Explainer videos are designed to showcase your business, product or services to increase your chances of making a sale. If potential customers have questions or doubts, your explainer video should be well-crafted to give them all the information they need to confidently click “Buy Now!”
While they can boost conversion rates, simply creating an explainer video isn’t enough to guarantee results. You need a strategic approach that will engage your audience and create that urgent desire for your offer. Certain mistakes can cause viewers to lose interest and stop watching your video. Keep reading to discover the ten most common explainer video mistakes and how to avoid them.
1. Not Setting Goals
One of the biggest mistakes when creating explainer videos is failing to set clear goals. Without a defined goal, measuring success becomes difficult, and it can be hard to know if the video achieved its purpose.
Examples of goals to consider:
- Increase brand awareness
- Grow a social media following
- Drive website traffic
- Educate customers
- Increase leads and sales
Before creating your video, question what you want to accomplish and ensure the video’s content reflects this goal. Setting measurable goals with timelines and follow-up dates will help you analyze the video’s effectiveness after it’s published.
A recommended approach is the ‘achieve X by X date’ or ‘grow X by X%’. These are good starting points for creating measurable goals. Whether the video meets or misses the target, you can then use this data to refine your strategy.
2. Forgetting Your Audience
One of the most common yet surprising mistakes made when creating explainer videos is forgetting the target audience. Before writing your script or creating animations, you must identify your ideal viewer.
To do so, you should consider audience demographics, interests, preferences, values, lifestyles, needs and wants. How can your offer solve their pain points? Your video content, tone and visuals should be designed with them in mind.
You should put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and think about what information matters to them and how to best present this information. The right tone is crucial. A strong message can lost impact if the tone is too formal or filled with slang. For example, a video for young adults and professionals can be more casual compared to a video for corporate clients which will require a more polished, professional approach.
To create a video that resonates, research your audience thoroughly before production begins.
3. Ignoring Branding
Another mistake to avoid is neglecting your branding. Without consistent logos, color schemes, fonts, and a tone that matches the brand images, your explainer video may fail to connect with your audience. Regular clients and potential customers might not recognize the content as yours or even mistake the unfamiliar branding with another brand.
To avoid this disengagement, make sure to have a strong branding portfolio complete before starting any video content.
For example, a blue, yellow, and red color scheme might work for a Pre-K workbook company, but it would feel out of place for the audience of a modern home decor supplier. Unless you are undergoing a complete rebranding and intentionally accouncing these changes, stick to what is familiar to your viewers and returning customers!
Explainer videos are available to your audience at any time of the day, allowing you to deliver a message to your viewers 24/7. For this reason, it’s important to include important branding elements in your explainer video to build trust and recognition with your brand.
4. Lack of Storytelling
Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for creating engaging content. A successful explainer video is more than informative, it has an engaging narrative with a logical structure that makes it relatable and memorable. Without a strong story, a video can feel dense, overly technical or like a dull informational lesson.
To keep your audience engaged, your video should be structured with a clear beginning, middle and end, with a character or scenario that they can relate to. The viewers should see their challenges reflected in the story and recognize your business’s products or services as the perfect solution.
Creating a compelling story can be challenging. That’s why at UpMedia, we created StoryWorx®, a storytelling workshop where we’ll design your company’s Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is a story format that appeals to all cultures and backgrounds, captures your audience’s attention, and sparks their emotions.
Learn more about our StoryWorx® method and why it works here. Once this step is complete, we use the workshop notes to write and professionally record the explainer video script.
5. Overcomplicating Language
Using complex or technical language is another common mistake in explainer videos. Although customers want to work with and buy from experts, overwhelming them with industry jargon can create confusion rather than clarity.
Explainer videos should do exactly what their name suggests – explain. If viewers walk away more confused than before, they’re less likely to engage with your company or purchase your product. When in doubt, keep it simple.
Opt for commonly used words like ‘use’ instead of ‘utilize’ and always define acronyms or abbreviations. While some industry experts might understand phrases, not everyone will know that NFC stands for ‘near field communication’.
If technical terms are necessary, make sure you provide clear explanations. The goal is to make your content accessible to the widest audience possible to ensure nobody feels excluded due to their expertise levels.
6. Information Overload
Incorporating some key statistics and facts int your video can be highly effective. It shows credibility and can help persuade potential clients to convert. However, too many stats and figures can overwhelm viewers,
Consider these examples:
Since 1995, we’ve helped over 130,000 homes with all their roof repair and upgrade needs.
