What is an explainer video?

An explainer video is a short video which aims to document, explain, or justify a process or a “fact.” Explainer videos are most often visual sequences of hand-drawn animations that tell a story around their subject. However, a simple “talking head” video can serve the said purpose just as well , and thus qualify and an explainer video. No matter the format, those videos can tell a good, even convincing story about your organization, and do so in mere 60 seconds.

So you want to make an explainer video?

Before you lose yourself in the production details and the technical requirements of intros and outros , fancy titles and cute animations, you must dedicate a considerable amount of time and effort to come up with an awesome video script. Yes: your script must be awesome! So let’s be serious here: don’t waste your time with anything else, because until you have an engaging script in hands, you’re going nowhere. Without the right groundwork, it dooms your explainer video project to fail. So what can you do to ensure that your video will be a killer rather than a snooze? A good script cannot start without proper preparation. You need to know beforehand: your market, your subject, and your call-to-action. Here are a few tips to get the script on track with your goals.

KISS — Keep it short and simple. Settle on your target audience and keep the focus active. If your viewers were captive in a physical location — a room or auditorium — you could get away with a few distractions without risking losing them. However, web users have limited attention spans and they will drop off your presentation after a few seconds. If you’re advertising a product, you need to make sure that the viewers learn what it is you are talking about and what is their interest in the matter. If the presentation is too long or too complicated, then you can kiss your viewer goodbye very early.

TEMPO — Establish the rythm n early and keep the pace going along with an even flow. The standard rule calls for between 125 and 150 words to fill each minute of a video. As you know, most native speakers use a faster pace than that under normal conditions. However, the role of a voiceover is to give the viewers enough space to breathe and to soak up your words. The rule of efficiency is: the more dense or complex your subject, the slower the pace. Words spoken too fast will overwhelm the viewer and he/she will either dop off quickly, or else will not grasp the most important parts of your presentation. PACK — Put as much information as possible in the first 30 seconds of your presentation. The bulk of your overall message needs to fit in that first half minute of your video. Your script should include one sentence that packs it all: the main message and the call to action. In other words, ask yourself: if I could only write one sentence for this video, what would it be? Write that sentence down and use it in the first 30 seconds. This will ensure that your viewer learn upfront 1) what they are targeted for and 2) what they will learn. DIRECT — The easiest way to speak to an audience is to use personal pronouns like “you” and “your”. Another method of activating these potential customers is showing them tips they treatment deeply about. When you will be pleased with your second-quarter earnings, what they worthy of is whether you might help them enhance their individual important thing. Don’t show your audiences what they find out. Focus relatively on what they have to know about you that may deliver them to trust you additionally to take the actions you will need them to consider. Don’t talk as a result of your audience or even more their heads. Socialize with them and they are going to be a lot more much more likely to provide you with an possibility to market them something. TONE — Find the right voice for the type of customer or viewer you’ll be talking to. Your verbal flavor is what will ultimately keep your viewer around long enough to get the message. If you work with personas, you already know what I’m referring to here. One trick is to start your presentation with a short sentence that describes both the why of the recording and takeways that the viewer can expect. Even if you don’t use that opening sentence, this simple step will serve to direct the tone of your voice during the recording. You may decide you will require talking head in a business office, a brief classroom style display screen, a light-hearted romp, a bold outdoorsy documentary or a colorfully animated exam. Should you have story-driven persons, imagine real individuals as mental place-holders. It’s different better to write realistic dialogue when you are authoring for a person whose patterns and mannerisms you know well. The tone you select for your training video recording will drive selecting establishing, narrator or cast, tempo, tempo and type of dialogue for the script.

STORYTELLER — Dry points , numbers, and definitions are ok about the classroom, but unless your video is obviously for students imprisoned in regards to a classroom, prevent lifeless articles. Instead, utilize the energy of the display screen showing your audience actual persons your company has helped or rewards your providers have distributed by yourself customers. Individuals create stories about themselves to greatly help them define who are going to. The better you inform reviews about yourself, far more likely your audiences will know what your firm gives and what it could do for them. Most explainer video recordingscripts present a good difficulty (Bob is tired ) , introduce a great choice (Bob drinks organic, sugar-no expenditure, calorie-free, nutrition-free energy drink), make clear how it operates ( OrganiBrew is all plant based … blah blah blah), and get people to action (get OrganiBrew found in your neighborhood gas station).

FUNNY — Humor is a great way to grab onto your viewers’ otherwise limited attention span. In fact, humor in one form or another is one of the easiest trick to get a point across. It‘s been in the books of scriptwriting since Gutenberg invented the printer.

s an outstanding tool for story-telling as long as the humor assists your communication. Make sure that your time and efforts at humor go well with seamlessly within the history you’re trying to discover, and understand that misplaced or badly timed humor may be distracting and may actually put off potential customers.

*Tip: You may help to make an attempt to add written humor inside your script, but sometimes it’s far better to introduce humor within the on-screen animation.

Last but not least — and this may sound quite contradictory — you should never rely on, let alone read from, your script when making or recording your presentation. In essence: leave your script home. Yes, I’m referring to the same script that you spend hours, maybe days on. In order to engage with your audience, you need to come off as natural and genuine. Anyone caught reading from a script does not qualify. Remember that us, humans, are incredibly, and genuinely, gifted at the fine art of spotting cheaters. You’re fooling yourself if you think you can fool us.