What Digital Brew Has to Offer

Over the last few weeks in this blog, we’ve broken down a lot of different aspects of researching animated video services. We’ve talked about how powerful video can be, the pros and cons of animation vs live-action, and even everything you should look for when choosing a company to work with. So this week, we’re going to make the pitch for why that company should be us and break down, as the title suggests, everything that Digital Brew has to offer. You’ll get to see just how much goes into creating your custom video, how much we’ll keep you involved throughout the process, and everything extra we provide to help your video succeed.

Creating Your Video

We’ve touched on some of this in the past but let’s really dive into how much work goes into creating your custom animated explainer video. The goal throughout is to always make sure you know where your video is and what it’s ultimately going to look like. In all of our animated video services, we like to make sure you’re heavily involved. Here’s a bit of what our process looks like:

The Creative Brief

The first step on the journey to creating your video is a creative brief. This is a one-hour phone call with our team to gather all the information we need to write your script. We’ll drill down the story you want to tell and all the main points we want to hit. We’ve said it a hundred times, but shorter is always better. 60-90 is the sweet spot for explainer videos. Anything over 2min is a big ask for your audience and you’ll tend to see a lot of drop off. This is why this brief is so important to have both teams on the same page about exactly what this video should cover. 

We know there’s a lot of information you want to have included in your video. Remember though, your explainer video (especially if it’s your first one) is meant to be a conversation starter, not replace the conversation. It’s important to pick maybe three big points you want your audience to walk away from being excited about and motivated to reach out. If you overstuff it, there’s a good chance your audience will be too overwhelmed to care or click out of the video before they hear the most important part.

Style and Timeline

Now, before you jump on the creative brief, there’s a good chance you’ll already have an idea of how you want your video to look. Should it be 2D? 3D? Do you want characters? Should it be mixed media? Part of our brief is figuring out exactly what you have in mind for the style. There’s no wrong answers and at this point in the process, you can still change your mind. You might go into this call thinking you want a 3D explainer video but as we talk it through, a 2D video with characters might be the way to go.

The last thing we’ll learn in the brief from you is how long we can expect for feedback on the deliverables. Some companies have one or two people that need to see things while others have entire legal teams that need to approve everything. We know every company is unique so we want to get your timeline as accurate as possible. Once we have some of this information and know what the exact scope of your video is, we’ll be able to provide you a timeline of how long it should take. Of course, sometimes things need to be done sooner. In those cases, we’ll workout a rushed schedule so we can get you the video by your deadline.

Mood Boards

While the animated video services we offer to every client is the same, every video we make is always unique. We certainly don’t want to make the same video twice and we know you don’t want the same video that’s built from stripped parts of someone else’s video. That’s why we create custom artwork just for you. So along with the script, we’ll send you mood boards. These are a collection of images, each with different art styles that we think would fit well with your video or your branding. You’ll choose the ones you like the most and we’ll use that guide the creation of your custom artwork. Now if you have strict brand guidelines and artwork, we can absolutely use that as well to craft your video.

Style Frames and Storyboards

So once you’ve approved the script and we have your feedback on the mood boards, we’ll create style frames. These are a few frames of your video done in your custom artwork. These will look exactly how they’ll look in the video so this gives you a good idea of how it’s going to look. This is where you’ll be able to give us any feedback on the style. Maybe the characters are stylized a little too much or you want to tone down the colors. Any and all feedback is welcome.

Once the style frames are approved we’ll create your entire video in storyboards. This will be a good representation of how your video is going to look (minus the movement). It’s also another opportunity to give us feedback on the look of your video.

The Voiceover

An extremely important part of your explainer video is the voiceover. Once potential clients see your video, this is how they’ll hear your brand in their head. So you’ll want to choose a voice that captures your tone. In our creative brief, we’ll ask you how you want your voiceover artist to sound like. Male? Female? OId? Young? If you’re primarily based in the UK, you’ll probably want someone with a British accent. Based on that, we’ll send out a casting for a professional voiceover artist and let you pick who you think sounds. You’ll also get to be on the voiceover recording call so you can help direct the performance and at the end of that call, you’ll know exactly how it should sound.

