Let’s say you have a product to sell (Or a service. Something your business offers that is absolutely amazing).

You want to tell the world about this incredible thing (because everyone and their mother should know about it), but there is so much information. Just look at your website! You have 10 pages detailing one aspect alone. And let’s be honest, most people aren’t going to make it that far down the rabbit hole.

Remember, the window of opportunity you have to grab someone’s attention is ever shrinking, and no one is immune. (Apparently, my attention will drift from anything that isn’t ruthlessly captivating in less than 10 seconds these days. What am I, a goldfish!?) Gen Z generally loses interest in advertisements after just 1.3 seconds. That completely changes the landscape of advertising.

So how can you ensure your target audience can absorb all they need to so they can learn about your amazing offering?

That is where the Explainer Video comes in.

Why Explainer Videos?

An Explainer’s whole purpose is to hook your audience (like the goldfish we are) and succinctly go through the most important aspects of what makes your product or service special. Lucky for us, video also helps your audience retain information a whole lot better than those mountains of text on your website.

A typical explainer video follows the following formula:

1. Identify the problem that your audience is facing
2. Demonstrate how your offering solves said problem
3. Tell them why you are the best choice

To tell this story, an Explainer Video generally runs from 60 to 90 seconds.

And keeping your Explainer close to that length is important, because if you’re not careful, your video can start to veer off into the mysterious and encyclopedic territory of… a Product Demo. Don’t get me wrong, product demos are great. They just serve a different marketing purpose than an Explainer.

• A Product Demo’s purpose is to give an in-depth overview of the inner workings of a product or service. After someone watches a Product Demo, they should have a pretty good idea of exactly how to use a product, step-by-step, and potentially learn some tips to get even more out of your offering.
• An Explainer’s purpose, on the other hand, is to show your audience why your product exists – to solve the exact problem they’re dealing with!

An Explainer is a premiere piece of marketing material that can be repurposed across many platforms:

• A full Explainer lives comfortably on a homepage where it can receive the highest amount of traffic and is a great introduction for anyone to your site. Hi, hello, how are you? Were you, by chance, looking for a solution to all your problems?
• Remember that study we linked to before that found Gen Z to be super goldfish-y? They also found that advertisements on social media sites generally max out around 15 seconds. So, let’s cut your Explainer video into bite-sized social cuts for your grandma on Facebook sharing AI generated memes, your nephew on TikTok who’s current obsession is Dress to Impress, and your lifestyle-guru cousin on Instagram (we all have problems to solve, after all).
• Explainer videos fit perfectly into any sales deck or PowerPoint presentation. Is Jerry a little nervous about presenting? Not anymore! All he has to do is get to slide three and hit that play button on his embedded Explainer Video. Then he can be sure that every touchpoint gets covered.
• Spice up an email by sending along an Explainer for the recipient to watch! They make the perfect partner to any newsletter or sales outreach you plan on doing. 

Explainers are perfect for prospects in the middle of the funnel who are hungry for more information about your product. But, they don’t have an endless attention span. Instead of sharing every detail about how your product or service works and what goes into making it work, make sure to focus on what your audience needs to know to continue to build interest: details that give them a reason to choose you over the competition. After all, you offer something absolutely amazing – so amazing that people are going to ant to know about it. So, give them something they can sink their teeth into with an Explainer Video. And make it snappy (you don’t want to lose their attention, do you?)!