Animated video production takes time, planning and dedicated research to produce a video that brings the conversation to a more personal level and resonates with your audience. With the help of a professional animated video, you can generate content that engages viewers in a way that other types of video content cannot.

If animated video production is something you’re interested in, you might be thinking, what are the steps in video production? We know it can be a little overwhelming with a lot to take in. Well, as an animated video production company, we’re here to tell you exactly how our animated video production process works to create an outstanding animated video. Let’s dive in!

What is an Animated Video?

Animated video is used within a video marketing strategy to market products or services to a target audience. They are created using motion graphics to achieve an artistic result that conveys a key message or story.

Due to their versatility, animated videos can be combined with other styles of videos such as live-action or stock footage to create an end result that is truly unique.

Animated videos can be distributed throughout your website, blog, email campaign, social media, search ads and social media ads and can work great alongside influencer campaigns and endorsements.

The Benefits of Animated Marketing Videos

Animated videos have the power to captivate your audience like no other and can be powerful when explaining complex concepts that would otherwise be easily misunderstood. They can encapsulate your brand mission in a quick and easily-digestible format for whatever type of purpose you intend it to be used for.

In terms of SEO, online video marketing can increase organic traffic as search engines favour video content, so much so that videos are 50 times more likely to organically rank in Google compared to text-based results. Studies show that using videos on landing pages can also increase conversions by up to 86%. Besides helping your website rank on relevant searches, videos can even make your snippet more eye-catching, meaning that searchers will be more likely to click through to your website.

Not only do animated promotional videos significantly increase the time your audience spends on your page, but they can also provide a great return on investment compared to other marketing streams. As online video is also the fastest-growing method of advertising on the internet, they are ideal for keeping audience members engaged in a way that’s simple and easy to digest. 

Although there is a multitude of ways you can improve your SEO, a video helps by lowering your bounce rates, creating quality backlinks, and increasing click-through rates by driving organic traffic from search engine result pages (SERPS). So, if you have a video, use it on any page that’s relevant - it really can make a significant difference to your website traffic and overall results!

Types of Animated Video

If you think an animated marketing video might be right for you, you should firstly think about the various types of animated videos to choose from, including 2D animation, 3D animation, stop-motion animation, and much more.

When you come to us, you can tell us exactly what you want, and we can make the magic happen, or if you’re a little unsure, we can guide you through the entire process.

2D animation, in particular, is a powerful tool in telling your story, showing your products and explaining your services in an engaging and entertaining way. Interest in 2D animations continues to soar, with more businesses choosing 2D animations for their video marketing strategy.

Just some of the many benefits of using 2D animation for your business include cost-effectiveness, quick production time, and ease of editing and updating in comparison to live-action videos.

At Squideo, we specialise in producing creative 2D animation videos that fit your exact marketing goals. 2D animation videos are fantastic for:

• Promoting or presenting a product
• Explaining a service
• Demonstrating complex software
• Communication of your brand values/message
• Data and statistics presentation
• Training employees

With the use of dynamic animation, interesting characters, and vibrant colours we can provide an enticing 2D video that people will engage with and will help you achieve the goals you set.

Uses of Animated Video

Animated videos are used in a wide variety of industries, with many different types of videos suitable for a range of purposes and uses. Below we’ve listed just a few of the most common video types and their uses.

01. Advertisement Videos

Advertisements must be attention-grabbing in order to attract new customers. To work effectively, they need to be memorable and to show off your brand in a way that sticks with the viewer. That’s why advertisements are typically between 30 to 60 seconds long and are usually distributed through television, online paid advertisements or as a landing page video for your website.

02. Product Videos

Product videos show your product in action and the winning features that your audience should be aware of. They are designed to showcase the beauty of your product and sell it to your viewer while setting you apart from your competition. They can help to increase confidence in your product in as little as 30 seconds and can be shared through your website, email, social media or other forms of paid advertising.

03. Social Media Videos

Social content videos are short video clips created solely for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many other platforms. Of course, it’s absolutely vital to prepare a social media video marketing strategy to ensure your social media animated video performs well. As video posts on social media get 48% more views compared to any other social media post, they are a fantastic way to stand out from the crowd and spread your message.

Animated social media videos are fun, playful and engaging enough that users will want to interact and share with their contacts. Our recommended video lengths for each social media platform are as follows:

• Facebook: 1 minute
• Instagram: 30 seconds
• Twitter: 45 seconds
• LinkedIn: 30 seconds
• YouTube: 2 minutes

04. Explainer Videos

Explainer videos are used to present a product, service, or business idea in a compelling and efficient way that builds trust and gets your message across. They can teach your audience more about your brand, product or service and are perfect for introducing your offering in the most engaging and informative way.

Explainer videos are typically three minutes long, giving enough time for your viewer to understand what your company does and why that matters. These videos are finished with a strong call to action that urges viewers to act, whether that be to sign-up, subscribe, try for free, learn more, or talk to us.

A fantastic example of a bold, powerful call-to-action is a video we created for Rix to showcase their Expensemate software.

