Producers of Explanatory Videos

A couple of months ago as you may remember, we posted a blog that listed some explanatory video producers following a TechCrunch article titled “The Underutilized Power of the Video Demo…” that got a lot of attention.

Well, after attempting a little market research and realizing that it’s still quite difficult to search for and find explanatory video producers, I thought this is a list we should keep updated over time. So here is an updated version that I will continue to add to upon request.

If your company should be on this list but isn’t please just add a comment with a link to your portfolio and pricing if available.

So here it is! We will rightfully begin the list with the Common Craft Explainer Network which includes the following:

Switch Marketing: Portfolio - Pricing

Say it Visually:  Portfolio

Lilipip:  Portfolio - Pricing

Splainers:  Portfolio

1/29 Explainers:  Portfolio

Animated Explanations: Portfolio

Other explanatory web video producers include:

Nutintuit:  Portfolio

Video Army:  Portfolio

Transvideo Studios: Portfolio

EyeView Digital:  Portfolio

Epipheo Studios: Portfolio

Simpleshow:   Website

Howcast:   Portfolio

Wheelhouse Communications:   Portfolio

RapidFire Video:    Portfolio

Please let us know what you think about our list and follow us on Twitter for access to our web video Twitter list as well!

Short Videos vs. Long Videos

It`s probably no surprise that short videos are more engaging and effective than long videos. Heck, we’ve built a business on this knowledge, but the stats recently reported by Wistia, a hosting service  for thousands of videos, are out of this world!

They first compared two videos by one of their clients. “The red line in the graph represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The blue line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. It’s expected that these two videos would have different engagement graphs, but what’s odd is that the first 30 seconds of both videos are identical!”

The results? “Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.”

This means that just knowing the video is longer is discouraging enough to viewers to quit watching earlier on than they will if they know the video is short. It’s really a fear of commitment!

It’s also interesting how Wistia measured these results on a larger scale including many of their clients to see how many people watched videos of different lengths all the way through.

While viewing length continues to drop after 30 seconds, the big drop begins at two minutes plus. It seems that this is the point where many attention spans timeout and lose interest. If it’s important that your viewers make it to the end of your video for say, a call to action then this two-minute time line is one to aim for.

Depending on your goals for your video the length will vary, but the better you can simplify your message into a shorter, more engaging video - the better the response you’ll receive.

Check out the full article titled Does length matter? It does for Video!

A Simple Video about Simple Video

Here it is… the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

Our completed video on the power of simple video!!

If you didn’t get a chance to read our last post on the psychology behind simple video, now is the time to do so. Or, if you don’t feel like reading - just watch the video!

We think our Creative Director Chris Dacol did a brilliant job on this video! What do you think?

Psychology Behind Simple Video

There’s no doubt that videos are cool and fun to watch - certainly more fun than reading page after page of text let’s face it. It’s become rather well known that having a video on your website that explains what you do, what you offer, why people should choose you or how you work, will get a better response from your audience.

But, why?

Aside from being more exciting than text, there are underlying reasons hidden deep within the brain that make video an extremely valuable tool for business owners.

Let’s start by looking at it in terms of time. You have about 8 seconds to capture the attention of a visitor to your website. If they don’t leave by then what are the odds they are going to leave understanding, let alone remembering your message?

Well, if you only provide text or audio, your visitor will only remember 10% of what they read 72 hours later. How much will they remember if they watch a video? Wait for it…..

68 percent!   

To understand this a little more we looked into recent research being done in cognitive psychology and found out that the brain works in a pretty fascinating way. We discovered that when trying to captivate an audience’s attention, keep their attention and send them home with a message they remember, there are three important factors to keep in mind.

1. Keep it simple.

Only include relevant information and movement. Our brain stores working memory, which only has a certain capacity. Non essential information will take up that space and distract from the learning and this is why we make sure our videos aren’t too busy - to keep the viewer focused on the message.

