Moving house is hard. There is the packing, where you are forced to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Then there is the unpacking, finding a new place for everything. And last but not least, there is adding your personality to the place. From choosing the curtains and lamp shades to the paintings and wallpaper, this step truly transforms your new house into your new home.
It’s a lot of work, so it is not surprising that when it’s all done, many of us celebrate by inviting our friends and family over for a party. The process of creating an explainer video is surprisingly similar - each video is the result of lots of hard work. Celebrating all this hard work and the message you are sharing in your explainer video, promoting it and sharing it are a must!
In this blog, we’ve gone over some tips and explainer video marketing advice.
The explainer video itself
First things first, there is the video itself. Explainer video marketing campaigns are a great way of reaching your audience with your message. Wyzowl found that 96% of the people surveyed use them to find out more about products and services. This popularity is in part thanks to the versatility of explainer videos; they can take your message to a wide range of devices and there are many types of explainer video, each with a different set of strengths.
In part, this popularity is also thanks to the custom and bespoke nature of a good explainer video, which allows you to tailor your video to explain your message in the ideal way and to appeal your audience. As you plan and create your explainer video, we would recommend:
defining your message and audience early on
planning where and how you will use your video
writing a great script and harnessing the power of storytelling
How to promote your explainer video
After all the hard work and with your explainer video fresh out the box, still with that new video smell, it’s time to share it and your message far and wide. There are several stages to this. There is the build-up and awareness stage, the big moment itself where you send your video into the world, and keeping your explainer in the minds of your audience post-launch.
1 - Trailers and build up
A great way to establish interest and excitement about your explainer video is to trail it on your social media channels. Creating a buzz about the release date through social posts, newsletters and notices on your website helps to get your audience onboard in advance and gives them all the information they need to be there for the launch.
2 - Premieres
There may be no red carpet, but that isn’t a reason not to have a premiere. Whether through the tools offered by platforms like YouTube or Facebook, or something you create, making the launch of your explainer into a moment allows you to engage your audience, harness the excitement developed in the build-up and start conversations around the video between viewers.
3 - YouTube
Speaking of YouTube, it is the second biggest search engine. Globally, we watch 1 billion hours a day, but that is no guarantee that if you upload your explainer video, it will automatically reach millions. Enter YouTube SEO, that helpful friend pointing everyone in the right direction.
From the file name you give your video to the title, video description and video tags, there are plenty of places to add keywords that will help your video rank well and get discovered. We would also recommend designing a thumbnail which makes your video stand out from competitors and makes your video attractive to viewers.
4 - Translation and accessibility
One of the best ways to promote an explainer video is to remove the limitations that prevent people getting the most from it. These limits may come in the form of accessibility or language.
From colour and font choices to transcripts, there are plenty of things you can do to make your video more accessible. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative has some great advice. When it comes to language and explainer video translation, there are several options. They range from adding subtitles through to creating alternative versions, all of which can help your message travel even further.
5 - Social media strategies
We’ve already mentioned social media, but there is more to it than just sharing your video a lot (but that definitely helps!). If the platforms support it, upload your video natively. This will help you get even more views by cutting out the middleman of a link. If your video is under 60 seconds, it will auto play. Even if your video is longer, trailers can be created that fit the under-60-second sweet spot.
As you share and promote your video on social media, there are three strategies that may help you reach viewers and new audiences.
Famous friends: sometimes, who you know can really help. If you have connections on social media who have plenty of reach, asking them to share your video can massively increase your audience. Even if you don’t know them, messaging or tagging people with plenty of reach can also create a share or maybe even a relationship.
Newsjacking: many waves cross the ocean of social media, and every now and then, the perfect one appears that your explainer video can catch. Events and news stories can provide you with a great way to share your video, providing extra context for your video or a hot topic that brings your message to a new audience.
Keep people talking: social media is a great way of getting people talking about your message. By replying to comments on your posts and shares of your explainer video, you can keep people talking - creating conversation and debate. Not only does this strengthen your bond with your audience, it increases the chances of others seeing and engaging with your message.
6 - Website homepages and landing pages
Like we said earlier, creating an explainer video is an achievement. It’s something to celebrate and be proud of. One great way of doing this is to put it, pride of place, on your website. It could sit on your homepage, greeting people as they arrive like a good host or sit on a landing page, engaging people in your idea or service.
7 - Live events/getting it used in live settings
Sometimes we are lucky to enough to work with our audiences and communities at live events and in educational settings. These present the perfect opportunity to bring explainer videos to people, by playing them to people in the room as part of something bigger.
Some of the whiteboard animations we’ve made have been used in university lectures and reached thousands of additional viewers over the lifetime of a course. The added benefit of showing people your explainer video at an event is that you can direct and hear even more of the conversation that your attendees have about the video and its message.
8 - Supporting content
When it comes to promoting your explainer video, you can take a creative approach. It could be creating images or gifs that are based on illustrations and scenes from yourvideo. You could take it a step further and bring your message into the physical world, creating newspapers or leaflets. These can use the visual style of the video, providing extra content like transcripts. Linked back to your video through tools like QR codes, these are an ideal way to bring your message into the places your audience spend their time.
Your explainer video deserves to reach the biggest audience possible. We hope these tips help you to release it in style and keep it in people’s minds.
We’ve been creating whiteboard animations since 2004, and have helped our clients use these promotion techniques to launch their videos. We love helping people share their messages, ideas and stories, and would love to talk to you about the ways whiteboard animation could help you. Book a discovery call today!
When done well, the ingredients in an explainer video combine to create powerful animations that inform, entertain, inspire and stay with viewers. In this post, we look at how they are made.