Video has become a critical component of marketing campaigns these days.
A recent study by Nielsen found out that Facebook marketing videos boost brand awareness by 32-65%, increase purchase intent by 44-72%, and enhance video recall by 47-74% during the first 10 seconds of a video.
These statistics speak for themselves. And within the umbrella of video marketing, animation is beginning to show its strength.
During the last few years, animated videos have become more popular than ever. Brands use animation to deliver short and humorous business stories, present company values and culture, explain products or services, and deliver engaging brand messages.
Are you looking for a way to include animation in your marketing campaign? Here are five smart ways to use the power of animation to in your content marketing.
1. Animated explainer videos
Animated explainer videos are popular because they describe a product or service in an engaging,emotional, and visual way. You can use this type of videos to talk about a complex idea in a simple way. Animated videos also allow creating visual metaphors that help audiences in understanding brand messages.
Another perk of animated explainer videos is that they're mobile-friendly and mobile devices have a huge impact on the sharing of video content these days. That's why addressing users who consume your content from mobile devices is critical. Consider that video makes up for over a half of all mobile online traffic today and it’s expected to grow by 61%.
A professional motion picture developed by an animation studio will also allow you to easily measure the performance of your campaign, in more specific ways than other online content. You’ll be able to get in-depth information such as the number of re-watches by the same user or the full viewership rates of a video.
2. Animations in social media
Short animated videos and GIFs are bound to attract and hold the attention of your target audience because they're easy to consume and exciting. Create an animated video with simple lines, attention-grabbing colors and constant movement – you're bound to keep your audience glued to the screen.
Just like animated explainer videos, such short videos have an enormous potential for shareability on social media. You can be sure that users will share your video all over the place. In fact, video is the easiest content to grow on social media. Videos have 12 times more chances to be shared than links or text. And they tend to go viral.
3. Direct emails and newsletters
Another marketing use of animated video to include it in the emails and newsletters you sent to your target audience. Instead of featuring images and paragraphs that explain what's going on, add animated videos and GIFs to show your products.
According to Inc. Magazine, one big brand increased their ROI by 400% thanks to that type of content marketing. Another company that sent an animated cartoon to their email subscribers increased their open rate by 40 to 50%.
The only thing you need to consider when sending out that type of email is its compatibility with the devices your target audience is using, as well as downloading times and demographics.
4. Animated infographics
Infographics have been with us for a while, and their popularity is still on the rise. In fact, infographics are shared and liked on social media three times more than any other type of content.
While some infographics delve deep into a topic, others present instructions for completing a particular task. Research shows that people who follow directions with text and illustration do 323% better than those who follow textual directions without any illustration.
You can only imagine how useful animated infographics could be for your audience, especially if your product or service is complex and requires explanation. You could create a series of product tutorials in the form of animated infographics that might quickly go viral.
5. Cartoons
The focus on visual content makes it difficult for brands to stand out. With everyone investing in visual marketing, you need to create content that instantly attracts the attention of your audience and holds it long enough to deliver your message.
Since the visual content has become so homogeneous, you need something different. And that could be animated cartoons.
In a recent case study, Mark Anderson revealed that readers choose cartoon-illustrated content over content with generic photos by even 90%. He also discovered that 64% of users preferred to share the cartoon article over the article featuring the stock photo. Finally, the cartoon text received twice as many responses.
If you’ve got a well-performing ad, consider commissioning a cartoony image for it.
Then conduct some A/B testing to see how the cartoon performs versus the original ad. If you find out that your target responds well to the cartoon, it's time to invest time in animation by creating some fun cartoons and distributing them in your marketing channels.
You can locate cartoons in your blog posts, replace your boring PPC ads with cartoons and create marketing materials that stick with your prospects.
Key takeaway
It pays to be original on the incredibly competitive content marketing scene. Animated videos come in various shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: they're emotional, visual, and bring incredible ROI.
A single investment in an animated explainer video is bound to boost your marketing campaign on many fronts, starting with your email marketing to your social media presence.