Watching videos is a lot of fun, isn’t it? Especially, when it’s the animated kind. Yeah, you got it right. I am talking about animated video for business. Those with animated characters presented with a nice story about how a business can help you solve your problem.
That’s great! So you have seen these nice videos do wonders for companies like Dropbox, Groupon, CrazyEgg, Mint, and Ringcredible and you are excited to get your own too. After all animated video for business is a proven content strategy for the best return on investment (ROI). As a marketer, you would imagine that a lot of work in a video focuses on the visuals, animations, voice-over, and music. Heck! Why expend energies on anything else?
But did you know that a vast majority of these business explainer videos fail to produce results for the company that created it? When that happens, the fault does not usually lie with the video or even with the product. In most cases, it’s the “often neglected” smaller part of the production – The SCRIPT. It’s the very first step but the most important step as well.
I have witnessed several successful videos that are “just ok” animation wise but because of a compelling narration, they manage to send the message across to the audience. In fact, that is what a video is intended to do no matter how refined or not the animation is. Primarily, you can divide the efforts into two stages – Content and Form. The form is what we see and get so excited about – the visuals – how the video looks to the audience, and how it acts out the story.
But before the action comes to the written story or ‘the script’, aka content. A great video has a good balance between the two. A strong script sets up the structure of the video – it can create a successful video or a disaster. No wonder, intelligent marketers pay special attention to creating the script. Sometimes they even prefer to hire an award-winning writer just for the script. An awesome video animation script for your business should cover the following bases:
The Art of Storytelling in animated video for business
“A story has a beginning, a muddle and an end” – Philip Larkin. We obviously don’t need Larkin’s muddle for our script, but we do need a plausible middle, along with a beginning and an end that can give the form of a story.
A script without a story is like a textbook that everyone hates to read. To create a successful script you need to master the art of storytelling. While there is no hard and fast rule about how the script should be structured, the following points must be covered.
- Create a situation where the customer can imagine himself/herself experiencing the problem.
- Offer a solution to the problem while explaining why your product or service is unique.
- Explain why the customer should choose your product/service to solve his/her problem, over your competitors.
Creating Emotional Connection With Your Audience
We are all proud of what we create. It is natural for us to want to talk about our product and its features in the animated video for business we paid to create. But is it obligatory that your audience must watch and attempt to learn the features of your product by themselves? Not really. The audience will watch the video because it articulates and empathizes with their problems.
It is important to not get carried away in explaining the features of your product. You need to talk about your potential customer’s problems that your product can help solve. The lead player of your script is the emotional connection that you make with your audience and their problems.
Utilizing The Power of Humor
Everyone loves to see something funny. In fact, the whole idea behind presenting an animated video with cartoon characters is based on this idea. However, just using funny characters may not serve your purpose.
The engagement starts when the fun elements start to relate to the audience. That also means that you need to use humor wisely. If you have a complex and otherwise boring product, finding out a way that can make it fun to watch, can be the key to success.
The Friendly Attitude
The script is a conversation that the voice-over will have directly with your potential customers. If it is filled with jargon or uses a style that isn’t familiar with the conversational style of your audience, they will not be interested.
Let the script speak directly to your audience, the way they would speak to their friends and counterparts. If you sound like a salesman trying to do some pushy sales pitch, you are immediately out of the game. Simple words that generate emotion can do the trick. Make it easy for your audience to understand.
The Shorter The Better
Viewership drops off really fast for videos that cross the 60-second mark. In fact, a person’s attention span decreases as the viewer watches more of the video. Wistia worked with one of their clients who was testing two variations of the same video.
One video was 30 seconds and the other was 90 seconds. Both videos are identical up until the 30-sec mark. Even though viewers were exposed to the exact content (until the 30-second mark), the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher.
By the end of the 30-sec video, there was about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video. It is a big mistake to try to tell your viewer everything about your product. For those who have a great deal to say, consider breaking up your content into a series of short videos.
Call-to-Action
Good news! Your audience has watched your superb animated video for business to the end. They understand what your product is and how it helps them solve their problems. Don’t leave them hanging in the end. Give them your call-to-action – how can they contact you to do business with you? Every video must end with a call-to-action.
Rewrite & Read Aloud
Ask any good writer, and they will tell you the importance of writing an unedited first draft in first thoughts. This kind of writing is powerful and creates raw impact. This is also why rewriting becomes important. It hones your script, lends it a well-framed structure, and does away with the haphazardness of the first draft. It perfects the beauty of the first draft.
When rewriting, re-look at the structure and concepts or ideas in play. Add in some humor, and once your draft is starting to look perfect, read it aloud. Having an independent listener to our perfected script will provide instant insight into aspects we may have overlooked. It allows the script to be toned further into a natural flow. That gives you the mantra right? So, there you have it!
The recipe for writing a great animated business video creation script and step one to making your videos work for your business and product. Takeaway: The script can indeed make or break your video. Looking for an explainer video for your business? Check out our portfolio of amazing explainer videos.