How Animated Video Production Increases Online Exposure

Why animated video production? In today’s world of omnipresent mobile phones and the many apps that could be found on each and every one of them, how do you make your app stand out? It’s becoming harder and harder to do this each day, especially with the number of newly released apps every single day.

According to Statista, there were approximately 88.5 thousand mobile apps released through the Google Play Store in February 2021. Considering that this is the lowest amount of releases between March 2019 and February 2021, you can imagine the staggering amount of apps that are currently out in the market right now. This study isn’t even considering the App Store.

Because of the amount of competition, a good marketing strategy to spark interest and increase conversion is necessary and one of the best and proven marketing tools is video. Animated explainer videos, to be more specific. Engaging in animated video production for your app will pay huge dividends.

Animated explainer videos have the ability to increase your exposure as it creates another way of attracting users or educating current ones. When it comes to marketing, the more the avenues through which you can engage with your audience, the better.

The great thing about these types of video is that they don’t require a lot of time from your audience, which is crucial for an online medium. In a short amount of time, animated explainer videos helps them understand what your app is about, how it works and the benefits they’ll get from it. As to how you’ll benefit: it increases the odds of them downloading your app.

Here are a few reasons why:

• People prefer watching videos to research new products – Sadly for writers such as I, video wins once again over text. People like watching product reviews or watching videos as part of their product research. Four times as many people prefer to watch a video about a product or service than read about it. Not great news for my profession, but fantastic news for my friends in the animated video production industry.

• Video increases sales – According to Wyzowl, 78% of video marketers say video has directly helped in increasing sales. Surveys have shown that there’s a higher chance of people buying a product after watching a video about it. The number’s go from 64% to 85% more likely. An animated explainer video on your landing page also gets people to stay longer on your page, which increases the chances for a sale.  

• Video is everywhere – In a report, Cisco mentions that by 2021, 82% of all internet traffic will be online video. With video giants like YouTube and the ever-growing popularity of video content apps like TikTok, getting in on animated video production and getting your video marketing content out there is easier than ever.

If that hasn’t convinced you, here’s another reason: video is incredibly easy to set up on your many platforms, whether it be your socials or your website itself. If you set up your video on your website, it’ll also have the added benefit of massively boosting your website’s ranking in Google’s search results.

Now that you know the benefits of an animated explainer video, let’s talk about the basic of animated video production. Below are some tips to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your video:

• Make sure it’s short – like we mentioned earlier, people don’t have the longest of attention spans on the Internet. In fact, a report from Microsoft states that our attention span now has dwindled to 8 seconds, which means that you have 8 seconds to capture their attention and get them to stick around for the rest of the video. Through experience, we’ve found that a one- to two-minute video is best for retaining audience attention. Though longer videos have their own uses, they are best saved for specific contexts such as educating. As Microsoft’s CEO said, “the true scarce commodity is increasingly human attention.”

• Make sure to state benefits – Not only does the average Internet user have less the attention span of a goldfish (Goldfish have 9 seconds. Congrats, humans, on this new achievement), they’re also a selfish bunch: they want to know what’s in it for them and they want to know it now. Having said that, your explainer video better give it to them or they’ll bounce from your website really fast. Structure your video and ensure that your script clearly outlines how your product benefits their lives, how it can seamlessly integrate into their every day and improve it. If you want more tips on how to write an explainer video script, check out our article.

• Make it organic – No, this has nothing to do with being farm fresh, but it does have everything to do with being natural. Your video needs to be fluid, from script to visuals to animation. This means that it follows a logical and coherent narrative that your audience can understand. Good animated video production essentially boils down to good storytelling—this is how you get them hooked and ready to go along with you as you expose to them what your product or service is all about.

• Make it count – Now that you know how little time you have, don’t waste time when it comes to getting your point across. Even if you’ve managed to catch their attention, you still have the rest of your video to either bore them or engange them. Make the one or two minutes that you have count by going into specifics about your product or service. Show a demo or live footage, go into the menus if you’d like.

• Make it snappy – Save the long lingering shots of mountain ranges for a feature movie. When it comes to animated video production, it’s best to move quickly from one visual to another and not stay too long on a static screen. Make sure to keep things moving so that your audiences’ eyes have something to follow.

• Make it professional – With the ubiquity of smartphones, it’s easy to think that making a video is as easy as aiming your camera phone at something. However, professional videos take a lot more into consideration than just, is the subject in front of the camera. Especially when you’re making an animated explainer video—it takes a whole set of skills and software to put it together.

Yes, there are software out there that lets you make animated videos with pre-made characters, but if you’re seeking to gain brand recognition or for people to pay attention to you as a company, you’d want illustrations that are tailor-made for your company. You’d want it to look polished and professional. Even when it comes to your script, which are just words essentially, expertise still counts. It’s a very different writing experience to boil down something to just a minute compared to having an hour to fully detail everything.

Let us know if you’d like to take advantage of our years of experience in the animated video production industry.

So what’s the process of making an animated explainer video?

There are a lot of different ways different animated video production companies go through their video production process.

Here at Brightbulb, we’ve developed a way of exploring our client’s needs and basing our strategy and design on it. For us, everything starts with our Discovery Call. Once you’ve decided that you want an animated explainer video, our designated Project Manager sits down with you to talk about why you want a video, where you plan on using it, what your goals are and who you are targeting. We get all of this information to ensure that we develop a strategy for you and your app so that we get to highlight its features and ensure nothing important gets missed out. We also ask you to fill out a project brief that further enumerates and fleshes out your preferences.

Then, based on the Discovery Call, we come up with a script for your video. This puts down the foundations of your video. It’s arguably the most important stage of the entire process (it’s our time to shine, fellow writers!). We’ll need your approval for this.

After the script, we then work on conceptualizing your video. This means breaking down the script and coming up with the visual flow of your video. This is where we use a combination of text and rough visuals to block out how your video will move from one second to the next. This will need also your approval to move on to the next of the animated video production process.

Once we have the rough visuals locked down, we then move on to storyboarding, which will showcase the final look and visual feel of your video, on a scene-by-scene basis. Think of it as your video on pause.

After the approval of the storyboard, we then move on to animation. If the storyboard was your video on pause, this is your video in all its moving glory. You’ll then be able to choose your voiceover and we’ll layer on music and sound effects to complete your video. You can check out our gallery for some of our best work.

This process was designed to ensure that we’re not moving forward with an idea you’re not completely on board with. All the approval steps are there to ensure that we’re always calibrating ourselves to what you and your company needs. This ensures that there’s no time wasted. Remember how companies always say your feedback matters? Here, not only does it matter, it’s absolutely crucial to making a good video.

In conclusion

Video is incredibly effective when it comes to increasing your online exposure. It provides a great avenue to connect with your audience in a fun and creative way. Just keep in mind that the online marketing field is an entirely different ballgame when it comes to content due to the nature of how content is viewed. That’s why if you’re going to make your own animated explainer video, ensure that you keep your marketing goals in mind so that your message doesn’t get muddled in the process.

If you like this article, check out our blog for more tricks of the trade in the animated video production industry.