For almost 30 years, since 1995, we’ve helped 132,517 homes in 4 states and 26 cities with all their roof repair and upgrade needs.
Both sentences convey a similar message, but the second has an overload of information making it harder to process and understand the key message. The first sentence works best as it has just two key facts and is clear and memorable.
To prevent information overload, select the most crucial points that reflect your goals and describe them clearly with simple language. If you’re using video animation services, use graphics and animations to highlight your message visually.
7. Video Length
Another important key factor to consider is the length of your explainer video. With the average attention span decreasing, viewers may disengage if a video is too long. It’s important to find the right length so that it includes all essential details without being too long.
The ideal length for most explainer videos is 60-90 seconds. Videos of this length are just long enough to inform and engage the viewer and convey your message. This should not discourage you from creating a two-minute video if your product needs it; however, you want to avoid creating content that’s several minutes long.
If the topic is too complex for a short video, consider breaking it into a series of shorter videos to keep the audience engaged while preventing information overload.
This simple guideline for explainer videos can help you even before you start recording or creating animations.
8. Low-Quality Visuals
Low-quality visuals are another common mistake in explainer videos. Although it can be a cheaper alternative, using images, animations, or footage of lower quality can backfire and harm your brand’s reputation.
However, using these can create a negative impression of your brand. The audience might consider poorly produced videos as unprofessional or untrustworthy, which drastically decreases your credibility.
Poor visuals can make your business appear unprofessional or untrustworthy causing potential customers to lose confidence in your products or services.
Investing in high-quality visuals is definitely worth the investment. A well-produced explainer video can enhance your brand image and provide a strong return on investment.
It’s important to ensure your visuals match your company’s aesthetic. You want to avoid a disconnect between your brand voice and the tone of the video. For a cohesive and impactful message, maintain consistency across all of your brand’s media.
9. Poor Audio Quality
Just as poor quality visuals can hurt your explainer video, low-quality audio can also drive viewers away. While DIY videos can be a more budget-friendly solution, high-quality audio for videos is essential for engagement.
How to ensure high-quality audio:
- Eliminate background noise – you should record your audio in a quiet space with no background noise from traffic, neighbors, pets etc. Early mornings or late nights are usually the best times to ensure noise levels are at a minimum.
- Maintain a seedy volume – the speaker should stay at the same distance from the microphone to avoid fluctuations in volume.
- Keep speech natural and clear – speech should be natural and steady. Several takes might be needed to ensure the words flow smoothly and at a comfortable pace.
Clear, high-quality audio will prevent distraction and let the viewer focus on the message, making a more impactful explainer video.
10. Forgetting the Call to Action (CTA)
Explainer videos should inspire action, whether it’s visiting a website, making a purchase, subscribing to newsletters, enrolling in a course, or taking a step that helps your business grow.
Even if your explainer video ticks all boxes, without a clear call-to-action (CTA), you are missing out on a crucial opportunity for business. Once the video ends, viewers want to know what to do next. A strong CTA provides clear instructions and will guide them toward taking the next step.
Display your CTA on screen with relevant buttons or links, as well as mentioning it in the video audio to make sure the viewer is aware of how to proceed. Using this multi-channel approach reinforces the action you want your audience to take.
The Bottom Line
You, your team, and the explainer video company all want your content to succeed and drive results. Creating a solid explainer video can take time and requires careful planning and follow-through. To make the most successful video, avoid the ten mistakes above and do this instead:
- Set (measurable) goals for the explainer video.
- Remember your target audience and their pain points.
- Stick to your business’s brand identity.
- Create a compelling story.
- Use simple language, and explain jargon or abbreviations.
- Add only the most crucial information.
- Keep your explainer videos between 60-90 seconds.
- Use high-quality visuals.
- Provide high-quality audio.
- Include a clear call-to-action (CTA).
By avoiding these common mistakes, you are on the right track to produce a video that engages the reader and meets your business’s goals. When you focus on the target audience’s needs and preferences, your content becomes a powerful marketing tool, driving engagement and conversions.
About Up Media
Up Media brings over 10 years of experience to the video production and storytelling space. In the past decade, we’ve created videos for 100+ businesses. With experience in promotional videos, animated videos, corporate video production and video training, our expert team is highly experienced in video production and here to help you create the best explainer video for your company.
