How Animated Explainer Videos Can Generate Leads

Animated explainer videos are a fantastic way to generate leads. Their ability to connect with prospective customers sets them apart from other types of content.

With the right approach, these videos can help grow your business, improve your customer support, and enhance ROI.

For example, a study by Oberlo found that 93% of marketers get high-quality leads through social media videos.

Let us start by learning more about lead generation. We will also see what is an animated explainer video and why your business needs it.

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What is lead generation in the B2B context?

The process of generating leads involves identifying and nurturing a business’s potential customers.

In the B2B software context, lead generation often takes the form of creating explainer videos or other useful content that helps potential customers understand the value of your business's offerings.

The goal of lead generation is to create quality leads that can increase conversion rates and eventually, more paying customers. To achieve these goals and drive sales, businesses need to focus on creating content that educates and informs potential customers about their products or services.

This infographic illustrates different ways to carry out lead generation. The best part is that you can use videos at every step of the lead generation process to make the process more engaging:

What is an animated explainer video?

Companies get but a single chance to engage with customers. They must grab it with both hands because a quick response impresses prospective customers. They see the company as responsive to their needs and that it values their business.

To understand the sales and marketing power of animated explainer videos, let’s look at an example of an explainer video:

Content Beta created this SaaS explainer video for Twilio, which explains how customers and prospects dislike being redirected to other sales or customer service agents and how they expect to find answers to their queries right away. This well-made video can convince the hardest of skeptics about the product and its usefulness.

Next, we will discuss why many B2B software companies find it tough to attract new customers.

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Why do B2B companies find it difficult to attract new customers?

There are several reasons why B2B companies are finding it increasingly difficult to acquire new customers:

• To begin with, there is an oversupply of similar products and services on the market. Therefore, companies need to do more to stand out from the crowd and be noticed.
• Secondly, customers have become more sophisticated and demanding, and are often hesitant to sign long-term contracts until they have tried the product first.
• Thirdly, SaaS  B2B software companies continue to rely on outdated marketing techniques such as print advertisements and trade shows.
• Last but not least, companies have to invest more in marketing and sales to reach new customers. A typical customer journey is long with many stages as shown below:

How can B2B software companies use animated explainer videos for lead generation?

In this section, we will identify some of the challenges and how they can benefit using examples of some of the best explainer videos.

1. Use them to attract quality leads

The challenge: Generate leads can be done in many ways, but not all of them are efficient:

• It is often wasteful to buy lists of leads because they are often out of date or inaccurate.
• There is a lack of investment in explainer videos by B2B companies despite their proven effectiveness in generating leads.

The solution: Make explainer videos a part of your lead generation strategy.

• An engaging and informative explainer video that showcases what your company has to offer and how it can benefit your customer will attract only those leads (qualified leads) who are impressed by your brand and product. They will need just a little more prodding before they convert.
• Also, your brand does not have to spend money and resources on unfruitful leads.

Example: Imagine your company offers an app for insurance and 3rd party compliance. This is a complex subject that requires professional explanation. Would you send out a 100-page pdf to your leads explaining the product?

Going by experience, prospects won’t even open the email much less download the pdf and read it. Instead, send an animated explainer video such as this one created by Explainer Video Hero for MYCOI, the platform that automates your insurance certificate requests, collection, and compliance resolution.

Moreover, emails with video in the subject line have a success rate of 90%.

2. Use them to make your business stand out

The challenge: Software companies in the B2B sector face a lot of competition, and differentiating your business can be challenging.

One of the best ways to be different is to create quality content that will engage, nurture, and convert leads.

The solution: Nurturing is a long-term process and your content--not just any content but content that is engaging, useful, and entertaining--plays a major role in the process.

How can animated explainer videos be the differentiators? You can use them to:

• Present your brand in a positive light.
• Showcase the product or service being marketed.
• Differentiate your brand using the level of sophistication of your video content.
• Get your visitors to interact with the organization's site.
• Make your website use more video content and less text.
• Make your visitors feel that they are gaining value so that they spend more time on the site to learn more about your brand.

