What are the best content development tools for creating explainer videos?

1 Choose your format

Before you start creating your explainer video, you need to decide what format you want to use. There are different types of explainer videos, such as animated, live-action, screencast, or whiteboard. Each format has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your goals, budget, and audience. For example, animated videos are more versatile and creative, but they require more time and skills. Live-action videos are more realistic and relatable, but they need more equipment and actors. Screencast videos are simple and cheap, but they can be boring and limited. Whiteboard videos are easy and engaging, but they can be repetitive and unoriginal.

2 Pick your tool

When selecting a content development tool for creating explainer videos, you have a variety of free and paid options to choose from. Powtoon is popular and user-friendly, allowing you to customize your video with voiceover, music, and text. Lumen5 uses artificial intelligence to turn blog posts, articles, or scripts into engaging videos. Camtasia is powerful and professional, with features such as high-quality recording, editing, and annotation. Doodly is fun and easy to use with its drag-and-drop features and hundreds of doodle images, characters, and scenes. Each tool has a free plan or trial and a premium plan with additional features.

3 Plan your script

Once you have chosen your tool, you must plan your script for your explainer video. Your script is the foundation of your video and should be easy to understand, concise, and convincing. It should follow a straightforward structure which includes identifying the challenge or pain point that your audience faces, introducing your product, service, or idea as the ideal solution for their issue and explaining how it works and what advantages it provides, and motivating your audience to take the next step such as checking out your website, starting a trial, or buying your product.

5 Create your visuals

Now that you have your voiceover, you need to create your visuals for your explainer video. Your visuals are the images, videos, animations, or drawings that illustrate your script, and they should be simple, relevant, and attractive. Your visuals should support your voiceover, not distract from it, and they should follow a consistent theme, color, and font. You can create your visuals using the content development tool that you have chosen, or you can use other tools like Canva, Adobe Spark, or Piktochart.

6 Edit and export your video

Finally, you need to edit and export your explainer video. Editing is the process of fine-tuning your video, and it involves adjusting the timing, transitions, effects, and audio of your video. Exporting is the process of saving your video in a format that can be shared online, such as MP4, MOV, or WMV. You can edit and export your video using the content development tool that you have chosen, or you can use other tools like Filmora, iMovie, or Windows Movie Maker.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?