We all know by now that video marketing is one of the best ways to engage with existing and prospective audiences. It’s the online medium that most people want and, crucially, that most people pay attention to, with 62% of people consuming video thoroughly instead of just skimming it.
And it’s not difficult to see why. After all, our brains spent over 25,000 years getting used to communicating via visuals before the pesky written word came along. As a result, we’re hard-wired to love pictures, diagrams and video, which have the effect of simplifying complicated subjects.
A writer, for example, might describe the Eiffel Tower as a wrought-iron latticed 324m-tall tapering pyramidal geometric shape propped up by a half-circle base situated at each one of its four corners.
Whereas an illustrator might describe it as:
Which means whenever you need to get across a message in a simple way that stands out in a scrolling feed, you need more than just text – imagery, and video in particular, needs to play a key part in your content strategy.
And just in case you’re still unsure, check these stats out:
55% of people watch online videos every day.
65% of viewers watch more than three-quarters of a video.
Utilising video on a landing page can increase conversion by 80%.
But why choose animated video marketing?
Just as video helps cut through the wall of text you see when scrolling through your social feed or a blog post, animated video offers stand-out against text and standard talking head videos. Bold colours, bright typography and the more abstract style that animated video affords helps cuts through the noise and attract that oh-so-important screen tap.
Turning the complex into the comprehensible
As mentioned earlier, animation has the benefit of conveying complex or abstract themes in simple, understandable ways. After all, with animation your characters can fly, become invisible, go back in time, jump from country to country in seconds. Imagine having to shoot that as a normal video – the budget would rival that of a Hollywood blockbuster. And, as text, it becomes a novel, not a blog post.
Take the Guardian’s exemplary explanation of one of the trickiest subjects to rear its head in years: Bitcoin.
Whilst the excellent script keeps things nice and concise, the addition of simplistic animation reinforces the message and makes a tricky topic seem suddenly straightforward.
The ingenious folk at TED-Ed take things a step further. Their entire YouTube channel uses beautiful, engaging animation to help explain the key questions of the day, such as why are sloths so slow? and could the earth be swallowed by a black hole?
Fun, fast and budget-friendly
Animations make can make almost any topic more entertaining. Whether it’s through the power of nostalgia that lets us relive our childhoods, or through admiring the sheer craft and energy that animations bring to the table, animated video marketing is a sure way to grab attention in a way that other content can’t.
Even better, animated videos can be produced more quickly and cheaply than their real-life counterparts. Non-animated video can cost thousands of pounds and involve a lot of time of a lot of people: a cast, scriptwriters, videographers, editors and so on.
Animated video marketing, on the other hand, can be done with just one or two people’s input and on a much smaller budget, meaning you can produce more of them over a quicker timeframe.
Time to get animated
With its ability to make you stand out from the content crowd, turn any topic trend-worthy and make complex subjects straightforward, animated video marketing is a must for any marketer’s armoury.
If you want to dip your toe into the animated pool, try out these free animation makers and see how you get on. Or, if you want our videographers, illustrators and scriptwriters to put an incredible animated video together for you, you know where to find us.