have used unique tactics to project their company’s story. The idea here is to learn from your competitors, steal the good points, drop the bad points and add your own tactics to devise distinguished tactics that tell your company’s story.  Moreover, it also helps you during your interaction with the listeners if they consider your company no different from your competitors. 6.      Learn from your mistakes and do not regret It is a natural phenomenon to commit mistakes when you do something new. Don’t be afraid of it. Though you have camera-rehearsed, facing a real person is a challenge in itself as human beings have emotions and they react to what you say. You need to be able to improvise your pitch whenever the need arises. Meet more and more people to refine your 60 second pitch. Take every customer as a new personality, holding a different level of knowledge with a different set of requirements.  Overcome your mistakes in the next interaction and pitch better. 7.      Pitch to gain feedback Asking for the listeners’ feedback is part of your training. After you share your company’s story (which you do to the best of your ability), request them for a feedback. A genuine feedback

Bulk email marketers often find their emails going to spam folder due to lack of content, poor email address, and poor subject line. However, even if all the factors are taken care of, a plain email is still unable to garner a high open rate. A video, on the other hand, contributes significantly to the success of your email marketing campaign. As of 2013, there were nearly 3.9 billion email accounts all over which are likely to become 4.9 billion by 2017 according to Radicati Group research.  For every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25 according to Email Expert. This clearly shows that the potential of email marketing campaign will increase tremendously if it uses a video along. Videos can be used to the best of their capability to provide maximum information in minimum time. We often notice a video ad before our YouTube video starts playing. That apart, we love searching YouTube to see a video of our choice. Marketers have exploited this opportunity to their benefit to penetrate their target market. Videos have always been enchanting for the marketers as they relieve the customer from reading exhaustive text. Videos are comprehensive in nature as customers show a willingness to understand a new product or service without getting bored. There are many other mediums of increasing the visibility of your video like website, blog, social media and through video-hosting sites like YouTube. In this blog, we are specifically going to discuss about the probability of getting your message across customers by using a video link in your email communication. Why do emails with video have a higher open rate? Mobile/smartphone presence Majority of the customers today open their emails on smartphone. Going by the statistics, there are 897 mobile email users across the world including both business and consumer users; and 48% of emails are opened on a mobile device. With high stream internet services available on smartphones, watching videos on phone has become a growing trend. Nowadays, customers are not supposed to open their laptops or PCs just to watch a video. Big and wide mobile screens offer the same experience of watching a video on phone as computers do. In such a case, an email that contains a video link will more likely be opened in contrast to the one with just text or image. Video testifies authenticity An email containing a video naturally grabs more eyeballs. It gives the impression that the marketer is authentic and really has something significant to share. Whether the video itself is clicked, not clicked or half-seen is another matter, their mere presence in the email makes a drastic difference in the perception of the customers towards the marketer. It also minimizes the chances of your email to go to the spam box. Besides that, you need to make it a point to add a link to your website or blog at the bottom of the email as you don’t want to miss any opportunity of reaching the customer. Pre-requisites for a video email campaign 1. Optimum video quality and compatibility Using optimum video quality is essential while taking into consideration your growing mobile users. Avoid using HD videos (though there is nothing wrong in that) as it might be time consuming for users with comparatively low internet speed. Your video dimension needs to be such that it universally fits all screen sizes. A common resolution used for 16:9 aspect ratio is 480×270. The video format needs to be easily playable on most of the mobile devices. For instance, H264/MP4, OGG and WEBM work well with most of the devices. Using the appropriate frame rate is another factor you have to take into consideration. Higher the frame rate per second, higher is the file size. If you want to reduce the file size for mobile viewing, always reduce it by using a full fraction to avoid jittering. 2. Short in length You should not take the leverage of extending the video length beyond a particular time length. Always presume that your customers are busy and they have no time for your emails. When you presume that, you become extra vigilant in designing your emails; and when the videos are part of your email, they have to be short in length to convey a clear message. One might argue that a short video length would be insufficient to share the information you wish to share. But you need to remember, it is just the beginning and you have to get another click from the customers to go to your website to explore for more information or fill in the contact form. If the video can engage your customer from the very beginning, nothing can be better than that. So, avoid testing their patience with a long video. Instead, ask them to subscribe to your video channel (if you have one), if you wish to share multiple videos. 3. Focus on content Videos embedded in emails are not limited to explainer videos that tend to explain the product or service to the customers. Here the marketers can take the leverage of exploring their ideas to share content which they deem, will reinforce their brand image. Sharing event highlights, customer testimonials at trade shows, highlights of interview with industry experts, employee testimonials and interaction, company culture reflecting vision and mission and so on. Utmost care needs to be taken to keep your approach professional. A professional approach not only means that the video needs to look professional (which is obvious), it needs to clearly reflect the value of your product offering to customers. Why should they bother about you? How do you differ from your competitors? With this, it also brings us to think that you are not the only marketer who is using video email marketing campaign to target its customers. So, make the most of the opportunity. 4. Use a hosted video link along with image or infographic Video can be either hosted on your own website or on third-party

