Keeping an audience interested nowadays is no easy task. Especially when it comes to explaining how complex or highly technical products (or services) work.

Luckily, marketers and business owners have a fantastic resource – whiteboard animation videos – to make that job a bit easier!

Now, this style provides an effective canvas that lets you unfold your ideas and synthesize important information in effective and engaging ways. But developing a compelling, well-executed whiteboard video can be tricky. Doubly so if it’s your first time doing it and you aren’t familiar with the ins-and-outs of the format. 

So, to help with that, we’ve compiled some critical production tips that can be the difference between an O.K. piece, and an amazing conversion tool that will enhance your video marketing strategy!

5 Pro Tips to Make Great Whiteboard Animation Videos

Producing educational content is one of the best ways brands have to make their product more appealing and expand their online reach.

Of the many different options available, whiteboard animation videos stand as one of the most powerful tools to share knowledge. In a nutshell, the style recreates someone writing on a whiteboard, using seemingly drawn lines that come alive with dynamic animations.

Read below our tips to learn how to make great whiteboard pieces that’ll engage your audience and further your branding efforts.  

1. Setting up your whiteboard’s script

The script is the backbone of any video. It gives you the structure you need to get your message across effectively.

It’s important to highlight, though, that whiteboard videos aren’t designed just to make a sales pitch or talk up your product’s most essential features. Those are just organic outcomes of a good piece. Instead, they focus on connecting with your audience on a personal level – Something they achieve through great storytelling.

So, to produce a solid whiteboard video, you’ll have to write a script with a compelling narrative. The question is: How do you achieve that?

To begin with, you’ll have to present a character – or characters – and their story. It’s paramount that these characters represent the buyer persona you are trying to connect with. (More on this in a minute.) Once you have that, the story should evolve up to the point where you introduce a problem that’s relevant to your audience, so you can then propose an ideal solution – yours!

To bring more clarity, here’s a simple step-by-step on how this structure of basic storytelling works:

1. Present your main characters and the problem they’re dealing with.
2. Introduce a solution – AKA, your product, or service.
3. Explain how your solution works, highlighting your value proposition.
4. Add a clear CTA to prompt your audience to take action.

Pro Tip: When it comes to video content, it’s very important to write your script in a conversational tone. Using simple terms and jargon that resonate with your target audience. 

2. The basics of a great storyboard

The storyboard is the visual representation of your video’s main actions and visual cues, from start to finish. It looks like a comic strip, and it’s the tool that’s going to guide you and your teams during production.

Through sketches and basic drawings, each frame shows who or what is in the scene with its corresponding part of the script or voice-over. It also includes a brief description that explains the scene and additional notes, such as camera angle, sound effects, graphic elements, etc.

In this case, what sets the whiteboard style apart is it creates the illusion of a continuous and interconnected drawing. So, instead of swapping them out as it happens in other types of videos, the visual cues in your storyboard should occur in seamless succession.

All in all, whether you make it yourself or a whiteboard animation company you work with, a well-crafted storyboard will also help you visualize your script and identify mistakes or inconsistencies in the narrative. Giving you time to adjust what’s needed to make sure your production is going in the right direction. So, the sooner you start working on it, the better. 

3. Effective branding techniques in whiteboard animation

To stand out, every marketing video you develop for your business should make a distinctive visual statement. One with a well-balanced color scheme and a unique design that reflects your brand’s identity.

The fact that whiteboard videos have a black-lined drawing on a white background makes it the perfect setting for implementing effective branding techniques.

To start, whenever color makes an appearance, it’s going to impact the audience. So, you should seize this great opportunity and use your brand’s colors to emphasize certain moments of your video. For example, when you want to introduce your solution. That way, you’ll imply an unconscious connection between solving a problem and your brand.

The same goes for jingles, music, and sound effects – These can help you drive the viewer’s attention when you need it the most. So, try to use them to accentuate parts of the message you want to deliver.

Last but not least, it’s very important to use your brand’s name and logo in critical parts of your piece – especially at the end alongside your CTA. Doing so is going to give your content permanence in your audience’s mind. Ensuring your brand’s message stays with them after they finished watching your video.

4. Setting up characters that mirror your target audience

To make your story – AKA, your video – engaging and relatable, it’s paramount to create a character that reflects the target audience you are trying to connect with. Done right, they’ll be instantly attracted to your content and, more importantly, stay to see what you have to say to them.

To achieve that, you’ll have to develop your video’s characters using your buyer persona as a model. To define who that is, you’ll need to establish the common traits and main characteristics of your “ideal audience member”. Giving these personas a name, age, job, educational level, hobbies, interests, and needs. 

Let’s say you find out that the average person that you want to visit your website is “James”, a young man in his twenties that goes to college. He also loves to play soccer and reading Japanese graphic novels in his free time. 

So, to engage James – and people like him -, you’ll have to custom-make your video using this information, and, most importantly, you’ll have to create your characters after him. This is going to make your audience feel represented and connect more easily with your brand’s message.

5. The importance of video lengths in marketing

There’s a common saying in video marketing that goes like this: The shorter the video, the better. And it makes sense because people online aren’t that patience anymore – They expect gratification and value in the quickest way possible.

Thing is, “short” is kind of a vague term. So, how long should your whiteboard video be? 

Well, it’s going to depend on the complexity of the subject you want to cover and your target audience. The golden rule, though, is to keep them around the 2-minute mark as much as you can. However, if your topic requires more time, you have up to 6 minutes to get solid engagement. After that, it drops significantly. 

The bottom line is that before you start developing your piece, you should always assume your viewers have short attention spans and a lot of distractions. Include only what’s really necessary to get your message across and remove anything that won’t add value. Be specific and concise – every second counts! 

Summing Things Up

If you want to boost your brand awareness and increase engagement, few things are more effective than whiteboard videos. By combining educational content with a super entertaining approach, they manage to deliver a lot of information while keeping the audience interested.

As we’ve just learned, there are many elements that you should mind, assess, and plan to make it work. Something that can overwhelm even to the most experienced marketer! 

However, remember that everything starts with a well-written script, a character that can accurately represent your audience, and applying the right branding techniques to reflect your business’ identity.

We hope this guide on how to make great whiteboard videos helped you understand the basics and inspired you to start working on yours. So, now it’s your turn!

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Photo by Mark Rabe on Unsplash