by Ydraw | Jul 18, 2018 | animated doodle videos, animated doodle videos, animated explainer video, Animated Whiteboard Videos, animation, Animation Production, Animation Video, Authenticity, Creative Marketing, Emotional Connection, how to make a whiteboard animation, Humor, Marketing, Story Telling, Video Content, Video Marketing, video online marketing, Whiteboard animation, Whiteboard Video, Ydraw
What makes things funny? Our own sense of humor isn’t always funny to the guy sitting next to us. So, let’s look at a few simple principles used in Improv to make your video funny to all of your audience!
First and foremost, there is TRUTH in COMEDY! The funny comes from the experiences we have all had in our lives. Think about sitcoms, why do they work? They take something so simple, like everyday life and exploit it. The ups and downs of dating and heartbreak or fighting for that perfect job, only to find out that it isn’t so perfect. But where does the comedy come from?
The funny comes from the unexpected. The moments of truth. It comes from showing not telling. We have all been there…the time in the grocery store when two people are having a conversation in public and you can’t help but listen, even though you know the topic should have probably been left at home…yeah that stuff.
So let’s take a look at this funny scenario….
We see two shadowy figures digging holes in a graveyard. It’s dark, but we can see that there’s a body behind them. It appears that they are covering up a murder! The scene is quite grim and creepy… so how is this funny? The car lights flicker on and we get a better look of the situation… only to reveal…two clowns? Okay, now this is way more terrifying, but their must be more to the story… so as we get closer, we overhear…
Clown 1:“Look Stan, all I’m saying is I’m sorry she left you. You deserve better!”
Clown 2:“You know Joe I just don’t understand, I did everything I could to make her happy.”
Clown 1:“Hey, you know, it’s okay if you want to cry. It’s just us brother.”
Clown 2: (in tears) “Life is just so unfair! But hey how’s the wife and kids?”
Clown 1: “They’re real good. Sally just started walking…”
The conversation continues as they are digging a shallow grave wearing their clown costumes. So, we know they are clowns, we know they are friends, and we know what happened…but they don’t have to tell us that they murdered this guy. We just know! If we focused on the body, or what happened the scene would drag on, the audience would get board with details and information that they don’t need.
This scenario leads us to the truth of comedy…Relatability!
Think about how you feel when you pop bubble wrap. Did that put a smile on your face just thinking about it? How about when you scoop peanut butter from a freshly open jar, yeah there’s that satisfaction face. See how easy it is to relate? All you have to do is capture a moment when someone has used your product in such a way that it brings a clear feeling to your audience.
Just remember that comedy is subjective, but so is being bored out of your seat. By using these tried and true principles of Improv Comedy, you can help your audience laugh at the unexpected, learn about your great product/service and keep them interested and wanting more.
So, let’s get out there and take a fresh approach to comedy, and whatever you do, if you see two clowns walking your way…RUN!
by Ydraw | Jun 12, 2014 | video
Would any market savvy business owner toss aside a polished, entertaining, informative system that delivers “YOU NEED THIS PRODUCT/SERVICE IN YOUR LIFE!” messages and keeps potential purchasers watching intently with eye pleasing drawings and storylines of audio delight???
BREAKING BUSINESS NEWS!!! Hundreds do every single day!
It’s crazy and it’s a darn shame.
Common reasons why businesses pass on utilizing explainer videos to energize and leverage their marketing budget buck:
1.) They just plain don’t understand the power videos have on the brains of the masses.
2.) There is a misconception that whiteboard animation will cost them an arm and a leg… and possibly an eye… plus their left kidney… along with a sliver of their spleen.
NOT TRUE. WE DO NOT ACCEPT BODY PARTS AS A VIABLE FORM OF CURRENCY.
Never you fear, I am here to help clear up any misunderstandings.
Successful business men/women/people throughout the ages have mastered the art of ROI (Return On Investment.) If anybody were to be cautious about spending thousands of dollars on a video… it would be me. As a matter of fact, it was me.
Ydraw was created because I needed a whiteboard video for my company. I wanted to, in a short amount of time, explain what my product did… as opposed to a flat, static photo of what it was. An explainer video was the perfect solution to accomplish this with movement, emotion and excitement.