The animated video explains how the software can aid businesses in keeping track of employee expenses. The call-to-action, ‘Try it for free with 30 days no card fees‘, reinforces the risk-free nature of the free trial in an engaging and compelling way.

05. Testimonial Videos

Want to make an animated video that really resonates? Testimonial videos are a strong method of advertising your product by shouting loud about positive experiences that your satisfied customers have had using your brand, product or service.

As word-of-mouth is even more effective than other forms of paid advertising, it’s a great way to influence buying decisions with honest reviews that increase your credibility. Animated video testimonials tend to be between 30 seconds and two minutes long, whether that focuses on one happy customer or multiple satisfied customers.

Create a Video Marketing Strategy

In order to further engage with the right audience, it’s vital that you create a video marketing strategy before committing to your project. One of the biggest obstacles to creating a successful video marketing campaign is a lack of effective strategy.

An online video marketing strategy is essentially a roadmap that outlines your goals for your animated video so that your end video addresses real business objectives. So how do you launch a video marketing strategy that increases engagement and gets you more results?

We've put together a list of points to take into consideration.

01. Define Your Marketing Goals

Try to think about which of the objectives (listed below) are most important to you, and then start with one or two. Consider the purpose of your video and how you intend to use it to reach these goals. Your video marketing goals will allow you to better focus on your video production marketing strategy and align this with your objectives. 

Some popular goals of video marketing include:

• Increase sales revenue. Increase the average value of customer orders or the number of sales with a product video that gives buyers quality information and converts prospects into customers. Product videos are a fun way for the public to gain more insight into what you have to offer.
• Increase brand awareness. Get the word out about your company and your product offering with a video that tells a story. By using how-to videos and short, memorable content for social media platforms, you can increase your brand awareness.
• Increase website traffic. Bring more traffic to your site and boost your discoverability with video fit for SEO marketing. As Google favours video content over regular content, implementing video on your website is a sure-fire way to put your website on the map. These are often in the form of product videos, testimonials and business overviews.
• Increase online engagement. Facilitate word-of-mouth marketing with content that encourages users to engage, interact and share with their followers. Increasing online engagement can build a sense of community and security that you are trustworthy and relatable. We recommend short promotional videos with an emotional appeal that tells users something interesting about your organisation.
• Increase leads. Drive traffic to your website and encourage viewers to initiate conversations around your product or service using video. This could include inspirational videos that give advice or present an exciting interview that engages potential leads.
• Nurture existing leads. Build relationships and promote trust with existing prospects that aren’t yet ready to buy. You could get the best results from explainer videos, product demonstration videos or brand videos that reinforce relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
• Increase conversions. Turn your traffic into revenue with a compelling call to action that converts customers. Choose from product videos, explainer videos or demo videos to enhance every stage of the marketing funnel.
• Improve customer understanding. Get your name out there and improve customer understanding of what you have to offer. This can be in the form of a how-to video or one that addresses the frequently asked questions your target audience has.

02. Research Your Target Audience

Now that you’ve thought about what you want to achieve with your animated video, you now need to think about the audience you want to watch your video content.

Learn about what your audience likes, what they need, their budget and what their pain points are in order to best connect with them. It’s best to be very specific and concise with your audience by creating a research-based buyer persona that depicts a target customer to find out more about the people you’d like to connect with. 

You can then map out the buyer journey to identify their path to purchase and how your video content fits into this path. Once you’ve decided on the target audience that your content speaks to, you can then figure out the type of video best suited to your strategy.

03. Decide What Kind of Videos You'll Make

Consider where your video will fit into the customer journey and marketing funnel and how you can achieve your goals through your video. You should take some time to discuss the video styles and types that are best suited to reaching your target audience.

Depending on the stage in the customer journey, this may constitute what achieves the most engagement, reach, or what drives the most leads or conversions.

04. Decide on Content Uses

Is your animated video designed for social, or would you like it to be used on your website? At this stage, it’s a great idea to think about how you intend to use your content and then decide where you want to post it.

Common uses of video marketing include:

• Website (landing pages, blog pages, product pages, etc.)
• Social media
• YouTube
• Inbound and/or outbound marketing campaigns
• Content for sales representatives to distribute

05. Set a Video Budget

You might have a big vision in your head, but without the proper budget, it can be difficult to achieve it. If budget is a big restriction, you can talk to us about different aspects of your project, and we’ll try to find the most cost-effective solution that works for you.

Animated video production can range anywhere from £70 to £7000 per 60 seconds depending on the type of video production you have in mind. Our quotes are ultra-competitive and are designed to be the most cost-effective solution for your project.

In addition, we’ll give you an exact quote breakdown before we carry out any work.

06. Create Your Video

Now for the exciting bit - bringing your vision to life and creating your long-awaited video.

There can be a million and one things to consider when creating a marketing video, so we would always recommend seeking an animated video production company to take you through all of the steps and produce a video that keeps your goals and objectives in mind.

Using a video production company also means that you can save a fortune on video equipment, editing, insurance, costumes, and make-up while saving time not having to film your own video. Best of all, you won’t need to hire your very own camera crew!

