How to Make an Animation for Your Business Animations can be a very compelling way to market your business, educate consumers, and build deeper connections with your current consumers. Animations can be used in a wide variety of marketing venues and are especially effective online and on social media, where many of your customers already are. Here’s what you need to know about what goes into making an animation for your business and what is the most effective way to accomplish your animation goals. Plan for your Budget Animation is one of the areas where many people have the hardest time appreciating what it will take to realize what they imagine. We are accustomed to consuming extremely high-quality media, which is far outside of most small and midsize businesses’ budgets. Cost of animation for US companies has been going up steadily since 2017 and is at an all-time high now. Consumers expect higher-quality graphics and better visuals everywhere they see animations. Even worse, if you work with an inexperienced graphic designer, they may not realize how difficult it will be to create what you are imagining. Misunderstanding can lead to price increases or roadblocks once you have already invested time and money into the animation. Therefore, it is wise to choose an experienced graphic designer willing to tell you the truth about what is and is not possible in what you are imagining. Maintain Your Brand You may be using animation marketing to appeal to a new demographic or be sure that you are keeping up with changing times, but that doesn’t mean that your video message should be off-brand. In fact, beginning a new animation campaign is one of the times when it will be most important for you to stick to your brand image. Even a very short animation needs to be persistently on brand. If the animation gets shares, you want your brand to be front-and-center in the attention that it receives. It can be harder than you think to stick to your brand, especially if you are not accustomed to animation. Here are a few of the elements that should be tailored to your brand image in the animation that you create: Font and color schemeSpeed and volumeTone and emotional impact Are you Business-to-Business or Business-to-Consumer? Animations can be highly functional for a number of different types of businesses, whether you’re selling directly to the consumer or selling to businesses. Many times, the value of tools like visuals and animations are overlooked in business-to-business deals, but this is a serious mistake. An animation or another visual can go a long way to helping you to stand out from the competition in business to business dealings as well. However, the tone that you present, the points you hit, and the way you deliver your brand will be different depending on whether you’re dealing with a corporation or individuals. Do your market research and understand your target demographic thoroughly, whether you are selling to businesses or consumers. Who is Your Audience? Understanding your audience is one of the most essential elements of creating any kind of marketing, including animations. Animations with the intention of gaining a viral following on social media, as you might expect, look very different than animations designed to build credibility in a highly respected industry. Following any sorts of generic rules about how to build good animations is likely to result in creating animations that are too childish for your audience or bore an audience you had wanted to impress into sharing the video virally. Knowing your audience is an essential first step to creating an effective video. What is the Purpose of the Animation? Just as important as understanding your audience is understanding why you are creating the animation. You may have multiple reasons to create a given animation, but that doesn’t mean you should have a thorough understanding of just what those reasons are. It’s great if you can create a video that can have multiple purposes, but usually, the most effective videos are tailored to the purposes for which they’ll be used. Here are a few of the most common reasons that you may choose to produce an animation: Raise Awareness Whether you are just getting started with your company or you are releasing a new product or service, one of your first steps will be to raise awareness. An animation can be a very effective and fun way to do this. Be sure that you are extremely clear about what kind of product or service you are producing and why it might be of value to the consumer. It’s not a bad idea to also reference some other products the consumer may be interested in to take more advantage of the ad. Market to New Customers An animation can be an excellent way to extend your reach to new customer bases. If you are marketing to a new customer, your marketing goals, and the way you create your animation will be very different. In this case, viral videos can be highly effective as a way to market to new customers. A great animation can help to build trust, and, in the best-case scenario, you may be able to generate not just one new customer, but also achieved viral shares. With these animations, each new customer will bring in many more new customers. Even if your animation doesn’t achieve viral success, many businesses find it effective as a marketing strategy. Inform and Connect with Current Customers Too often, animations are only considered in how they can be used for marketing opportunities. However, animations can also be a great way to teach and connect with your current customers. Animated infographics, gifs, and short videos are all superb ways to reach customers very effectively using animation. Keep in mind that visuals exist outside of language, so using effective visual animations to communicate your messages means that you can build a strong relationship even with customers who don’t understand some of your written content. Animations can also be a great way to develop emotional connections with customers since they are so well suited to eliciting an emotional response. Do it Yourself or Outsource? There are all kinds of products advertising the ability to create effective animations that work well on different platforms quickly and easily. The fact is, while you may be able to create an animation relatively easily on these platforms, the potential for them to impress your customer is pretty slim. Your consumers are increasingly exposed to huge amounts of high-quality media all the time. While you may be impressed by the quality of the video that you can create by yourself, it’s unlikely that your consumers will agree with you. Human beings have a natural tendency to view anything we create ourselves as better or more appealing, so we can sometimes be blinded by the effort it takes to create something ourselves. The last thing that you want to do is publish an animation that seems amateur or has unclear messaging. Not only will you fail to accomplish your goal, but you may create a negative impression on customers. Therefore, it is best for the vast majority of companies to outsource their animation and other graphic design to a professional company that can guarantee results. Sources https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item https://www.statista.com/statistics/817601/worldwide-animation-market-size/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265227595