An example would be this animated explainer video created by Explainer Video Hero for In-app Chat, the instant messaging app. The video shows exactly how one of In-app Chat’s clients, an insurance company, uses the app to automate their operations.

The high-quality video makes prospects understand that you are no ordinary company, and they would want to know how they too can benefit from using the app.

3. Use them to reduce customer acquisition costs

The challenge: As the old saying goes, it takes money to make money. For B2B software companies, this adage is especially true when it comes to customer acquisition costs (CAC). It's fine to spend money, but not too much without a guarantee of a return. High CACs can quickly eat into profits and hinder your lead generation efforts.

CACs can be high for B2B software companies because traditional marketing methods no longer work. The money spent on methods that stopped working long ago results in poor ROI. CAC is calculated by dividing the total expenses incurred for sales and marketing by the total number of customers acquired. And the accumulated CAC can be substantial.

The solution: Content marketing is a great way to reduce CAC costs provided you have quality content that can engage viewers.

Many B2B software companies are turning to explainer videos to help educate potential customers about a product or service in a short amount of time.

Explainer videos are an extremely effective way to reach a large number of people with minimal effort.

Example: Suppose a company creates a product that offers more features than the one offered by a top company like Google. That claim would need some convincing! Without visual evidence, prospects would find it fantastic.

Content Beta created an animated explainer video for Leadfeeder, a B2B lead generation software, to illustrate why the Leadfeeder product is more comprehensive.

4. Use them to reduce content creation costs

The challenge: B2B software companies spend a lot of time and money creating content for lead generation. Creating conventional content can be time-consuming and expensive and does not guarantee an ROI. Plus, they need to create fresh content for every lead generation campaign.

The solution: Animated explainer videos are quite affordable, especially when you compare them to commercials, print ads, or even cold calls. Moreover, B2B brands can use the videos on their website, blog, or social media.

Last but not least, explainer videos can be repurposed in many ways such as sending them as part of your cold emails to improve opening rates, further bringing down costs.

If your organization does not know how to create explainer videos, you can hire a remote video production service like Explainer Video Hero and Content Beta which can create a high-quality explainer video at affordable prices for you.

A one-minute animated explainer video costs USD 2,000 and Live-action Explainer video costs just USD 1,000.

5. Use them to reduce promotion costs

The challenge: The success of a lead generation campaign depends on how well a brand can explain how a product works and why it's valuable to a potential customer.

The solution: An explainer video is a low-cost way to get the word out about your product without having to spend a lot of money on advertising. An explainer video is also more likely to be viewed than a commercial, which is another benefit.

Moreover, animated explainer videos are highly shareable. If someone finds your video helpful or informative, they're likely to share it with their network. And that can help you reach even more potential customers and clients.

Basically, a well-made video is shared by many, saving you the trouble of doing it yourself. No other type of content is as easily shareable.

Example: Content Beta created a how-to animated explainer video for Nectar, the Employee Recognition  Software, that covers a lot of information in 39 seconds, making it a great option for using as a cold email attachment:

What steps should B2B software companies follow from lead generation to measuring outcomes?

1. Identifying the right target audience: First, identify the right target audience that could potentially benefit from using the software from among many different types of businesses. Decide which type of business is most likely to use and need the software.

2. Reaching the target audience: Next challenge is reaching them. This can be difficult because businesses are often busy and may not have time to research new software solutions.

3. Creating a strong lead conversion process: Third, convert the identified group into paying customers.

4. Delivering the product or service: Fourth, deliver the product or service without a hitch.

5. Measuring success: Many businesses rest contended with the acquisition of  customers, but don’t realize that the real test lies in ensuring their customers can use and benefit from the product.

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Conclusion

Before we wrap up, let’s summarize why animated explainer videos are great for generating leads:

They are easy to understand and they can make your product come alive. They can tell a story about your product, making them more memorable than regular video ads.

Finally, lead generation need not be an expensive and labor-intensive affair if you use the right content. That means videos in general and animated explainer videos should be an integral part of a B2B software company’s marketing strategy.