Learn how to get stunning visuals designed for your company
Marketing is a constantly evolving domain. It's essential for companies today to keep their digital marketing strategies up-to-date.That means tapping into creative strategies to ensure that your digital market strategies stay on top of their competition and ensure maximum user interaction.
Digital marketing has evolved beyond simple images and posts. New creative initiatives have rapidly started to replace conventional marketing techniques. One of the more effective forms of digital marketing is animated explainer.
According to a recent study conducted by Unbounce, explainer videos increase conversion rates by 20%.
This is a major testament to the fact that having visual animation is a highly effective tool to attract customer engagement and increase conversion in your marketing campaigns.
Let's look at some of the benefits of using animation for your marketing.
Advantages of using animation in marketing campaigns
The core objective behind marketing campaigns is to attract the attention of viewers and maximize the conversion of your campaigns. Animation can be an instrumental way of doing that by adding a visual element. Here are some of the best ways animation can benefit your company.
Making content interesting
Let’s be honest. No one likes to see boring marketing campaigns with obvious sales messages. It's important to keep marketing campaigns interesting to grab the attention of viewers. Using animation and visual content is a great way to do that by adding a bit of flair.
Express more information
Animation definitely allows you to convey a ton of information without having to explicitly state it out in the form of the text.
Creative expression
Utilizing animation in your marketing campaigns allows you to express the spirit of your company and your creative energy in marketing. It is important to have a strong creative statement in your marketing campaign to set yourself apart from the rest and make your content stand out above the competition.
Increased customer engagement
The attention span of viewers is shorter than ever before due to increasing digital exposure. The nature of animations allows your marketing campaign to grab the attention of viewers and make a strong impact. This increased attention definitely means more customer engagement with your content as well.
These advantages definitely make it worthwhile to add a new dimension to your existing marketing strategy by adding a fresh approach to your content.
However, animation can be really technical in nature in terms of development. There are a lot of technical processes that go into animating marketing content. It can be difficult to figure out the right software and skills required to create professional content. Hiring a professional animator is a great way to assist you in this endeavor.
Why hire a professional animator?
When working on your content, you definitely don’t want to leave anything to chance. Way too many business owners make the mistake of trying to handle everything themselves. This often leads to them taking on way too many responsibilities, and the quality suffers. Even though it's understandable to have a passion for perfection in every aspect, it's important for you to trust the experts when it comes to technical and time-consuming tasks.
Learning to create professional-quality animations also has a steep learning curve and it takes tons of time to get things right. The best way to deal with the situation is to hire a professional animation expert.
In terms of the effectiveness of the end result, it's often a much better idea to trust the judgment of professionals rather than create a botched result by self-experimentation. Relying on a proven expert can be a great way to get the best result in a modest budget.
Professional animation experts can be really costly to work with because of their highly specialized skill set. It can be really difficult for a budding start-up to afford the costs associated with a professional animator on a full-time basis.
That's why it’s a great idea to explore the prospects of hiring a freelance animator.
What about SaaS animation tools?
There actually are software as a service (SaaS) tools that can create animated explainer videos. And some of them are pretty cool. Most operate on a freemium model, meaning you can use some features for free but have to pay a subscription fee for others.
Let's take Moovly, for example. Moovly creates some stunning animation, and it's easy to use. The downside is that the free model puts a Moovly watermark on your video and adds a Moovly outro. It also doesn't allow you to download your video in HD.
To get rid of the Moovly watermark and to download your videos in HD, you'll need to pay a subscription of $24.92 USD per month, or $299 billed annually. To customize your fonts and colors, add subtitles or do screen recordings, the price jumps to $49.92 USD per month, or $599 billed annually.
That's a great investment if you plan on regularly creating explainer videos. But if you only need one explainer video, or even just a handful, it might not be the best option.
Fortunately, if you only need a few videos (or just need them on an ad hoc basis), you can hire a freelance animator for a fraction of the cost of a yearly subscription to a SaaS tool. And, your video will be entirely customized to your specifications.
Factors to consider while searching for an animator for your business content
By exploring freelance animators, you get to have access to thousands of qualified freelance professionals from all over the world. Here are some factors to consider while hiring a freelance animator.
Talent evaluation
Freelance platforms allow you to easily assess the talent level of professionals by letting you have a detailed insight into their past work and portfolios, as well as their reviews from previous clients. You have the ability to extensively vet out the right person by taking a detailed look at their past projects.
Affordability
Freelance platforms offer you the ability to hire people within your required budget. You can let freelancers know about your budget for the task and receive bids from high-quality professionals. By having access to international talent, you can explore variable pay rates and payment conditions with your preferred freelancer and reach a mutual agreement.
Global reach
Limiting your hiring outreach to purely local animators severely limits your available talent pool. Hiring a freelance animator allows you to choose talent from all across the world with a proven history of quality delivery. You can also choose the right individual to work across different time zones to make sure that you are able to get work done across the clock.
Putting in the right efforts and investment is a prerequisite to great results. It is important to prioritize quality above everything else to ensure that your content always stands out from the rest. Hiring the right animator can be a great way to effectively improve the quality of your content and add a standout element to your general marketing campaign.
What do you need to provide to a freelance animator?
Once you've found a freelance animator, there are a few assets you'll want to give them to make sure you get the best result.
Script
You'll need to script out your explainer video, not only with the narration but with some of the basic concepts and transitions. Yes, a great freelance animator can probably just work off a rough outline and voiceover, but a detailed script will help minimize revisions and speed up the project. And, if you want subtitles on your animation, you'll definitely need to provide a script.
Your script doesn't have to be long. In general, one script page equates to one minute of screen time, and you should keep your explainer videos to three minutes or less. You can work up the script yourself, or you can hire a freelance script writer.
Storyboard
Again, a talented animator can take your loose concept and turn it into a beautiful video, so don't be afraid if you don't have a clear enough vision of your finished product to produce a storyboard. If you're still uncertain about exactly what you want, a freelance animator can talk through the project with you and produce a storyboard themselves.
However, if you do have a fairly clear vision in mind, producing a storyboard will make the animator's job much easier, will save time for both of you and — as a result — save money for you.
You can sketch out a rough storyboard yourself, or you can hire a freelance illustrator to help.
Voiceover
This one is a must. Unless you're going for a silent movie, you'll need to provide a voiceover track for your animator to sync up with the video. It's much easier to animate to the voiceover than to try to squeeze a voiceover into existing animation.
Again, if you're confident in your delivery skills and you think you've got a good voice for it, you can record the voiceover yourself. Just make sure you're reading a written script rather than trying to improvise your way through it, or you'll end up with a lot of "ums" and "ahs." Or, if you want to give your video a more professional quality, you can consider hiring a freelance voiceover artist.
Final words
If you're looking for a kick-ass way to introduce your business to your clients, animation is memorable, engaging and fun. There are some great SaaS platforms out there that can help you produce animated videos, but they're not a great fit for every business or every use case. If you want animation that's customized to your brand and your requirements, consider working with a freelance animator.