Interested in creating 30 second explainer videos for your product or service? Unsure where to start? Use this guide to spark your creativity and plan a unique explainer video for your business.
Updated November 14, 2022
In this day and age, attention spans have become more and more fleeting with the use of technology. People want results and answers quickly – video content is the best way to do that.
In a Hubspot survey, it was found that consumers are more likely to pay attention to video content as long as it’s timely and engaging.
30 second explainer videos are a marketing tool that can grab attention quickly, and in return, increase sales and exposure for your business.
This article will explain types of explainer videos, why they are successful, and five key ideas that can help businesses spark creativity when it comes to their video marketing journey.
Planning to create an explainer video to support your marketing message? Explore our shortlist of top video production companies to find the right partner for your project.
What is an explainer video?
An explainer video is a short-form video (between 30-90 seconds) that are used for marketing or sales purposes.
Most businesses use explainer videos to highlight their product, service, or business idea in a compelling and innovative way.
To plan an explainer video, lemonlight, an on-demand video production company, believes in laying out the main goals first:
“…how are the best explainer videos able to keep their length short, their quality high, their call to action strong, and their solution simple to understand? They all follow a similar structure.
- What: What’s the audience’s problem?
- How: How will your product or service fix it?
- Why: Why should the audience choose you?”
30 second explainer videos should hit customers with the main idea quickly. Once it’s finalized, an explainer video can be used to grow brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Additional Reading: Marketing Video Production: Benefits and Strategies
Why use explainer videos?
With businesses using video content more and more, it is clear that videos are a tool that can attract new customers, increase conversions and sales, and build loyalty among different audiences.
In a video marketing report conducted by Biteable, it was found that for nearly 50% of companies, a video increased their engagement rates. Videos also helped sales for certain companies grow up to 32%.
There are proven results to using videos in marketing strategies, but where do companies begin?
Types of Explainer Videos
For 30 second explainer videos, companies can focus on their new product, latest service offering, or new company initiative. It is also important to focus on what type of explainer video your business wants to create.
Explainer Video Examples
- Animated: The most popular explainer videos are animated by using infographics, cartoon figures, or motion graphics to demonstrate the main objective. Along with different ranges of style and function, animated explainer videos tend to be more visually interesting.
- Live-action: If done well, a live-action explainer video can be just as engaging. These videos usually include a spokesperson that highlights the mission or purpose while taking the viewers on a journey.
With your explainer video type narrowed down, you can start brainstorming the video’s concept with a video production agency that can start the heavy lifting.
30 second explainer videos can work well – they just need to be executed in a meaningful way for startups and businesses of all sizes.
5 Ideas for Your Company’s 30 Second Explainer Videos
- Focus on a clear message
- Use vibrant sound and voiceover
- Craft powerful animation
- Invest in versatility
- Keep it short
1. Focus on a clear message
All explainer videos, regardless of length, should focus on a clear message in order to be successful.
Your 30 second explainers videos should either introduce a new product or service, showcase a company mission statement, or provide information about your company’s goal within that key video length. All of these should leave your potential customer or intended audience with a clear next step.
PrescribeWellness, a company that connects users with their local pharmacies, created an animated explainer video that provides more context behind their message.
PrescribeWellness - Convenience from The Furrow on Vimeo.
The video provides a powerful narrative while using simple animation to clearly communicate the company's goal. To communicate a message, being simple is generally the best route to take in 30 second explainer videos.
Keeping it simple is one of the best ways to communicate a message in 30 second explainer videos.
2. Use Vibrant Sound and Voiceover
To captivate your intended audience, strive to use vibrant, high-quality sounds, background music, and voiceovers in your 30 second explainer videos.
While struggling to increase and retain customers, Hey You, an Australian food and drink takeout app, created a 30 second explainer video to show the true value of the app.
Explainer Video | Hey You App from Motion Story on Vimeo.
As the animated explainer video takes customers through their journey with the app with visual metaphors, it uses a clear and catchy voiceover for directions and creative sound effects to grab the attention of viewers.
The app communicated their promise to save time with this 30 second explainer video.
Explore our directory of voiceover artists to help with your 30-second video project.
3. Craft Powerful Animation
A beautiful visual explanation of your product or service can go a long way.
If you’re deciding to go the animated route with your 30 second explainer video, it is important for you to have clean, fresh, and top-notch animation.
AllTrails, a website that helps users find local trails for hiking and other outdoor activities, created a short explainer video for their app.
Through an animated main character, viewers are taking on a journey with how the app works and focusing on the peace of mind that hikers will have with creative designs by an illustrator.
Since the app is for adventures, the animation showcases mountain regions, trails, waterfalls, and more. The video also includes visual overlaps that shows how the app tracks routes, air quality, and weather.
Through animation, this 30 second explainer video showcased the main features of the app, making it more appealing to its target audience with detailed imagery and scriptwriting.
4. Invest in Versatility
30 second explainer videos are the perfect shareables. While your explainer video will likely be hosted right on your webpage, it is important for you to share it on social media and other platforms to drive attention and traffic.
Your explainer video can be shared on your company’s channels with targeted hashtags that will drive traffic to the posts.
Potential customers are more likely to see these posts on social media than your website. If they become interested in your service by seeing your post on Twitter, they will likely go check out your website.
While the videos are already short, you can also invest in more clips to bring attention. For example, if your video is talking about a new product, you can share a short clip on Instagram about what the product does as opposed to sharing the full 30 second explainer video.
5. Keep it Short
As we’ve previously mentioned, having your explainer video being the right length is key.
While 30 second explainer videos are the ideal length, many explainer videos can be close to 90 seconds – but no longer.
When planning your storyboard for the explainer video, it is important to insert timestamps for crucial moments to ensure that your main points are coming across as quickly as possible.
Businesses don’t want to risk losing the attention of their viewers – but if that is a possibility, keep the main information and the content at the forefront of the video.
If you have a final offering or CTA for the viewer, it is important to build up suspense quickly to keep them engaged throughout the video.
Despite their brevity, 30 second explainer videos can cover a lot of ground – if produced correctly.
30 Second Explainer Videos Benefit Your Marketing Strategy
Explainer videos are the perfect inclusion to your company’s overall marketing strategy and growing video production efforts.
Create a successful 30 second explainer video by following these useful ideas:
- Display a clear message that leaves viewers will a clear next step.
- Include voiceovers and sound effects that will be an addition to the video and not detract from the message.
- Be creative with animation - but remember to keep it simple and not distracting.
- Produce versions of your explainer video for various platforms to increase exposure.
- Keep the explainer video within a desired length.
30 second explainer videos can take your business to new heights – start brainstorming today.
Unsure of your next step with explainer video production? Read through our directory of video production agencies to find the right partner.
Additional Reading