What is the right explainer video style for your online marketing? Explainer videos, like businesses, come in all shapes and sizes. One obstacle to overcome when planning an explainer video for your business is deciding on your style. Let’s walk through the factors to consider when picking a style for your explainer video before looking at nine genres of video to present your business in the best light possible.

Factors to Consider

Firstly, let’s look at some factors to consider

Brand

Consider how well the explainer video style matches up with your company’s brand. Explainer video styles differ in format, tone, colour, and characters. The characteristics should reflect your brand image that you want to build.

For example, a lean, SaaS company with low-touch customer service may benefit more from an engaging animation.

This style will frame the technical product as easy to use and enjoyable. Whereas a large, customer-facing conglomerate may want an interview-style live-action explainer to put a face to their enormous company.

Budget

How much money do you have to spend on this video? As you’ll see below, different explainer video styles vary dramatically in price.

Audience

Always consider the audience you’re pitching to. While a practical, bottom-line orientated consumer may only want to know how your solution works in a demo-style video, emotionally driven customers may prefer a story-driven explainer video.

Styles of Explainer Videos

Live-action

Budget: €1500-2000 per minute on average
Advantages: Creates a human connection for your company and offers you the chance to show off your team, office, staff and product—the best for creating an emotional audience response.
Disadvantages: Longer production process involving casting, scheduling, equipment, crews, editing, and legal.
Perfect For: If your business is people-centred, then a live-action explainer video is for you.

2D Character Animation

Budget: €1000 per minute on average
Advantages: Low barrier to entry. Short production times. Accessible. You can create empathy by putting the ideal customer in the story.
Disadvantages: Appeals to emotion rather than reason and therefore may not deliver technical information effectively.
Perfect For: Companies with a simple message and a light brand image.

Whiteboard Animation

Budget: €500 per minute on average
Advantages: Good for engagement as video is created in front of the viewer’s eyes.
Disadvantages: This genre is common and can be seen as cliché and impersonal to your brand.
Perfect For: Companies explaining high concept products that need to pull in multiple ideas.

Motion Graphics

Budget: €1000 per minute on average
Advantages: Will present a complex, technical product as slick and impressive.
Disadvantages: Won’t create an emotional connection like other genres.
Perfect For: B2B software and technology companies.

3D Animation

Budget: €3000 per minute on average
Advantages: High-quality like watching something in the cinema.
Disadvantages: Prohibitively expensive for a lot of businesses. Long-turnaround time.
Perfect For: Technical, physical products such as cars, engines and equipment and presenting on large screens on stages or at trade shows.

Animated Infographics

Budget: €250 per minute on average
Advantages: Deliver clear, informative videos with no script.
Disadvantages: Difficult to appeal to emotion or use storytelling with this style.
Perfect For: Data-driven, research-backed products and services or products still in the research stage.

Stop Motion

Budget: €1000-10000 per minute on average
Advantages: Often beautiful and calming.
Disadvantages: An expensive form of animation with a long turnaround time
Perfect For: Brands that want a unique, aesthetic, quirky appeal.

Screencasts (Demo Videos)

Budget: €0
Advantages: These videos can be created by anyone with a laptop, screen recording software and microphone. They allow you to go deep into the features of a product.
Disadvantages: The style doesn’t lend itself to storytelling or expressing your brand.
Perfect For: Demo videos for software or digital products aimed at potential customers that are close to buying.

Kinetic typography

Budget: €250 per minute on average
Advantages: Great for driving home key points while engaging viewers with movement. An affordable way to add video to your online marketing toolkit. No voiceover is needed.
Disadvantages: There is no room for character-driven storytelling because the visuals comprise only words.
Perfect For: Companies that need to deliver a short, powerful call to action. Startups on a budget. Playing video in a busy, loud room.

Conclusion

So, what video will you choose for your business? Get in touch today at luke@wakingdreamsmedia.com and we’d be happy to help with a recommendation. If you’re interested in more insights like this, subscribe to our newsletter, for important video marketing insight per month.