How 2D Animated Explainer Videos will help Email Marketing in 2021

February 19 2021

It’s no secret that the use of video as a marketing tool has been booming over the past few years. And why not? Survey after survey proves the enormous potential of video in generating leads, traffic, and sales.

Amidst the shockwave of uncertainties, if there was one thing certain about 2020, it was video gaining even more momentum. Explainer videos, in particular, have been playing an instrumental role in helping businesses grab consumer attention through crisp, clear, and engaging messages.

What is an explainer video, one might wonder? It’s a short duration video whose main purpose is to explain the products or services of a business — and that’s how it got its name. More than 45% of businesses have explainer videos on their home page these days, though they can be used to improve the results of nearly any marketing campaign. Check out how brands like Spotify and eBay leveraged explainer videos to their advantage in the post-lockdown world.

Explainer Animation Video

Explainer Animation Video from Motion Edits
Email, on the other hand, has shown incredible resilience as a highly effective way for people and businesses to communicate for more than a decade now. Though email marketing has had its share of death rumors, it couldn’t be further from the truth (there’s even an entire website called “Email is Not Dead” that busts the myth of email marketing being past its prime with solid facts. Seriously, check it out if you still have your doubts).

The point is, email marketing works amazingly. And in fact, it has been enjoying a bit of a spotlight in 2020, with businesses and people increasingly relying on emails to get their work and lives moving forward.

So, what happens when these two powerful strategies come together? Video in an email has been shown to increase click-through rates by 200–300%. How can you bolster your email’s performance using 2D explainer videos? That’s exactly what we’ll be discussing in this article. But before we dive in, let’s take a look at a few eye-opening video stats.

According to Google, Americans watched more videos than ever since the COVID-19 outbreak.
Video marketing company, Wistia reported a whopping 120% jump in the number of hours people spent watching videos on their platform.
More than 60% of businesses used video to communicate their message to consumers and stakeholders in the past few months.
Not hard to see why the worldwide digital video ad spend remained rock-steady even in the face of a global crisis.

Reasons to Use 2D Animated Explainer Videos in Your Email Campaigns

For the uninitiated, 2D animation is the art of making characters and objects move in a 2-dimensional space. It’s one of the most commonly used formats in explainer videos.

Let’s talk about how an explainer video ups the level of your email marketing efforts.

Easier to communicate and consume

Instead of greeting their prospective subscribers with a boring wall of text, businesses can use explainer videos to get their message across in a quick, engaging, and easy-to-digest manner.

Helps capture attention

The combination of increasing content overload and human attention span getting shorter and shorter (last we heard, it was less than that of a goldfish!) is terrible news for marketers. A well-made 2D character animation explainer video can turn the tables through its excellent storytelling and emotive potential.

Generates empathy

Animated characters can be used cleverly to build a strong connection with the audience. Unlike cut-and-dried marketing videos, character animation in explainer videos can go a long way to inspire emotions and empathy in people while convincing them to take action.

Pushes brand image

By using animation explainer videos, a business can effectively build its brand image. For example, depending on whether they want to be seen as a fun and cool brand or as a brand that deeply touches their audience, they can induce a good laugh or tug at their heartstrings with the help of well-crafted animated characters.

Tips to Use 2D Animation Explainer Videos in Your Email Campaigns

Here are some tips to get the most out of explainer videos in email campaigns.

Mention ‘video’ in your email subject line

Dropping the word “video” in email subject lines alone can boost open rates by 19% and click-through rate by 65%. It’s best used enclosed in brackets like so — [Video] —right at the beginning of the subject line.

Enable autoplay, or not — but do turn the sound off

There are two schools of thought when it comes to using autoplay for videos in email marketing. The one against autoplay believes it can be annoying, while those supporting the use of autoplay highlight the seamlessness of it, especially when someone has clicked on the video thumbnail in an email expecting it to play instantly. No matter which path you choose, it’s always best to keep the sound off. Few things are as frustrating as a video blasting sound at you unexpectedly at work.

Insert an animated thumbnail

Using animations such as GIFs and cinemagraphs in thumbnails work better than plain images to grab people’s attention and encourage them to click. Plus, with a video platform, it’s easy to integrate with emails.

Cut down thumbnail file size

Email spam filters often detect large files from unknown senders as spam. Though there isn’t a specific pixel size you should aim for, 2.7MB has been observed to be a safe limit. A thumbnail larger than that runs the risk of landing in the recipient’s spam folder. In such cases, reduce the size of your thumbnail or use a free tool like TinyPNG to compress it.

5. Ensure that video fits the medium

Prior to filming a video, it’s necessary to understand where the target audience will view it, when, and using what device. In a B2B scenario, for example, a majority of videos are seen on work computers, which have larger screens — and therefore, demand high-resolution videos — than smartphones used by a B2C audience who will appreciate larger and cleaner fonts.

Having said all of that, for videos to truly work their magic in email campaigns, they must be produced professionally. A 2D animation explainer video company that’s fully equipped with the tools and techniques of video and audio production can deliver the desired results without stripping your time and resources.

Work with Motion Edits to gain the competitive edge of using supremely engaging, high-quality explainer videos in marketing campaigns.