07. Measure Your Performance

Analytics is a key component of every video marketing strategy and is exactly what you should focus on after distributing your video. There are various ways to measure the success of your animated video campaign, which will differ from goal to goal. Try to focus on tracking metrics that are relevant in determining whether you’ve accomplished your goals.

As an example, your KPIs might include measuring:

• Views
• Clicks
• Impressions
• Unique users
• View-through rate
• Watch time
• Calls
• Email signups
• Sales
• Return visits
• Social engagement

While it’s great to have KPIs, it’s crucial that you convert these into accurate and reliable metrics to calculate your return on investment (ROI). However, many businesses struggle to measure return on investment (ROI) for their video marketing campaigns.

The first thing you’ll want to do is implement tracking on your video. This will help you analyse the impact your video has on your users. For example, you can learn whether they stopped watching at a certain point or if your video they converted. From this, you can calculate a return on your investment.

08. The Timings of Animated Video Production

Like most things in life, all good things come to those who wait. That’s why our average turnaround time is six weeks for standard delivery, which meets the industry average. With that being said, if you’re looking to have your animated video produced in a shorter timeframe, we do provide priority scheduling with delivery in as little as three weeks. 

Please note that any turnaround time we give will heavily rely on your feedback and the rate at which sign-off is given at each stage of the production process.

The Video Production Process at Squideo

Step 1: Project Outline

The most important step in creating animated videos is your needs and objectives. Why do you need this video, and where do you plan on using it? Simply fill out our quote form and tell us about your project or idea. We’ll ask you for key information to send you an ultra-competitive quote as quickly as possible. You can upload a full brief or send us a vague idea to inspire us - it’s really up to you. We’ll get back to you as soon as we can with a quote breakdown with various options that we can discuss with you.

Don’t panic if you aren’t too sure what you’re looking for - we can talk you through your objectives and take the lead with the creative ideas. 

When we send you a tailored quote breakdown for your project, if you're happy to proceed, we’ll set up a kick-off call to get things started with our Production Manager. 

Step 2: Kick-Off

Our Production Manager will reach out to you to schedule a kick-off meeting to discuss your project in detail. They will become your point of contact throughout the production of your animated video and will be the person you can reach out to at any time with questions, concerns or changes.

At this stage, we’ll discuss your tailored production timeline and introduce you to our Creative Director, who will be on hand to discuss visual ideas. Every marketing video starts with a conversation about an idea. This is why our talented team will discuss your vision and take the time to learn as much about your product, service, or issue as possible. 

You can expect to receive samples of voiceovers to accompany your animated video. Voiceovers are an important aspect of animated video production and can go a long way in effectively delivering your message to your target audience. 

With a wide selection of samples in our library, you can choose from a variety of artists that suit your message. We’ll also discuss any music that you want to play during the video to reflect the tone of the video, without overshadowing the voiceover and content. We can even feature custom characters to bring life to your animated video.

We’ll also answer any questions you may have, which will help us understand what you’re looking to achieve and how you’d like to achieve this. Tell us your vision, and we’ll have the corporate style to match, whether that’s professional, informal or something in-between. 

If you need your animated video quickly, you can choose our priority scheduling option for a faster production turnaround, subject to availability.

Step 3: Producing a Script

A powerful animated video should have a well-thought-out script to keep the viewer interested in the most creative way possible. If you already have a script, we can skip this step; if not, no problem!

You can provide us with a script, or we’re more than happy to create a unique script specifically for your video. We’re here to help! After all, you may know what you want to get across to the viewer but are not really sure how to say it. Our in-house copywriting team has helped hundreds of businesses get their message across using a professionally written script from your brief.

Step 4: Storyboard

Now for the exciting part - bringing your vision to life with your very own storyboard! We will create a storyboard to give you an overview of the storyline. We’ll add detailed animation notes to each section of your script to outline our creative ideas for each scene of your video. Feel free to input as much visual direction as you like; we can fill in the gaps or take the creative reigns entirely.

Step 5: Style Guide

We will create a style guide for your review, so you can understand the look and feel of the video. Our team will send you over some visual concepts to have a look through. Don’t worry if you have lots of changes; we give you one free set of unlimited visual revisions to the first draft of your style guide. 

Step 6: Drafting

Finally, we can get to work! Our talented team of designers will begin with the first draft of your animated video, with your goals and target audience in mind. We’ll give you one free set of unlimited visual revisions to make sure you are happy with the initial draft. If they’re not quite what you envisioned, we’ll re-revise the specified changes again in your second draft.

Step 7: Sign-Off

When you’re happy with the video, you’ll receive a commercially licensed MP4 file, a thumbnail image and any alternate versions. You’ll have commercial rights, and you’ll be able to distribute this wherever you like, for as long as you want.

If you’d like to request further changes after sign-off, the great news is that we will keep your editable file for 24 months after you have signed the project off. 

Get Started With Your Animated Video Strategy!

What are you waiting for? If you’d like to get started with animated video production, head over to our quote form to give us an idea of what you envision. 

If you want to learn more about our animated video production services, you can read more on our website, or check out our portfolio to view our video examples for a range of industries across the globe!

If you want to discuss how an animated promotional video can benefit your business, get in touch with the Squideo team today!