3 unconventional ways to use animated videos to boost website conversions
Written by Dmytro Spilka | 16th August 2024
It’s no secret that video marketing is on the rise. As online businesses adapt to a visual-first audience, creating engaging video content for every platform has become a priority for those looking to improve their lead generation.
According to experts at Insivia, e-commerce websites that embed one or more videos on their landing pages could increase their conversion rate by 80%.
However, with e-commerce competition mounting, simply embedding a video onto your online store is no longer good enough. If a business wants users to engage with its video content, it must be unique and original and offer the consumer value.
With over 85% of marketers planning to increase their video budget in 2024, it could be time to step outside the box when creating engaging content for your online store.
With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of three original ways to use different forms of animation in your next video campaign to ensure you generate convertible leads.
Do Animated Videos Boost On-Site Conversions?
Did you know that only 24% of marketing videos are animated? In such a competitive landscape, this opens up an opportunity for e-commerce marketers to stand out to their demographic and offer their consumers something exciting to engage with.
The question is, can animated videos help boost on-site conversions? Here are just some of the reasons why animating your video content could benefit your conversion strategy:
- Animated videos draw the viewer’s attention: Offering your audience a unique content format, such as a whiteboard-style explainer video, hooks their interest and improves engagement.
- Animated videos drive emotion: Animated videos are works of fiction, which makes them a brilliant vessel for any narrative. Creating any story you want with an animated video allows you to tap into consumer emotions and create powerful associations.
- Animated videos are brilliant for product demos: Product demos are essential when advertising your goods. Demo videos show the consumer exactly what they are getting and can encourage stronger conversions with a lower return rate. This is why more than 32% of brands create demo videos for their online store in 2024. Animating these videos can enhance the demo format. Whether you paint your product in cartoon motion or simply add effects to your demo to boost engagement, a touch of creativity can turn a boring demo into a video consumers keep clicking on.
Animated video content will take your video marketing strategy to the next level in 2024. The best-animated content is unconventional and quickly grabs consumer attention.
Whether you use bold colors to draw in the viewer, a powerful narrative that links to your brand seamlessly, or simply try something new, getting creative with your animation strategy will make all the difference when aiming to score conversions.
3 Creative Ways to Use Animation to Improve Your Lead Generation
There are plenty of ways to spice up your strategy when it comes to using animation to improve your video content.
Getting creative with your content creation drives engagement, which in turn increases conversions, so it’s important to think outside of the box.
Here are just a few unconventional ways you could add animation to your on-site strategy in 2024.
Whiteboard-Style Animation
First, let’s discuss whiteboard-style animation. While this form of animation isn’t new, it’s still highly rated by brands looking to create explainer videos with a playful narrative.
With whiteboard-style animation, you can be as realistic as you like. This is brilliant for online brands, as you can tailor your video design to your audience’s preferences and choose from a wide range of whiteboard-style formats. These can also work great for employee onboarding and training.
Here are just a few of the ways you can customize your whiteboard animation for more conversions with simpleshow:
- Hand-based animation: If your audience is more likely to react well to a blend of animation and realism, using Simpleshow’s hand format is a brilliant way to approach whiteboard animation. For example, if you’re creating a product demonstration and want to jump between the physical product and an animated version of it, you can use ‘hands’ as a gateway between the animated and the real world for an engaging result that still showcases the product you’re selling at the forefront of the video.
- Motion-based animation: This form of whiteboard video is perfect if you struggle to keep your leads engaged. Keeping your videos moving with dynamic animations in constant motion appeals to a younger demographic with a short attention span and could hold your leads for longer, increasing your chances of conversion.
The key here is to first establish the narrative of your whiteboard video and then apply the level of animation best suited to your target customers.
Live Action/Animation Fusion
If you’re not ready to commit your entire video strategy to animation, why not try a live-action/animation fusion concept for your next conversion campaign?
A mix of live-action and animation is often the way to go if you want to retain some authenticity within your video. For some brands, realism is essential. Whether this is to show off the actual product or demonstrate how it can be used in the real world, live action can be powerful.
However, when combined with animation, you can produce something with a real ‘wow’ factor.
This said, before you start on your live-action/animation fusion journey, it’s important to establish what elements of your brand should remain realistic when aiming to increase conversions.
Depending on what you’re selling and the type of audience you’re selling to, it’s important to establish which elements of your brand should be featured as live-action and which can be animated. Brands like Argos do this well by animating their video characters, while products and home furnishings remain live-action, so products can be viewed clearly.
Typography-Style Animation
Last but not least, let’s talk typography. For animation beginners, typography is the place to start. Animating text within a video is a brilliant choice for explainer videos, demos, and interactive statistics.
While these forms of animation are usually shorter, they are smaller video files, making them easy to embed on WordPress and highly watchable for users on the go.
Typography animation is easily adaptable to smartphone screens and other accessible devices that can interpret and read text. This makes it a perfect option for brands targeting a wide and diverse consumer base.
For brands looking to get acquainted with typography-style demos and explainer videos, here are a few tips to get you started:
- Choose an accessible font: Your typography video should be universally accessible. If you want to keep conversions rising, ensure that your font is legible for readers with multiple capabilities and that your text can be translated by screen readers and other inclusive devices.
- Highlight keywords/phrases: While a typography-style video is more straightforward than other forms of animation, there are still ways to make your key points stand out. One way to do this is to highlight or enlarge important words or phrases to ensure that they are well received by your audience. Using Simpleshow’s text-video editor, you can leverage AI to assess which keywords are most likely to garner engagement from your target audience.
- Get creative: Just because you’re creating a text-based animation doesn’t mean it can’t be creative. Find ways to animate how your text moves and work on perfecting a colour scheme that not only resembles your brand but also helps your text stand out and hook your consumers.
When it comes to typography-style animation, the sky is the limit. To boost conversions, think outside of the box and ensure that your text is compatible with all devices for maximum engagement potential.
Are You Ready To Start Animating?
According to Insider Intelligence, over 75% of Americans watch up to 2 hours of short-form animated videos every day.
Adding as many videos to your website as possible is crucial if you want to improve your conversions.
Whether you opt for live-action or animation, the key to success is creativity from all angles. If you can capture your target’s attention in just a few seconds, you boost your chances of converting leads tenfold.
