The Future of Marketing: Explainer Videos That Convert

Have you heard of Think With Google website? Now that the leading search engine has bought YouTube for $1.65 billion its playbook about creating the excellent video content has even bigger implications.

This playbook identifies three kinds of content: Hero, Help and Hub that target different marketing segments and are not appropriate in all occasions. If you learn how to distinguish these content categories, your explainer video has the better strategy to become viral.

Help content is all about tutorials that answer the most popular search queries in your content domain.

Once you want to attract a one-time viewer to return to your website you should provide hub content. This scheduled, episodic content gives a habitual reason for a viewer to subscribe to your channel and to return on an ongoing basis.

Then, on really special occasions, for announcements in your business you may go for hero content such as viral videos, a Google+ Hangout with influencers or a cross-promotion on YouTube. Sometimes the hero content happens simultaneously with the mass-scale events, holidays or breaking news.

Now that you know how to benefit from this content, let's look at the skeleton of your explainer video to which you may add muscles later on. Believe it or not, all this time you might have needed a better strategy: you should have started with the script, not the video itself.

According to Wistia's analytics back in 2012, your videos are more likely not to be skipped in case they are shorter. 75% of the audience watches the video which is under one minute, while if the video is longer than 5 minutes only 55% of the audience remains engaged.

I could not resist but recommending this ultimate infographic of Neil Patel about creating the killer explainer videos. As you can see the rules of the game are quite simple:

1) The video should explain clearly the problem you are solving and the benefits for your consumer.

150 words can be pronounced in 1 minute and this is why you do not want to start filming until you have the excellent script. Pitch your message, as if you are riding on the elevator with VCs and inform your consumers with enthusiasm and respect.

2) The voiceover in your video should amplify the message of your brand.

The more professionally you want to sound, the more likely you are to hire the experienced and reliable actor. You better splurge more on this video aspect than end up with disengaging content because the voice of your video is dull.

3) The video making agency you choose should really deliver.

The website Videobrewery has identified 23 questions for choosing a video partner and the list entails the queries about the company, logistics, script and design capabilities, and rights & ownership.

How video making agencies present themselves on the web is a strong indicator of how they will deliver to their clients, so the portfolio of previous work, the references of the project team and the blog section can help you make an informed choice as in the case of the Toronto-based company Think Video.

4) Finally, test your video and make your content regular.

The content you create several months ago is not set in stone and you need to tweak it continually in order to keep getting the conversion. If you are really committed to the innovation, you will change and upgrade your product so as a result you will need to do A/B testing on this occasion as well.

Scale what you are doing with the right strategy, ask around for the video-making agency that has excellent portfolio, referrals and pricing and publish your content regularly as you bear in mind the Hero-Hub-Help pyramid from the beginning of the text.

Do you feel determined to bring your business to a next level, but you are uncertain how to start? To book a marketing consulting session with Milena Milicevic, reach her out at LinkedIn.

Photo credits: Reelseo, Think with Google, Wistia.