Why Your Business Needs an Explainer Video

24 Oct' 14 | By Amanda Smith

Explainer videos have boomed in popularity over the past year due to their effectiveness in increasing conversion rates.

An explainer video helps a brand or organisation to better connect with potential customers by demonstrating what the product or service can do for them and why they should choose your business over other competing businesses. More than three quarters of consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service if they can watch a video explaining it beforehand. This makes explainer videos an excellent marketing tool. There’s simply no better time to be using video in your content marketing mix.

If you need any further persuasion, we’ve detailed some of the most important factors behind this unstoppable force.

Increase your conversion rate
Customers expect video content, they engage daily with video sites and apps such as YouTube, Vine and Instagram. In fact, a third of all online activity is spent watching video*. And the proof is in the pudding –

• 85% of people are more likely to buy a product or service once they see an accompanying explainer video.
• 58% of consumers consider companies that product video content to be more trust-worthy.
• 71% of consumers say that videos lead to a positive impression of a company.
• 77% of consumers consider companies that create online video as more engaged with customers.

Rank better in Google search
Part of Google’s process for search rankings considers the amount of time visitors stay on your website, which is one reason online video is seeing explosive growth. Visitors who watch a video are reported to stay on sites twice as long and look through twice as many pages, versus those who don’t use video*. Meaning that your website is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of a search engine results page if it includes a video*.

Similarly host your explainer video on YouTube and Google will thank you for it. Google owns YouTube, meaning that videos originating from the site rank very high in the search engines.

Easily shareable
In the world of social media, shareable content is king. Explainer videos are often humorous and engaging, which lend themselves perfectly to being shared across Facebook, Twitter and beyond. People are also much more likely to share and watch videos on the Internet than read blocks of text on a page. In turn, creating a video that offers value to the audience and has some key call to actions mean people will link to it, bringing traffic from elsewhere to your website.

Clarify the objective of your product
Explainer videos help your customers to gain a better understanding of your product or service. In most cases, the average customer takes less than a minute to make a purchasing decision and an explainer video will grab their attention immediately.

70% of content marketers already use video in their marketing mix, are you?

Sources:
• Digitalsherpa, 2014
• Kiss Metrics, 2014
• E-consultancy, 2014