Animate to Communicate: Use Online Videos to Engage Customers, Employees

Admit it: you watched a video online today. Maybe more than one. And whether it was a slick piece of advertising or just a shaky clip of a kitten encountering its first plastic lizard, that online video more than likely had your full and undivided attention.

Well, you’re not alone. Your customers and employees love videos, too. And the sooner you can harness this powerful tool, the greater the advantage to your business.

“If you send out a presentation that’s just slides, people may read it if you're lucky or their job depends on it,” says Konstantinos Papakonstantinou, founder of Board Studios, a boutique animation production house that specializes in budget-friendly whiteboard and motion graphics animations and video promotion strategies. “Even if they do, they’ll grow bored quickly, and the content of those slides will soon be forgotten.”

With video, your message stands a far better chance of being heard, and, more important, being understood and remembered. “People are much more interested and engaged compared to reading bullet points,” says Papakonstantinou. “And they tend to digest the presented information much better.”

Allow Video to Explain

The average Internet user now watches over 200 videos each month. It's hardly surprising, then, that nearly 70 percent of online marketing campaigns now incorporate video. These campaigns recognize the great potential that video holds for engaging customers and building brand awareness. After all, sharing a clip through social media is simpler and more fun than sharing a text-heavy document.

Conversion rates are better, too. 4 out of 10 shoppers will visit a store, online or in person, as a direct result of watching a promotional clip. And when it comes to “explainer videos” -- 30- to 90-second videos offering an overview of services and products, typically located on a company’s homepage -- up to 85 percent of viewers say they are more likely to make a purchase or establish contact after watching.

Quality matters, however. Tempting though it may be to dig out your old camcorder and roam around the office filming colleagues at their desks, a poor quality explainer video can do far more harm than good. This is especially true when it comes to animation, which is rapidly becoming the go-to format.

Virgin Atlantic made headlines earlier this year when it unveiled its stylish and amusing new animated in-flight safety video. The airline recognized what many businesses are learning: that sophisticated animation can capture the attention of an audience like no other kind of video. Indeed, according to Unbounce, animated explainers increase conversion rates by 20 percent. And these videos don't have to break the bank. A recent study conducted by Board Studios on "What Makes a Video Effective" showed that explainer videos that cost less than $5K actually performed better on key advertising metrics than much more expensive videos.

Animate Your Employees

Animated videos can also help you engage more effectively with your employees. Poor communication is the foremost complaint among dissatisfied workers, and any successful business must establish and maintain a positive vibe in-house. Employees who feel involved and well informed are far more likely to embrace change, and are far less likely to gripe and slack off.

Videos can be used to inform, educate, and train; express plans for the future; or simply congratulate the team on a job well done. Presentations of all kinds can be made a lot more engaging and effective with the inclusion of animation.

And employees themselves may find these kinds of videos useful in communicating ideas to their bosses. Papakonstantinou cites one such case:

“A marketing director was pitching a new project idea to senior management. After multiple half- and one-hour long meetings involving standard 30 to 50 slide presentations, confusion still prevailed and there was no buy-in.”

That was when he turned to Board Studios for help.

“After he shared the video with C-level executives, he called us up to thank us for catapulting his project to the top of the organization's to-do list!”

So whether you run your own business or not, if effective communication is your goal, it’s time to get animated about animation.