6 Tips to Making Animated Marketing Videos

Animated videos are becoming ever more popular as a marketing tool, and there is nothing surprising about it – after all, vision is our dominant sense, valued more than all others. Simple, appealing and nostalgic, animation is a particularly endearing visual art form for many people, so much so that there are a few different types of animated marketing videos that are commonly used today, including whiteboard, 3D, 2D and motion graphics.

However, as anybody who tried to promote a business with animated video will tell you, it is not enough to create a random animation and hope for the best. Just like any other tool, animated videos require a careful approach and understanding of how to use them. Even a great video won’t get results if you don’t know how to promote it. So what should you do? Let’s find out:

1. Your promotional video needs promotion, too
2. Don’t limit yourself to a single type of video
3. Use animation to promote your brand development
4. Create series of videos
5. Don’t forget the call to action
6. Use animated gifs in social posts

1. Your promotional video needs promotion, too

These days, it’s not enough to create top-notch content, and hope that people will discover it organically. In reality, once you’ve created a video, you must make it an active part of your overall marketing approach and promote it across a variety of channels. Here are some of the most popular channels for animated video distribution:

• Your landing page: Place the video above the fold, so the visitor sees it immediately on opening your website.
• Your blog: Videos embedded in blog posts don’t just attract more attention than text-only posts; they also improve your Google ranking.
• Paid ads: These have an added benefit of bringing immediate results, which means that you can test a new video before making it a part of your organic strategy.
• Social media: These are ideal for promoting a viral or entertaining video (in other words, something you hope is interesting enough for people to share). Social media will help generate word of mouth and bring more visitors to your site.
• Email marketing messages: Video in emails increases click-through rate by as much as 3x and merely listing the word “video” in the subject line increases the open rate by up to 13 percent.
• Native ads: Using native video on platforms like Outbrain gets consistently high views and completions, as they are shown to web users when they are in a “discovery” state of mind.

2. Don’t limit yourself to a single type of video

Marketing animation is often associated with explainer videos – these are usually short (no more than 1.5-2 minute long) clips explaining something to the viewer, such as the service offered by your company, or how to use a new product. However, there is no need to limit yourself – animation has many other applications. For example, videos that entertain and amuse get shared by viewers, spreading the word of your brand and motivating other people to take a look at your company. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Create a range of videos for your various marketing goals.

3. Use animation to promote your brand development

Animated videos are probably the best way to organically integrate your business’ logo, color scheme, and brand images into marketing materials. Unlike a live-action video, animation can be created with just a handful of colors (and you should make sure your brand colors become a recurring theme in your videos), and your logo can be animated and become an integral part of your videos rather than something that is shown for a couple of seconds at the beginning or end. Incorporating branding in your animation videos will help you create a recognizable look and feel that will strengthen your brand image over time.

4. Create series of videos

Another advantage of animated videos is that they are relatively cheap to produce. Hiring a professional team to create an animated video is much more affordable than the production cost of a live-action video of the same length, and with the right tools, you can even create a decent looking animation yourself. This means you can produce them faster, and you can possibly also afford to churn out a series of videos united by a common theme. This is an opportunity to engage viewers longer than with standalone videos.

5. Don’t forget the call to action

The primary goal behind your animated marketing video – whether it is an explainer, image or entertaining video – is to generate leads, or create brand awareness, or any other KPI. So make sure all your animated videos include a clear call to action placed a little bit before the end of the video – many people don’t watch online videos all the way to the end.

6. Use animated gifs in social posts

Animated gifs are incredibly popular on social media – even if the user just skims over the rest of the feed, they will likely hover over an animated gif just to see what it does. Make use of this natural curiosity, and create unique short videos to use as gifs. Make them original, funny and surprising – this will definitely improve their effectiveness.

As you can see, there is much more to using animated videos in marketing than simply hiring someone to create one for you. Just like any other content type, animated videos require clever, careful handling – but if you master them, you will significantly benefit from adding animated videos to your marketing mix.