How To Create An Explainer Video

What is an explainer video?

Let’s start at the beginning, what actually is an explainer video. Well, You’ve probably seen them around the world of business where they do exactly what their name implies.

They help to explain what a business actually does. They’re typically short and engaging videos that draw in your audience long enough for you to tell them about your business, idea, product, service, etc. Explainer videos condense your highly complex business ideas into a short highly engaging explanation, that even a stranger can understand. Even if they have no knowledge of or prior experience with your business. In short, after about a minute or two, somebody should be able to go from not knowing your business even existed to being able to explain the basic concepts to somebody else.

Now, on the surface, this might seem like just another advertisement right? I mean put out a video to get more people to buy your product or service. The major difference between explainer videos and traditional advertising is that explainer videos are much more focused on delivering information and understanding. It’s less about selling the idea of the coolness factor or sex appeal and more about solving a problem that your viewers might be experiencing on a day-to-day basis.

Now, you can probably still see how there would still be a bunch of overlap between traditional advertising and explainer videos, but we’ll dive into some of the hallmarks of what actually makes a really great explainer video and hopefully, you’ll see some more of the differences crop up. So what actually makes a great explainer video.

What makes a great explainer video

A great explainer video is short.

Your audience has a short attention span and if they don’t already care about your business, it’s your job to make them care fast.

Good explainer videos should definitely be under 3 minutes, best to be under two and if you can be under 90 seconds you’ll find yourself in a great place.

Good explainer videos are also focused and efficient. You’ve got a lot of information and not a lot of time to explain it. So. let’s strip everything down to the core essentials. A great explainer video should:

• Be under 90 seconds

• Should address and speak to the specific audience.

• The message should be clear.

• Focus on benefits not features.

• Have a friendly and conversational tone

• The style should be custom

• Have a strong call to action!

How to create an explainer video

This process will help you to more clearly articulate your message because it forces to really question and figure out what is the essential information that I need to give and what can viewers more or less do without. It’s important to remember that in an explainer video you’re not telling your audience about every detail around your business, but just what they need to know upon their first time hearing. This also has the added side benefit of honing in your core audience. By cutting down your information to the core essentials you’re gonna be more clearly and quickly conveying your audience whether or not they can actually benefit from your business, product or services. Once they feel like you’re speaking directly to their needs the more likely you’ll have them hooked for the rest of the video.

Which Explainer Video Style Works Best?

Great explainer videos also tend to be animated.

Now, this one actually isn’t a requirement. You can actually have a really great explainer video that’s animated, live-action or even a mixture of both. You can probably think of some really effective explainer videos that were done by a live-action. However, I don’t know about you but the ones that come to my mind first are usually the ones that capitalized on not eating a huge production value. That’s actually one of the reasons why a lot of people will choose animation or motion graphics as the route that they go down for their explainer video. It cuts down on cost, which is great. It also allows you to isolate key elements, so that your audience isn’t distracted by things like background elements or things you weren’t planning to be in the frame. When you animate everything, literally, nothing is in the frame that you didn’t specifically choose to be there, further zoning in on your audience’s attention.

Animation and motion graphics also tend to be more eye-catching and engaging. Characters and objects can be more brightly colored and can flip in and out of frame, and morph into the next section in a way that traditional filmmaking would have really hard time trying to replicate.

And finally, it’s also usually a lot less complicated and expensive to make changes and edits on the fly. Changing up a character or environments color to keep branding consistency is way easier to do here than in a live-action scenario.

Now, that choice is got to be automatically better or worse for your video in specific. But it’s important to have all the information in hand about why so many people actually choose to go down the animated route. But regardless of which choice you make, your video is definitely gonna need to be narrated.

What to consider when creating a voice over

Things in your video will be moving quickly and if you’re using animation or motion graphics you’re probably not gonna be taking the time to line up mouth movements with dialogue. Instead, it’s highly efficient and effective to have somebody walk your viewers through the different stages of your video.

There’s a lot of information that you’re gonna have to get through. So having a warm, friendly, yet authoritative voice is key to making sure that your audience has an enjoyable experience taking in your information. This also tends to be an area where more people are willing to slack off or not pay full price. But we urge you, please do not skimp or go second-rate on the voice of your video, it’s incredibly important.

Make them move and take action

And finally, explainer videos tend to be upbeat. Your explainer video may be the very first exposure that your audience has to your brand or business and if so, your explainer video is going to color their impression of your business. So, that’s why so many people choose their explainer videos to have an upbeat and energetic sort of vibe.

How To Write The Script

Ok, so that’s the setup, but now you’re actually ready to sit down and write a script that you’re gonna follow. So where do you start? Well, your situation is probably unique and there’s no one-size-fits-all for everybody’s explainer video but what I want to do is share with you guys an outline that you can follow if you want just somewhere to start:

Start with a promise — Your video will be targeting a certain group of people based off of whether or not they’re likely to want or need what your business has to offer, so the promise really establishes right off the bat whether or not they should even continue watching the video in the first place.

Next up — Display a problem. Your business provides a solution but you need actually to contrast what your business provides with the hole that it’s actually filling to begin with. By presenting the problem first, you’re actually making your business the savior of that situation. And if you’re talking with people who are a part of the premise that you initially laid out you’re gonna be exponentially more likely to have them hooked on how you’re gonna solve that situation.

Here’s where you enter your business or idea.

Explainer Video Structure

• Who are you. This is a chance for you to give multiple exposures of your brand to your audience. Show your logo, have your narrator say the name out loud, get your brand clearly ingrained in the mind of your audience. This way, when you start to go over the information about the solution your business is providing, your viewers actually associate that positive solution with your brand.
• Solution. So, now how you actually help out with this situation. This is just a really quick pre summary of what your business actually does. You’re gonna be getting into a lot of nitty-gritty details, so by giving your audience a little bit of a preparation for the kind of information they’re about to receive, you’re gonna be helping a lot with their comprehension. This doesn’t even have to be a very long section.
• Now we get into the main section — how does it work. This is usually the longest section and where your meat and potatoes really sit. You’ve just gone over your pre explanation to prepare your audience, and now you can actually dive into what you actually do. As you’re writing this out, make sure that you strip everything down to its core elements and feel free to bring in that idea of the hole that your business is actually filling. Usually saving things like time, energy, or money, or some combination of all three is pretty typical and then once you’re done all that review what you shared:
• This is where you give one last quick summary to everything that you provided. You’ve taken your complex business idea and condensed it into about two minutes of dialogue. Now by reviewing it for the last 10 seconds or so of your video you’re gonna be helping to make sure that when they leave they’re gonna be taking home just the key points. And when they hear everything a second time really quickly they’re gonna also have context for everything that they heard to begin with, helping with overall comprehension.

Going back a little bit you probably noticed that there was an information sandwich. You gave your core information about what your business actually was but before and after it you had condensed versions of the same information. At the beginning you had a little bit of a preparatory statement before you launched into your business and then at the end you had a bit of a 10-second summary. If you make sure to do this, while also stripping down your basic information to the core essentials, you’ll make sure that your audience has absolutely no trouble following along with your video.

• And finally, the last piece that no explainer video should be without — show and say your business name one last time. What’s the point of your audience knowing about all the great things your business actually does if they can’t remember which business it was actually for. This is why it’s essential to make sure at the end of your video to show and say your business name one last time. Show your logo, have your narrator say it out loud, make sure that you get that absolutely locked into the head of your audience.

Final Words

After all this information I hope that you feel more confident to what an explainer video actually is and might actually be able to create one of your own.