1. Your product or service requires explanation
Say you develop a feature-rich product with many uses. Or perhaps a service whose benefits are not immediately clear. Or maybe your target audience can’t really visualize themselves using your tool.
Enter explainer videos. Explainer videos take all the guesswork out of your product or service.
With an online video your website visitors no longer have to wonder if your product is the right fit for them, how it works or what benefits it affords. Everything is clearly laid out in an explanation video so your prospects can see, hear and understand your offer without misunderstandings or overlooking important information, like this video for BaseCase:
2. Your website visitors need to quickly understand what you do
Online visitors are impatient. You have just seconds to grab their attention and explain what you do without them losing interest and clicking away.
Explainer videos are like the online version of your product’s elevator pitch. They convey the most important information in a concise, interesting way so that your web visitors immediately know what you are offering and how it relates to them.
When you save the time of your visitors, they are likely to reward you with their attention and appreciation, and often their business and loyalty. Best of all, if they love what you present and how you present it, they’ll want to share it with their co-workers and friends.
3. You want your site visitors to remember and recall your product
With so much online information competing for our attention, the only way for website visitors to remember who you are is by engaging them with memorable content. Explainer videos use a cross-section of audio, music, visuals, characters, humor, emotions, sound effects, animation and more to engage viewers and create a memorable viewing experience.
According to a study by Wharton Research Center: “An average person retains just 10% of what he hears, but 50% of what he sees.” [Click to tweet]
4. You want to attain higher search rankings
Videos are often the top search results in a blended search page and are up to 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results.
Search engines love fresh and engaging content because it’s likely to be consumed, shared and liked. And video often tops the content list due to its social and engaging nature.
According to Spork Marketing and several other researchers, websites with videos rank higher in Google universal searches.
5. You want better conversions from people visiting your site
One of the most important website metrics you can measure is your conversion rate, or how many visitors are completing a desired action, like purchasing a product, signing up for a newsletter, or requesting more information.
According to Video Rascal, 85% of your site’s visitors are more likely to buy a product once they’ve seen its explainer video. Crazy Egg claims that their online video works so well, it drives “an extra $21,000 a month in new income”!
That means online videos are persuading and influencing more people to make purchase decisions. They typically help answer questions and remove doubts from a person’s mind, leading to greater confidence in the product and a greater likelihood to convert.
6. You want to diversify and add video as a marketing channel to further your reach and visibility
Adding video to your marketing arsenal gives you greater reach and visibility. You can now attract customers who are more comfortable watching a quick video rather than reading through a long features list or even a blog. Plus it’s fun to watch!
Video allows you to appeal to a broader demographic and extend the reach of your marketing efforts. That’s probably why 76% of marketers plan to add video to their site!
7. You want more website traffic
Quality explainer videos attract viewers. In addition to the organic search benefits, viewers share the videos they like and talk about them. Sharing generates interest which drives traffic.
If your aim is to bring in more traffic to your website, then an explainer video that gets people talking could be your route!
This is exactly what the dropbox video and the dollar shave video did for their respective websites.
8. You want to showcase and amplify your brand personality
An explainer video is often the missing link in forming that human connection with your customers. There are people on both ends of a transaction, and even though technology is the enabler, everyone needs to hear a human voice, or see an actual person using a product to be able to relate to it.
With online video, your brand can choose to approach customers the same way you would if you met them physically – a warm handshake, eye contact, a genuine smile – all these emotions can, to some extent, be conveyed via a live action explainer video.
9. You want to gain exposure in social media
Online videos, by definition, encourage sharing. And since social media is the new SEO, it’s important to get your video seen by as many people as possible.
Social media sharing adds social proof to your video. That means if people see that their friends like your video, it can bolster confidence in your product, brand or both.
Social proof – the amount of likes, shares, tweets, votes, etc – that your video gets is a wonderful way to spread your video organically.
10. You don’t want to be boring!
Even the most boring industries, can liven up their product offer with a creative corporate video production. Just check out how Mint uses an explainer video to make personal finance interesting and easy.
No matter which industry you’re in, chances are good that an online video will add that bit of spunk to your homepage, attract visitors and engage them – all in fewer than 2 minutes! Not bad for a wee bit of video, eh?