As I began my search, (way back in 2011) There were only 2 companies providing these types of videos. RSA and Social 21. I knew this was going to be the next big wave of viral marketing potential. I wanted it… wanted it bad! There was just one hiccup. The price tag!
$20,000-$50,000 for a RSA animation video!?!?
What in the world??? Were these videos shipped to your doorstep in diamond studded 24 karat gold envelopes and hand delivered by The Queen herself? Thus Ydraw was born.
Ways to maximize the return on your whiteboard animation video:
1.) Upload your video to YouTube and other video sites. (This will jumpstart seo, traffic, and leads)
Traffic can be difficult to create, especially since Google is continually making adjustments to their algorithm. Your odds of hitting the front page of Google are substantially increased with a video than with any other type of digital medium.
Farmers plant seeds, fishermen cast hooks, hunters set traps. CEOs should be searching for endless sets of eyes… these eyes lead to brains… those brains lead to leads… the leads lead to sales. Video marketing will transform your fishing hooks into fishing nets, leaving the shorelines of your profits overflowing with clients you’ve caught.
The first step I took after starting Yinc Marketing was ordering a ‘Fast and Easy Whiteboard Video’. I instantly uploaded it to YouTube and made sure I filled out the title, description and keyword tags correctly. 3 weeks later I found myself at the top of Google on a couple of keywords (Check out the screen shot below and you will see that I am still there). I may not be seeing “27 car pileup on the freeway at rush hour” traffic but it still produces leads and we all know leads=sales.
These results were from a ‘Fast and Easy Video’ created by Ydraw. Economically stellar… so obviously my ROI is huge (Yes, I’m bragging). Here’s the video.
[Tweet “What Can a Whiteboard Animation Video Do For You?”]
[Tweet “Where should you place a video on your site?”]
2.) Place the video on your Website homepage, above the fold.
Videos are a MUST on your home page. Websites need to be based around consumer experience. Grabbing and keeping interest is key. Unless your content writer rivals Hemingway… most readers will bore easily of wordy text. Your video should be the center of attention, so the minute a visitor clicks their merry little way onto your site, the first thing they do is hit the play button.
A word of caution from your marketing mentor:
I am aware how much you enjoy your cookie cutter, sappy, environmentally friendly stock images that make zippo sense nor do they have any correlation to pretty much anything. I understand you want to show photos of an Asian woman taking control of a high powered male saturated meeting… not to mention the salt and pepper haired African American gentleman grinning serenely as he stares upon his freshly opened cardboard box of recently shipped product joy. How else can you show your sophistication, exuberance, diversification, political correctness and overall blanketed relativity?
Just imagine the previous paragraph was typed in a sarcasm font… Sarcasm fonts don’t exist… but they should.
Click this link and you will understand.
The quote of the day:
“Using a specific ratio of Asian people, to black people, to women, to white men. We want to make sure we represent a version of your needs and interests or at a version of your skin color.”
Great video isn’t it?
Your homepage is prime real estate. Think “curb appeal.”
Keep it clean, tidy and geared towards your intended audience.
Here are a couple of companies that excel at this.
http://hydrablue.com
http://crazyegg.com
http://www.copyblogger.com/
The simple formula is: headline, subheading, and video.
3.) Run Video ads.
I recently wrote an article on “How to run YouTube ads and profit from your competitor’s YouTube pages.” I suggest reading it! No matter the size of your company, you should be running ads. How can you expect to be discovered by your target audience unless you throw yourself out there on the stage? It won’t break the bank.
Think ‘investment.’
I had a lead contact me this week regarding a whiteboard animation video. She took her search to YouTube. She clicked on a competitor’s video. In rolls the pre-roll add… and what do you think she saw??? Boom… Ydraw… Double Boom! Like an NBA blocked shot, I Dikembe Mutombo’d my competitor. *waves finger* BOOM!
You see what I did there? Did you catch that?
Instant Replay:
1. Client is in need of my services.
2. She decides to browse whiteboard videos on YouTube.
3. My video ad plays before the other video starts (Boom).
4. Customer calls me because I made the first impression.
5. I get a sizzling hot lead.
And the crowd goes wild!
