Why isn’t Everyone Using Whiteboard Animation?

We’ve seen that whiteboard animation is very effective at getting a message across.

So why isn’t everyone using it?

Again, there’s a one-word answer… cost.

Whiteboard animation has probably been around in a big way for a couple of years now. For most of that time, unless you happen to be a graphic artist with some specialist equipment, the only option for creating these videos has been to employ a professional artist or video production company to create your whiteboard animation videos.

That can be very expensive. A professional artist has to create each image used in the video, so it could take several hours to draw out a speeded-up video lasting a few minutes (and that isn’t allowing for mistakes along the way). Then there is the cost of the video recording and production equipment.

The end result is that it can cost thousands of dollars to produce a single whiteboard animation video lasting just a few minutes. Have a look around and you will see businesses asking around $500 per minute of whiteboard animation and spending $10,000 on a 5-minute video is not uncommon.

These high-ticket prices are a result of supply and demand. Marketers with deep pockets see the power of whiteboard animation and there are only so many places they can go to get them. Those places can charge accordingly.

Source: http://easysketchproreview.net/

What Can You Do with Whiteboard Animation?

The beauty of whiteboard animation is it has almost infinite uses. Think of almost anything you want to achieve in any online (or even offline) venture and the chances are that whiteboard animation can help.

Here are just a few ways in which people are using whiteboard animation to good effect…

1) Use whiteboard animation to promote affiliate offers

When you promote an affiliate offer (i.e. where you earn commissions on sales of someone else’s product or service), the chances are that there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of other people doing exactly the same thing.

How do you stand out from the crowd and get people to click on your links and not the other guy’s? Why not create a simple whiteboard animation video to introduce the key benefits of the offer?

Very few people are using whiteboard animation yet and so your pitch is going to be both unusual and entertaining and, therefore, more effective.

2) Use whiteboard animation to encourage optins

If you are an Internet marketer, you are more than likely to be sending people to an ‘optin page’ where you offer them some form of free gift in exchange for their email addresses. This is called ‘list building’.

The problem with optin pages is that they all look so similar these days. And, to be honest, they are pretty dull and uninteresting!

Use an entertaining whiteboard animation video on your optin page and you are much more likely to grab people’s attention. Even better, create a ‘two-part’ video that leaves viewers wanting more. To get more, of course, they have to leave their email address to see ‘part 2′.

3) Use whiteboard animation to make your blog or website ‘stickier’

If you have a blog or website, you want to keep your visitors on it for as long as possible. In other words, you want to increase its ‘stickiness’.

Whiteboard animation videos are much more engaging than more traditional screen capture or ‘talking head’ videos. They tell a visual story and people love stories. They also give you the opportunity to inject some humour into your content without detracting from the message you are trying to get across.

4) Use whiteboard animation to get ‘traffic’

Most marketers know the power of getting a video on YouTube (or other video service), getting it viewed and then sending viewers (or ‘traffic’) to whatever offer you are promoting. In fact, YouTube is the second most used search engine online.

But most people shy away from creating videos, either because they don’t want to be seen on camera or because they don’t think they can master the technical aspects.

Whiteboard animation videos (if you can create them cheaply) are the perfect answer. You write a script, record it and then create images to accompany it. It’s quick, engaging and even fun to do.

5) Use whiteboard animation instead of sales copy

Many marketers struggle with writing good ‘sales copy’ (the words that sell their product or service).

Instead, why not create a whiteboard animation video or, even better, a series of videos that gets your message across. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and it is certainly true that many people prefer watching and listening to having to wade through dry text.

6) Use whiteboard animation to teach

The most effective teaching happens when students are being entertained at the same time. So why not create one or more whiteboard animation videos, interlaced with screen capture or live action video as necessary? You could even create a sketch ‘teacher’ who turns up to introduce and summarise key points in your training.

7) And so much more

This is just a small taster of what you can achieve with whiteboard animation. The limit really is your own imagination.

Source: http://easysketchproreview.net/

Why Use Whiteboard Animation?

Hopefully, you now understand what whiteboard animation is. But why should you use it?

The answer in a word is… engagement.

You are creating a video for a reason, whether that be to sell something, teach something or simply to entertain. Whatever the reason, you want your audience to watch as much of your video as possible, ideally from start to finish. And they are much more likely to do that if they are enjoying what you are showing.

Many tests have shown that whiteboard animation videos have a far higher engagement (or ‘retention’) than more traditional ‘talking head’ or screen capture videos.

There are a few reasons for this.

First, the historical cost and technical skills needed to produce whiteboard animation videos means that they are still pretty rare. And that makes them novel and attractive, especially when people see them for the first time in a new context.

Second, they are simply more entertaining to watch than a set of Power Point slides or a man in a suit talking to the camera. Something new and dynamic is happening on the screen all of the time to keep the viewer’s attention.

Third, they say a picture is worth a thousand words and there is a lot of truth in that. Carefully chosen images will emphasize and reinforce the points being made in the voice-over. People are much more likely to be affected by things they see and hear than with things they just hear.

If you need hard evidence to prove that whiteboard animation works, you only have to look around on the internet.

Just about all of the big name marketers and brands are using whiteboard animation more and more to promote their wares. These people have big testing budgets and they would not be using whiteboard animation in such a big way unless they knew it improved their results significantly.

A final reason for using whiteboard animation is that, once you know what you are doing, it can actually make the process of creating videos much easier. Many people struggle with the ‘visuals’ to use in their videos and this provides a simple solution.

Source: http://easysketchproreview.net/