Are you staring at your content schedule again? Wondering how to combat those low engagement rates without shooting up the content creation budget? Of course, you can go back to creating videos again since the audience loves videos, but that is not a sustainable model in itself. At Least for now for the brand.
So what do you do? How do you keep your audience engaged when the motion graphics budget seems to have its own limitations?
Well, video production is expensive and time-consuming. But thankfully video design is not. Yes, we are talking about animated videos.
By including animated videos in your marketing plan, you can deliver a healthy dose of motion graphics to your audience and on a budget.
But do animated videos really work in place for a produced video?
With changing times, video is becoming indispensable across content marketing channels. Right from landing pages, SEO, newsletters, and advertisements, this format has a strong foothold.
Now, it is unreasonable to expect a brand to constantly expand its budget and continuously produce videos for all these channels. Yes, some definitely need a produced video but in most cases, animated videos come in pretty handy.
And animated videos are just a proxy standing in until you can get a bigger video marketing budget.
When planned and executed with the right vision, animated videos can generate strong views across all channels. Animation brings in perfection, innovative design, and a visual break from all the other webinars or interview-esque videos the industry seems to be indulging in.
Also, content with personality sells faster than content without. And not everyone is comfortable in front of a camera so why let your content suffer?
Add a little personality, quirk, and emotion to your content with colorful and precisely-made animated videos.
Now that animated videos seem to be the savior for businesses looking to rake in the benefits of video marketing without spending a bomb, let us see how to make the most of them.
Design is obviously a significant part of an animated video, so if you want to truly connect with your audience, here are a few things to look out for :
Videos have a higher reach and a higher recall value as well. So it is the perfect medium that a business can use to spread brand awareness and build a stronger visual identity amongst its customers. In produced videos, this means staging the shoot with props and settings that are in line with your brand’s visual identity.
It is even easier with animated videos. Include the brand colors, fonts, symbols, and logos throughout the video to register it with your audience.
In an animated video that tells a story, a protagonist is usually the norm. How you design this protagonist and how you represent your customers can have a lasting impact on your brand’s perception in the industry. The best way to connect with your audience and stand for your values is to represent your customers in the truest form possible.
Also, inclusivity and diversity are values that the Gen Z and Millennial audience base constantly look for in a brand nowadays. So this is your chance to show your customers that they are seen and you value them.
Just like videos, animation also has design styles. You can take cues from cartoons, pop culture, anime, retro themes, minimalist themes, and so on. The right design style not just creates an aesthetic video but pops up your message including the subtext brilliantly.
The right design style in an animated video can make your audience stop, notice, and engage with your brand even if they did not know you before. So understand your buyer persona and choose a style that best reflects your brand and connects with your target audience.
Last but not definitely not the least, your animated videos have to play well on mobile phones. Mobile accounts for the highest email marketing open rates, social media video views, and website traffic worldwide currently. So no matter what the placement for the video is, mobile phones are in the play.
So, optimize the video sizes and alignment so that your customers tuning from their mobile phones do not experience any drop in quality.
Obviously, not everything can be animated but some video ideas truly shine in the animated video form. So let us take a beat to explore what video ideas your brand needs to completely shine in your content marketing efforts.
Small beginnings always work well. So before you set out to create animated videos and start working with a designer, consider animating your branding elements first. This way you can develop a signature animation that becomes a significant part of your brand’s visual identity and builds recall as well.
Some elements that every business should consider animating include :
Animated branding elements must be :
Educational content has helped brands cross barriers in their communication with their customers regarding their products, services, and branding origins to name a few. But producing animated videos is a challenging, time-consuming, and expensive process. So what do you do when you have to create a high volume of explainer videos with the smallest turnaround time possible?
You turn to animated explainer videos. This video style ensures that the :
Storytelling is at the heart of every brand’s successful marketing attempt. It is what connects you to your audience. And that is also a very powerful medium to communicate the “Why” behind your brand to your customers.
Brand story videos are some of the hardest to produce and can be pretty dry from a consumer’s point of view as well. It is usually in an interview or linear format without much of a visual relief.
But all of that changes when you adopt animation as a medium for your brand story videos. The audience can now fully grasp the abstract concepts that you are describing because they have a visual aid to explain the ideas to them. They can see their problems, the solutions, and their circumstances come alive on the screen.
Just like we see in the animated storytelling video by Spotify.
If you are a product-based company, then video marketing is high on your To-do list. Videos have a higher reach, better engagement rates, and keep the audience hooked long enough to get the message across. But there are only so many ways to make the product video look fresh without going towards the animation route.
Animated product videos can :
All good reasons to get on it right away.
Running a D2C or B2B business online is a hard job. It becomes even harder when your customers’ choice of content keeps changing every month and fluctuates according to whatever the new trend is.
Most of these trends are unsuitable for a brand to follow, but follow them nonetheless to achieve the metrics they need for their business.
One such trend that has lasted a long time in the video marketing industry is the soothing videos trend. Videos that are naturally satisfying to watch have some of the highest views on platforms like YouTube and Instagram.
Fortunately, brands have been creating some amazing soothing videos with their products using animation and the trend works here too.
Animated soothing videos help you tap into a growing trend while growing brand and product awareness as well.
Win-win, if you ask us!
As you can see you can create several types of animated videos to cater to the needs of customers in different stages of their buyer journey. And the best part is that fine-tuning an animated video to suit your brand’s personality is pretty easy. Yes, animated videos are every brand’s cup of tea. They can give you a boost up the video marketing ladder without costing a bomb. And customers love them too. Don’t know where to start? Work with a professional video design team or a video subscription where you get unlimited revisions.