Clever business doesn’t get much more rewarding than that!
[Tweet “How to run YouTube Video Ads”]
I could go on and on and on and on and on…and on about the benefits of whiteboard animation videos for your company, product or service. I could write forever but the sun is shining and I have eager potential clients to catch in my video marketing net of pure awesomeness!
If you enjoyed this article, share it. If you need a video, call us. If you still find yourself on the fence… well, you can always gather up another heaping handful of random stock photos that speak to your soul. (← sarcasm font.)
Enjoy your day!
What can a whiteboard animation video do for you?
by Ydraw | Mar 7, 2014 | video
Hello customers, new customers, and future customers. Many of you may not know the humble beginnings of Ydraw. It was started by a financial guru and a cement worker. People thought we were a bit crazy until we launched our first video on YouTube. Our simple company was started because of a YouTube video and I am going to show you the steps we took to create it.
I know many of you are wondering what you can do with your video or why you should get a video in the first place. So I am going to give you a couple ideas, methods, and techniques we are currently using. I don’t want to bombard you with info, so I am going to give you 2 simple techniques to drive more customers and business to your company.
I know most of you like data, so here are some 2013 video stats.
• After watching an explainer video, 68% of people are more inclined to purchase the product or service.
• After watching a video online, 60% will click through to your website.
• 55% would rather watch video than read text.
• 75% of corporations and marketers are planning on increasing their budget for YouTube marketing in 2014.
• Mobile users want to watch video; not read text.
Let’s first talk about YouTube. Are you using it? YouTube is still the world’s second-largest search engine. It can really provide you with a lot of amazing traffic. It is so much easier to get a video on the first page of Google than it is to get a blog post or home page, that is why Youtube is so useful. The other day I was at a business expo and met up with some businesses who were solely using YouTube videos for all their marketing needs. They are killing it!
You can do a simple search on Google and see how powerful the video snippet can be. Take a look at a couple of screen shots below.
Video Marketing Guide
How to Use YouTube
- Get a video and open up a YouTube account. To make sure that your content gets discovered and the video is indexed, you have to optimize your metadata with captivating titles, descriptions, and tags. In the description area you can put something short and sweet or you can write a novel. I like to have about 200+ words with my keyword mentioned 3 to 6 times. Start with your keyword and try to end with the keyword word in the last sentence. I hope that makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/optimization.html
- Use YouTube annotations to link to certain landing pages on your site. It is best to start these about 5 seconds into the video. The goal of annotations and links are to give people a reason to leave YouTube and head to your website. You can read about YouTube annotations here or for an example, check out the video below. Finally, this link will supply you with a bunch of common uses for annotations. https://www.youtube.com/yt/playbook/annotations.html
- Push Push Push. You have to get your video out among the peasants. 🙂 Video does not climb to the top of search engines without any labor. Work at it and get some high quality backlinks. [YouTube Video Checklist]
How to Use Video Ads on Facebook
Are you using video on Facebook? If not, you should be. I have been pretty skeptical about FB marketing up until the last couple months. They are getting better and the ROI is fantastic. So here are a couple steps to get you started.
- Create an ad account on Facebook.
- Upload your video and create an audience. You can also read more about Facebook ads by jumping over to Facebook Marketing by Yinc http://yincmarketing.com/facebook/facebook-retargeting-finally-arrived-facebook-ads/
- Writing a compelling headline and also make sure you have an enticing thumbnail is a must. Some businesses live and die by the headlines they create. Here are a couple examples to help. This is great stuff, so use it. I got this from Neil Patel.
Example: The naysayers said this wouldn’t make them money. They forgot that traffic means money.
The Formula: (assumption everyone was making), and then (unexpected surprise opposite, stated without too many specifics, to intrigue readers)
Start with these two steps and look for some more great blogs in the future. If you like what you read, we would appreciate a little bit of love. Share it!
Have a great day and good luck on your video marketing.
