Creating animated marketing videos is a fun way to promote your business or product. They can be designed to emphasize how great you are, or what benefits you have for customers, or even just an interesting story.
Marketing video has become one of the most effective tools in advertising. It’s cheap to make compared to other forms of media, and it’s almost impossible to skip watching one once it’s done.
Businesses with limited resources can create beautiful videos that are cost-effective. This is perfect if you’re in no rush to start investing in more expensive media like TV ads or billboards.
There are many free software programs and services that allow you to easily edit and produce engaging videos.
Produce a script
After you have your main character, setting, and message, it’s time to write your screenplay!
While creating an animated video is not writing a book, there are some similarities in how scripts are written. Like regular stories, the first thing writers do is create a plot or narrative structure.
The plot of an anime movie is typically made up of three parts: situation, conflict, and resolution. The situation can be anything from telling a story about a trip down the beach to describing something like “I wanted to tell you something”. A conflict comes next, usually involving two opposing ideas that need to come together to produce a result that is greater than both individual parts. And finally, the resolution brings everything together into one clear picture and idea.
This article will go more in depth with those three points but for now just know that they exist and that you should use them when brainstorming ideas for your marketing video.
Make a storyboard
Now that you have your main characters, setting, and mood covered, it’s time to make your video narrative!
The first step in creating an animated marketing video (AMA) is to create a storyline or narrative. This is what makes your movie “watchable” and keeps the viewer interested.
Your narrative should be a concise, logical flow of events that are connected by a common theme. The event may be telling someone about your product/service, discussing benefits, asking for a call, etc.
It’s important to bear in mind when writing your narrative that your audience does not know you yet. Use basic conversational tone and business language to convey your message effectively.
Once your narrative has a strong start, middle, and end, then it can be broken down into scenes. A scene is defined as one moment in time within your narrative where something significant happens.
A good rule of thumb is to use one scene per page of the article we were reading before this lesson. With our narrative being a marketing video, there will probably be around a minute and a half per scene.
That equals two pages at most per video! We recommend using the second hand as a guide to find the right length for each scene. There is no hard and fast number of seconds needed to create a effect, but we suggest keeping them under a minute and 30 seconds if possible.
Practice recording and editing
Reciting, narrating, or speaking into the camera can be tricky at first because you want your speech to sound natural!
Practice recording yourself talking for lengthy periods of time so that you get used to how long it takes to edit down great videos.
After recording your own video, take some time to review and edit it before sharing it with the world!
You do not need professional filming equipment to create an animated marketing movie; there are many free software programs available that contain all of the features needed to produce crisp, quality videos.
Use a theme
Choosing a video theme is an important first step towards creating your marketing movie. There are many free, pre-made themes you can use as a jumping off point for making yours!
Most media style guides include examples of how to match up fonts with settings or scenes, so using those as inspiration will help you create your own look.
General tips: color schemes, nature, urban landscapes, etc… all make great setting pictures. If you’re not sure what would work, experiment!
And remember, if you’re doing a product review or promotion, no need to be overly dramatic with the effects – it should feel natural.
Know your audience
As we mentioned before, creating an animated video for marketing purposes is not just about using flashy effects and cursive writing. It takes knowing who your audience is to create engaging videos.
You need to know what they like and don’t like, what products and services are important to them, and how they prefer to be approached. This way you can use that information to develop your style and tone of voice as well as what messages and features you should include in the video.
It also means being clear with your messaging and avoiding vague statements or cliché phrases. The people watching your video will want to see results so make sure you give precise instructions and lead with promises rather than appeals.
Create engaging images
A marketing video is more than just five, six or even seven minutes of your business trying really hard to seem interesting. It’s actually an extended advertisement that does not call attention to itself but instead draws audience focus towards the product or service being marketed.
Your potential customers are quite busy these days – there’s work, family, hobbies and so on. So how do you get their attention? You have to figure out how to draw their eye (and therefore, their interest). And what better way to do this than through an image or picture?
Creating great pictures takes time and effort, which can be tricky when you’re running low on both. That’s why most people don’t like taking photos, let alone creating photographs with enough detail and quality for use in media.
Fortunately, technology has come a long way since we were all struggling with our camera phones! Now we have smartphone apps that make it easy to produce high-quality still photography as well as videos.
And while they may cost some money at first, many free applications offer similar features, making it worth investing in them if you plan to put up any kind of content. Some of the most popular photo editing software is Google Photos, Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and YouTube offers a wide variety of creative tools under its editor toolset.
Focus on your voice
Once you have your destination, someone willing to talk, and an idea of what content you want to include, it’s time to record your marketing video!
There are two main types of videos that people create advertising materials for – explanatory videos and product demo videos.
For example, if you were creating a video about how to do your makeup more professionally, then this would be an explanatory video. If you were showcasing the best pair of shoes, that would be a product demonstration video.
It is very important to know which type of animation your audience is going to watch your video as. Are they looking at really smooth camera moves or intense action? Having both is great!
Making a YouTube video is easy to do, but not all of them use their end screen effectively.
