Engaging and exciting animated videos have become a powerful marketing tool, growing in popularity year on year. Animated content was once limited to those with a six-figure production budget. However, with today’s technology, animation has become within reach of the budgets of smaller businesses.
Animation can be done in a variety of ways, including Motion Graphics (containing text and audio), 2D & 3D, and Stop Motion. It can be seamlessly incorporated into your marketing strategy, with possibilities ranging from adding it to your website, to including a short animation in an email campaign.
1. Videos boost engagement and search engine positions
Humans are visually-orientated creatures. We tend to prefer to watch a video about a product than to read an article about it. Marketers can use this knowledge to their advantage and create animations and videos to engage and captivate users.
Video content is a great way to stand out amongst the flood of written information on websites. Because users enjoy it, they stay longer on pages to watch it, and may even share it – massively increasing dwell time, making it beneficial for SEO. A website is 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google if it includes video. (biteable)
2. Animation can be more cost-effective
Although videos, in general, are beneficial to any digital marketing strategy, animation comes out on top for many reasons. Animation is more accessible for people with a lower budget - when you shoot a live-action video, there can be an extensive list of associated expenses (such as actors, crew, makeup artists, etc). If you want to adapt your video content to appeal to a different audience or change your messaging or visuals, animation can be more cost-effective to edit rather than reshoot an entire video.
Throughout the pandemic, we have seen engaging animation help stop the production of branded content from drying up. Animated content can also be produced faster than live-action videos.
3. Animation entertains and educates
We often associate this type of video with the cartoons of childhood. Although we may have outgrown them, we still love to engage with stories through moving imagery. By thoroughly researching your target audience, you can identify issues and provide solutions through engaging narrative to empathise and resonate. As a result, engagement and brand awareness are boosted.
Animated explainer videos are also an effective medium to convey a simple marketing message or cost-effectively explain complex concepts. They feel more educational and less like a sales pitch, so viewers often don’t realise they are being marketed to. Explainer videos can be used just about anywhere – on your website, email marketing, and on social media channels. According to recent statistics, animation techniques can increase business activity by 40%.
4. With animation, creativity has no limits
When shooting live videos, you are limited to what you can realistically get shots of. Whereas with animation, your creativity can run wild and you can bring any concept to life. They can be made humorous, heart-warming, or educational; allowing businesses to create video content that is extremely effective in engaging specific audiences.
Animation can be made in any style, meaning brand colours and fonts can easily be incorporated. This helps build your unique brand identity, and your finished video can be used on a variety of platforms, shared on social media, integrated into your website, and even used offline – such as being played at exhibition stands.
Although animation seems like an obvious choice, some video content is best done live, such as client testimonials and interviews.
A well-thought-out marketing strategy will have a good mix of both. Once you have found an animation style that is right for you, it’s very easy to repurpose, recut, and reuse content across other platforms.
Animation should be made unique to your brand for the best results. Get in touch with our Sheffield video production team to discuss how we could bring your ideas to life with social media video production.
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Animated videos are an incredible tool that your business can harness to promote and increase brand awareness. They can be used to pitch or promote your business, launch new products, answer general FAQs, or explain and simplify complex information surrounding your products/services.