[social_sharing style=”style-19″ fb_like_url=”http://ydraw.com/video/laughed-put-video-sales-came/” fb_color=”light” fb_lang=”en_GB” fb_text=”like” fb_button_text=”Share” tw_lang=”en” tw_url=”http://ydraw.com/video/laughed-put-video-sales-came/” tw_name=”Ydraw” tw_button_text=”Share” g_url=”http://ydraw.com/video/laughed-put-video-sales-came/” g_lang=”en-GB” g_button_text=”Share” alignment=”center”]
by Ydraw | Feb 3, 2014 | video
I know many of you have been waiting to see our new 2D and 3D animation videos. Well your wait is over! You can check them out below.
3D animation pros and cons
Up until now, 3D animation videos have been way out of budget for most companies. We have since found a way to produce them for a lot less.
Pro:
- Unique and very fun to watch.
- Full movement and animation.
- You can bet your competitors will not have one. At least not yet.
- There retention rate is pretty good.
- They are amazing.
Con:
- They take about 45 days to create
- They are not the cheapest. They run about 8K per 30 seconds
2D animation pros and cons
2D explainer videos have been around for a few years and there are a lot of companies that can create them, but they still are fun and way better than live video.
Pro:
- Unique and very fun to watch
- Completed in about 35 days
- Full animation
- Brand your company
Con:
- Cost is higher than your typical whiteboard video
Obviously you need to do what is best for you business. I have seen amazing whiteboard videos, 2D animation videos and 3D videos. Just make sure they are fun, unique and tell a great story.
Have a great day!
by Ydraw | Jan 14, 2014 | animation
So what are the new video marketing trends coming out in 2014? Web video is still seeing massive growth, it has become a main stream activity for almost every house hold and should be a big part of your marketing budget.. Here are some interesting stats:
89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today. (ComScore)
Online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016. (Cisco)
Only about 24 percent of national brands are using online video to market to consumers. (Kantar Media)
Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks. (Bytemobile Mobile Analytics Report)
Consumers give up on an online video if it doesn’t load in two seconds. (University of Massachusetts Amherst and Akamai Technologies)
Users sharing video on retail and brand sites chose Facebook 46 percent of the time, with email accounting for 40 percent and Twitter capturing 14 percent of shares. (Invodo)
Globally, online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016. (Cisco)
52 percent of consumers say that watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. (Invodo)
Mobile and tablet shoppers are three times as likely to view a video as laptop or desktop users. (NPD)
Mobile video ads that include social media buttons drive 36 percent higher engagement. (Rhythm NewMedia).
Online video production will account for more than one-third of all online advertising spending within the next five years. (Borrell Associates)
76 percent of marketers plan to add video to their sites, making it a higher priority than Facebook, Twitter and blog integration. (Social Media Examiner)
92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others. (Invodo)
More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month, spending more than 4 billionhours watching videos (YouTube).
2 billion video views per week are monetized on YouTube, and every auto-shared tweet results in six new YouTube browsing sessions (ReelSEO).
Obvisoulsy we love video and we want to show you what we have coming down the pipeline. Here at Ydraw we want to stay on top of the new trends but more importantly we want to keep doing what works and what will drive you the most revenue.
1. Whiteboard Video
Our whiteboard videos continue to outperform all other types of video. Many of them have a 75% retention rate. They are still a hot commodity so look for our new innovations in whiteboard animation videos, this also includes the yswipe videos. If you have not seen our whiteboard animation video you can check them out here… whiteboard demo videos
2. 3d Animation
Up until now, 3d animation videos have been very expensive. They take a lot of time and collaboration just to get started. Ydraw is about to change this. We now have a team of 3d animators. A lot of companies will spend $20,000 for a simple 2D animation video, but now they can have a 3D video. Check out our screen shots. We will have it completed next week for the whole world to see.
3. Animation Videos
It is hard to get away from the standard animation videos. We have been very hesitant to enter this field due to the fact that their are a lot of good companies creating simple animation videos. They can also be called After Effect videos. If we can not be the absolute best then we usually do not enter the game. That is going to change in 2014. Ydraw is now going to offer simple animation/After Effects videos. We have been seeing a lot of junk being produced and we know we can produce a lot better quality for the same price. Plus, we have the talent to make it happen. Our animation demo video will be launched next week. Here is a nice picture to give you a preview.
Get ready to order your new Whiteboard Video, 3D Animation Video, or your Standard Animation Video.