Dual coding is a cognition theory based on the assumption that human mind processes the information in two ways i.e. verbal communication and visual representation. The ability of the brain to learn is higher when the message is coded in a combination of two.  Both the codes are interlinked with each other as reflected by the recalling capacity of the brain. A human brain receiving an audio signal for a word will try to visualize the image behind the word. On the other hand, if a brain sees a visual image, it will try and link it to the word behind it. This pairing of codes enhances the memory of a person. Moreover, individuals presented the information in dual codes are likely to have a sharper memory than single-coded messages. This theory has been extensively applied in the design of multi-media messages that require both visual imagery and verbal information. The theory also postulates that verbal and visual information is processed differently when presented in isolation. For the same number of words and images shown in a sequential order separately, the brain remembers the sequential order of the words unlike images. In contrast, it recalls more number of images than words. It also states that the ability of the brain to recall the information reduces when there is no association between visual and verbal message. Correlation between explainer videos and dual coding theory Large corporations over a period of time have used the power of TV advertisements to make a brand connect with their audiences. TV ads too use verbal and visual components to deliver a message in line with dual coding theory. It is evident that TV ads are meant to create a mass appeal and involves a huge amount of production and advertising expenditure. For a business owner with financial issues, neither it is suitable nor is it recommended. But what is suitable is the use of explainer videos. Explainer videos are specifically designed to serve quality content to the target customers. Marketers carefully select their words for voice over and a corresponding imagery to complement them. For instance, your product is Anti-Virus for PCs. Your target customers would be all adult internet users with PCs. Your objective is to create awareness about your product. Now, use a story to create a video that introduces a problem faced by internet users when a virus attacks their computer. What is the capability of your product to prevent a virus attack on computers? Why should they choose you over other Anti-Virus product manufacturers in market? In the end, place call-to-action buttons like sign-up for email subscription or purchase. When you apply the concept of dual coding theory to your explainer video, you will realize the simplicity of information disbursement it offers. You will match the flow of your script with appropriate animation, drawings, images, text color, background color, transition and graphics. All these components are an essential part of visual illustration. They have to be in line with your audio message so that you don’t create boredom for your viewers. No wonder, besides having a good product, companies fail to impress their customers by creating unprofessional videos. How is dual coding theory relevant to your business?   As a small business owner, you get limited attention time from your target customers, roughly a span of 60 sec or less on your website which makes it necessary for you to effectively explain your product in a short time. Most of the visitors look for quick information instead of browsing a long list of pages. There was a time when showing power point slide to your target audience was considered to be going an extra mile in marketing. But today, in the age of smartphones, where people are busy scurrying through videos on their mobile, there is hardly any hope left for a slide presentation; and visitors do not even prefer to go through a power point presentation, if they are being shown a video to understand. Seize this opportunity to captivate them through your explainer videos. You don’t want them to work hard to know you. Let them relax and enjoy your video without putting any pressure on their brains.  Explainer videos placed on your homepage are designed to fulfill that objective. Marketing through explainer videos An explainer video does not focus only on your idea, product or company. They engage with the viewers by starting an interaction with them. A customer always keeps his option open. They are there to buy your product. The problem is your competitor. A competitor always likes to stay a step ahead. The one who initiates hits the bull’s eye. So, don’t wait for your rivals to create an explainer video so that you can create a better one after that. Customers like to keep a tab on competition and they choose leaders. In a tough technology driven market such as this, product disparity becomes a challenge. If you introduce a new product or a service model, your rivals soon come up with a reformed version. The only difference you can create is through creativity, awareness and thoughtfulness. Communicating the same idea but in a better way lets you win the race. Customers hesitate to invest in a new technology. Before you introduce your product, introduce the benefits of new technology and how it can improve the life of your customers through a crisp explainer video. Once they understand a technology, they will be able to relate to your product. Dually coded explainer videos let you explain new technologies in a matter of seconds. Why should you bother to create explainer videos? Audio-visual content creates more impact than textual content – People love to watch videos in comparison to reading boring text as text carries the risk of misinterpretation or confusion. On the other hand, videos are explicit in nature. explainer videos help you to build your brand in such a manner that people remember you for a long time. Create brand identity without