10 Types of Explainer Videos to Grow Your Start-Up

Explainer videos are used by start-ups and major corporations alike. Often found on website landing pages, they’re short videos that demonstrate how to use a product, or the features and benefits of a service.

What Are Explainer Videos?

We offer explainer video services for all types of businesses, large and small. There are many pros to consider when looking at creating an explainer video for your company. Being fun and creative, it gives your brand a great opportunity to display its personality. They’re also cost effective and easy to produce, making explainer videos a smart and stylish option to engage with customers.

In fact, explainer videos have proven so effective with consumers that some companies have seen conversion rates as high as 81% when using them.

When it comes to choosing what type of video is best for you, there’s a lot of choice available. Let’s go through some of the most popular and effective options below.

2D Explainer

Perhaps the most popular, this style of explainer is easily digestible and able to simply explain even the most complicated of topics. It also gives a lot of opportunity for your company to flex its creative muscles and develop a style synonymous with your branding. Typically, it uses characters to tell a story. 2D is a tried-and-true format for explainer videos.

3D Explainer

Though they may be more expensive and take longer to produce, the impact of using 3D cannot be understated. If you have the resources available to invest in a 3D explainer video, then you’ll set yourself apart from the more traditional 2D style.

Motion Graphics Explainer

Going beyond traditional animation, motion graphics are great at representing more abstract ideas that can be hard to visualise. By using shapes, colours, and other elements they are an entertaining way of contextualising otherwise difficult to explain topics.

Using a combination of statistics, charts, text, and other simple images, these are a great option for displaying a lot of data in a way that’s visually appealing and easy to absorb.

Screencast Explainer

The most cost effective, and easily produced, screencasts are essentially a recording of a computer screen. This can be used to effectively showcase a website and its features. Also helpful for application tutorials as it shows exactly what the customer would see when following the steps.

Whiteboard Explainer

Chances are if you were using the internet in the early 2010s you’ve seen this type of explainer video. Using a whiteboard, a person will draw on images and text. The footage is then sped up and accompanied by a voice over. If you have a talented artist, they’re simple to produce and have been proven effective with many types of audience.

Kinetic Typography

This type of explainer video maximizes the use of text. They’re a common way to animate speeches and talks, with animated text moving and transforming in time with the audio. It’s a visually engaging way of displaying the spoken word to your audience.

Live Action Explainer

A more standard approach of explainer, but no less effective because of it. Live action explainers require only a set, actors, and cameras at their essence. They can be made on a smaller budget with great results. Whether it’s a scripted story told by actors or testimonials given by customers, they can be just as creative and engaging as their animated counterparts.

Stop Motion Explainer

Generally, more expensive, and harder to create, these incredibly unique pieces of animation make use of materials in a 3D space to deliver their message. Painstakingly crafted, they really stand out from regular animations and offer a staggering amount of creativity and craftsmanship. All this combined delivers an experience that’s hard to forget.

Cut Out Explainer

Like stop motion, this is another uncommon but effective type of explainer. By drawing and cutting out characters and placing them in sets entirely made of paper, it’s an interesting blend of 2D, Stop Motion, and hand drawn animation. It’s an incredibly charming and unique way to showcase your message and is incredibly accessible to all ages. It’s also fairly non-technical and inexpensive compared to other types of animation.

Which Explainer Video Is Best for you?

Ultimately, the decision rests with you and there’s no correct answer. It depends on what type of product, service, or message you want to convey. Do you want the friendly charm of cut-out animation? Or do you want the raw demonstrating power of the infographic to crunch the data into bite size chunks?

Whatever your need and whatever the message, we’re here to help. Get in touch to find out how your start-up can increase engagement and boost conversions using explainer videos, today.