What are the benefits of explainer videos for internal communications?

There’s no doubt amongst internal communication professionals that video is a fantastic way to communicate messages, more than ever before. Whether you have a remote workforce, offices scattered across the globe or a staff team in one country, video can really help to improve your internal communications. But how can explainer videos benefit your internal communications?

Firstly, let’s look at what an explainer video is. Well, putting it simply it’s something that explains what something is. It’s not promoting something, not a full-on training video but a short video explaining why, how or what your employees need to know about whatever ‘thing’ you are needing to communicate. How can explainer videos benefit your internal communications efforts?

Video Distribution

The beauty of video is in the versatility of distribution. As with all videos for internal communications purposes you can use an explainer video across multiple touch points with your staff. 

Here are a few examples of how you can distribute, but your video production company should be able to advise you:

• Embedded within staff emails
• Hosted on your intranet site
• Sent within a staff what’s app group
• Used at presentations, meetings and other in-house events
• Viewed across any device including phones, tablets, phablets & desktops

Communicate a message in seconds

Messages can get lost in paragraphs of copy. The saying goes that a picture speaks a thousand words well a video communicates way more than a thousand. In fact, Forrester Research estimates one minute of online video equates to approximately 1.8 million written words!

A well-produced explainer video by a quality video production company can easily communicate a complicated message in an easily digestible format with the right tone of voice in a matter of seconds and hence why many internal communications professionals are increasingly using video.

For those who prefer to watch videos silently subtitles will help and for those who really do prefer reading then a script of the explainer video is easily supplied. Forrester Research also revealed that

“90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. This indicates visual education aids like video can improve learning styles and increase the rate at which we retain information”.

Personalisation

Whilst you can easily personalise written copy and emails, did you know you can also personalise videos?  With a personalised explainer video, you can really make the viewer feel like you are talking to them on a 1-2-1 basis, engaging them even more.  Personalisation in both external and internal communications has been around for a while but personalisation in video is new and certainly personalised internal communications videos are very new and thus a great way of engaging your employees.

Such videos can be personalised in a myriad of ways. Here are just a few examples:

• Voice over which includes their name to ensure their attention is gained from the start
• Animated character based on their gender
• Visually with their name, job title, department and such like displayed in motion graphics as part of the video.
• If your video production company doesn’t offer personalised videos you can order your own personalised video here to see an example.

Live-Action, Animation & Motion Graphics

Sometimes staff just don’t want to be front of the camera and that’s fine we don’t all have an inner Hollywood star waiting to get out and for this reason, live-action video doesn’t always work for every organisation. That’s where motion graphics and animation videos can really help. If you have something complicated to explain an animation may actually be a preferred way of communicating your message. A good video production company would suggest utilising characters to bring your message to life and really drive home a point.  Alternatively, you may like to use mixed media with reportage style live-action shots and motion graphics included to bring the story to life.  As an award-winning video production company, we have a really clear briefing process that we work to with every client to ensure our videos are hitting the mark and really engaging with who they are supposed to.

Measuring success

The clients we work with tell us that they value the ability to be able to measure the results from explainer videos. You can set targets from the outset based on how many people and who you want the video to be seen by, you can measure engagement rates. And obviously you can also track employee participation to really ensure that your videos are cutting through. It is important to set the objectives for your video at the start of a project with your video production company to ensure that your company is really benefiting from the use of explainer videos for internal communications.

Get In Touch With Ark Media Today

If you feel intimidated by the notion of creating an explainer video, there’s no need to be – they just represent another excellent way to get your content out to your target audience.

As with all types of video content, it’s vital that you thoroughly understand your target audience and core messaging before creating an explainer video or animation. This is exactly why you need the support of a professional video production agency like Ark Media, with years of experience in producing the highest quality explainer videos for internal communications. Get in touch today with our friendly team and see how we can support your business.