The Video

After all that is completed our talented animators will go off and bring your video to life! We always get a lot of good feedback about how cool it is to see it transform from start to finish. From words on the page to a few frames to an entire animated video. But like every other step, once we show you the animated video, you’ll be able to give us more feedback. Maybe there’s a transition you think feels weird or a character walks a little too silly. But since we keep clients heavily involved in the process, the goal is to have no surprises. That’s why our collaboration is such an important aspect of our animated video services.

The Cherry on Top of Our Animated Video Services

Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, this was going to be about all your animated video services and so far you’ve only focused on one!” Well, that’s true but the first one was a pretty big one. So this here is, as the section’s titled, the cherry on top. It’s the extra part that helps make your video really soar. Because if you have a brand new shiny animated video but don’t know how to properly utilize it, then what good is it? So here are some of the animated video services we provide in your Video Conversion Kit to go along with your video:

Video Conversation Playbook

The Video Conversion Playbook is a video series that breaks down additional marketing topics that can impact the success of your new explainer. Here are the five videos you’ll get:

• Designing Your Landing Page for Leads: We look at the importance of landing pages in connection with your new video and how to best utilize them.
• Using a Call Scheduling Software: When you’ve captured a potential client’s attention, you’ll want to make sure you can capture their call. This video looks at different scheduling software and being able to receive meetings from possible new customers.
• How to Write an Email Sequence: Here we’re looking at the best ways to reach out to clients that signed up to learn more but maybe weren’t ready to schedule a call.
• Best Practices for your Video on Social Media: Not all social media is the same and different types of video perform better on each. So here we’ll show you the best places to post your video on social media.
• How to Leverage Paid Search: Paid ads can be intimidating so in this one we break down ways you can get the most out of them and make sure you’re not wasting your money.

Social Media Boost Kit

This part of your Video Conversion Kit will focus on social media. Since the algorithms on each social media platform prefer different video lengths, we provide a cut down version of your video. Simply put, it’s a shorter version of your video that can still grab the attention of potential clients if they’re scrolling their favorite social app. 

Strategy Sessions

So far you might be thinking, “These seem like good additional animated video services but what if I have questions and want to talk through some strategies?” Well, do we have good news for you! Also included in your Video Conversion Kit are two 1-hour strategy sessions (one pre-video and one post-video) with our marketing experts to help shape the campaign around your new video. 

Vector Artwork

Like we said early, all of your artwork is custom made just for you. So once your video is finished, you’ll receive the 2D custom artwork and Adobe Illustrator files. That way you can repurpose them for social media, your website, or other marketing channels.

SRT File

Accessibility is extremely important. While the visuals are great and crucial to a video (duh) there’s a good amount of information that will be conveyed through the audio. Whether your next client could be someone that’s hard of hearing or just some scrolling their phone in a public place, they need to know your message. You want to make sure that as many people as possible not only see your video but know what’s being said. That’s why we include an SRT file in your package. This is a time-coded subtitle file that can be put on your video.

Brewing Animated Video Services

Animated explainer videos can be incredibly helpful for your business and its marketing efforts. Heck, 95% of marketers say video marketing has helped them increase brand awareness. But we also know how big of an investment they can be. That’s why we want to make sure that our clients get the most bang for their buck. We LOVE making animated videos. But what we really love are making animated videos that make you money! So it’s important to us that our animated video services include those extras that help your video reach its full potential and convert.
What do you think of some of the animated video services that we offer? Do you think they could help boost your marketing efforts? We sure think they can and we’d love to have a chat with you. Even if you’re still on the fence and want to learn a little bit more about what we do at Digital Brew (we didn’t even talk about live-action videos in this blog), we can always chat. Feel free to reach out to us here.

Let’s Brew This!