What is an Explainer Video?

What is Explainer Video

The answer is in the name. An Explainer video explains something. But at what point is this necessary or valuable?

Businesses want to sell their product or service. But what makes your product more valuable than somebody else’s? What’s your process like? How does someone use your product. That’s where Explainer videos come in. They take abstract, complex or boring ideas and make them easier to understand.

MSTK 3000 and Explainer Videos

To get an idea what an Explainer video is, it’s important to note that they’ve been around almost as long as video itself has. Remember those animated shorts you were shown in school that taught health or biology? In essence, that’s an Explainer video. However, a word of caution comes from the popularity of TV show Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The show often took jabs at those videos for their dated content and poor animation.

While a majority of them were live action shorts, the premise is the same, as is the warning. Explain your concept, but be careful of quality.

Since an Explainer is usually animated, be careful to not produce a PowerPoint. By that I mean, PowerPoints are almost always boring or cheesy. Don’t be boring, and only be cheesy if you intend to be comical.

Does an Explainer Have to be Animated?

Not necessarily. However, explainers that use animation to some degree are able to breakdown information in a more entertaining way. Not to mention that our brains love video for retention and learning. There are also conversion and marketing benefits as well.

Make Your Own Explainer Video

Depending how involved you want to get involved in the process, you can make your own Explainer video. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Concept to explain
• Script and/or storyboards
• Royalty free background music track
• Voiceover track or oncscreen talent
• Video editing software to create the Explainer

 

When to Use an Explainer Video

By no means an exhaustive list, but here are some examples for an Explainer:

• Introduce a service from your business
• Explain a complex process of your business
• Teach clients how to use a feature of your app
• Inform customers why they should buy
• Explain the needs your product fills
• Call to action
• Increase sales of a product
• Reveal new products
• Introduce yourself
• Introduce your company
• Explain your mission statement
• Internal training
  • Staff on boarding
  • Sexual harassment training
  • Safety training
• Retirement planning

And the list goes on and on, really.

Creating Your Own Explainer

Well, how do you create an explainer video if you’re a skilled video editor? One idea is to contact a video editor. But, if you’re a more DIY kind of person, there are great tools out there like RawShorts or Vyond (formerly GoAnimate) that offered paid online softwares that you can use to create Explainers.

There is something to be said about working with a professional, but, on the other hand, cost is relative to what you value. If you value a hands on approach, give those two a try. Or, have a video editor user those softwares for you and then you can edit them in the future if there are changes down the line.