2. Know your audience.

Your viewer’s prior knowledge is important to know. That’s because new knowledge is built on that foundation. Also it’s much easier to retrieve at a later time, when it’s attached to   something they already know and understand. This is why we use analogies in our videos so often. 

3. Use powerful learning tools.

Dual coding theory is key! What is it?
Combining audio and visual information together for the purpose of learning.

Don’t forget that your viewer will remember 58% more when you teach through both these senses.

As our attention spans get increasingly shorter, the time you have to captivate your audience and explain what you do also becomes shorter.

That is why simple, explanatory video is such a powerful business tool.  Don’t forget to check out our final video on December 10th that you can share with all your video friends!

Student2Student - Textbook Exchange Made Easy

Has your wallet ever been victim to purchasing a textbook?

If you answered yes, then you are going to love our newest video! Oliver Berchtold, a young entrepreneur and student has created a service that aims to make college life cheaper for all.

Student2Student.com in an online platform that students can use for free to  exchange and sell old textbooks on and find the books they need. They can search by campus and if they can’t find it on their campus, they can use a compare feature to find the cheapest place it’s available. Cool!

Oliver was so much fun and so easy to work with, and luckily he thought the same of us! This is what he wrote to us once his video was completed:

“I am super happy with the video. Everyone was so super nice and very responsive. It was literally a perfect engagement. I really appreciated the easy-going approach. This is going to be great and I have absolutely no problem to put a reference on my page of Switchmarketing once it gets some traction. I am already thinking of some other portal we would like to develop so expect more business.
Thanks again for all the hard work.”

Unisys Video: SmartCash Vault

Have you seen the video on the Unisys SmartCash Vault yet? Well, you’re about to! Unisys came out with this new vault to tighten cash processes, increase security and enhance cash flow and like all of our clients, they wanted to explain their new system in a way that was fun and easy to understand.

We had a lot of fun working on this one and Unisys was a great company to work with. They used this video on different online platforms like YouTube to drive traffic back to a landing page where potential clients could learn more about the vault and its many features.

Bob Walters from Unisys said, “WOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it. Thank you very much!”

My New Place

My New Place is a cool service offered to property managers to help them find good tenants. It also serves as an apartment listing service for tenants to find apartments.

What’s cool about that you ask? Well, My New Place offers a very unique pricing structure and that’s what this video is about. This is how it starts:

“Imagine a world, a brave new world - or perhaps a parallel universe. Where you only pay for what you use.”

This was a super fun project to work on because it challenged our creative team. The client wanted a conceptual video that didn’t describe their product, but instead caused some buzz around their unique pricing structure

So here it is. Hope you like it!

Producers of Explanatory Videos

This weekend Tech Crunch posted a very interesting blog titled, “The Underutilized Power of the Video Demo…” The author writes about how much more effective the use of clear, explanatory videos are in explaining what a company actually does than a written description or the use of still images. The example he uses is the video from the Dropbox website, which is exactly the type of video we produce here at Switch Web Video.

What I found most interesting about the post was how many top-notch explanatory video producers it brought out of the “woodworks” in the comments section as one user encouraged. I have struggled to find people who do work similar to us, aside from those on the Common Craft Explainer Network, so it gave me the idea to put together a list of these producers to share.

Here’s what I have so far. If you know of anyone who should be listed please add a comment. I have included a link to the producers’ portfolio and their pricing, if public.

Common Craft Explainer Network

Includes:

Switch Marketing: Portfolio - Pricing

Say it Visually: Portfolio

Lillipip: Portfolio - Pricing

Splainers: Portfolio

1/29 Explainers: Portfolio

Animated Explainations: Portfolio

Others:

Nutintuit - Portfolio

Trans Video Studios - Portfolio

Eye View Digital - Portfolio

Epipheo Studios - Portfolio

Simple Show - Portfolio

Do you produce videos? Please add a comment and I will add you to the list.