Ok this is rather funny and embarrassing so please, no judging.
Our First Whiteboard Video Ydraw In The Making
This is where it all started for Ydraw. Every company has a starting point and this was ours. 10 trips to Best Buy, 3 weeks of figuring things out, and a bunch of YouTube videos tutorials later. Ydraw was born. It is really an amazing story. Curtis and I (Jace) had zero experience in the video world and we figured it out. We just had a new idea, a demand by customers, and a heck of a lot of determination.
Video Number 2. As you can see it was a trial and error with our videos. We had to figure out our style, and what markers, papers, font, etc…worked the best for what we were trying to do.
As you can see we have improved the process a bit. Now we have some of the best artists, editors, and writers in the business instead of just two best friends trying a new business idea. We’re still going strong and growing, giving others the opportunity to do what we did. Come in and learn, and become the best. It took time and a lot of work, but eventually we figured it out.
Moral of the story: Don’t give up. It might take multiple fails, but eventually you’ll figure it out. And once you do, you can begin to figure out the best way to do what you’re trying to do.
Here at Ydraw we have tried and failed a few times and have since perfected our video process along with our marketing process. If you have any questions or comments for us here at Ydraw, let us know and we would be happy to pass on some of this sage old wisdom. If you haven’t found what you were looking for on our blog yet, let us know, so we can take care of that immediately. We’re all about free tips.
How To Create An Amazing Video: A Perfect Video For Conversion, Attention, and Retention.
Are your viewers doing what you want them to? Are they watching your video, taking action and bringing you more business? When it comes to video marketing you have to be focused more on what is working now. Get ready to learn the science of creating an amazing video.
Have you ever seen advertisements that pop up before a YouTube video plays? Of course you have, but have you have you ever seen a good one? What about the videos that have 5 seconds of disclosures before they even start? Talk about throwing money down the toilet! The agency or company responsible for that ad should be fired … but come to think of it, that happens all the time.
You have 5 seconds to get our attention, if not we click skip as soon as possible and move on with our lives.
They would never admit it but most corporate videos fail to keep the attention of any audience for more then 5 seconds. Ydraw would like to change that so let’s jump into some stats.
Below is one of our highest converting videos created for Yinc (a sister company of Ydraw). The Yinc video is 1:15 seconds in length, it retains 98 percent of the audience for the first 30 seconds and then drops off to 75% by the end of the video. (Watch Here. Yinc Don’t Be That Guy Whiteboard Video)
You MUST get people interested in what you have to say within the first 5 seconds. The Yinc video starts off with some catchy music, a hand drawing and a headline. It’s different than your everyday video and the combination of these 3 things manages to grab the audience and hold them there for the first 30 seconds.
2. Unexpected and Random
Our Yinc sales video is actually a live video we created for our business managers Paige and Haley. This video holds 75% of the audience but we get an amazing spike between 1:00 and 1:15. Why’s that? It’s because we took a quick break to do something random and unexpected. Come on, who swings pink softball bats in their office? (apparently we do).
3. Strong Call to Action
I know we keep harping on the importance of a strong call to action, but it is a must. Applying a simple CTA acts like a remote control to get your readers to get up off the couch and actually do something. It breaks my heart (not really) when I see a million dollar commercial with no call to action. If you want your audience to act… you should ask them. This may not sound like rocket science but I figured it was time I shared all my magical secrets.
So there you have it. Now your job (the reader) is to take these 3 simple steps and apply them to your videos. They work and the proof is in the numbers.
Excerpt from U.S. Department of Labor
"People tend to eye-minded, and the impacts visual aids bring to a
presentation are, indeed, significant. The studies, below, reveal
interesting statistics that support these findings:
- In many studies, experimental psychologists and educators have found
that retention of information three days after a meeting or other
event is six times greater when information is presented by visual and
oral means than when the information is presented by the spoken word
alone.
- Studies by educational researchers suggest that approximately 83% of
human learning occurs visually, and the remaining 17% through the
other senses - 11% through hearing, 3.5% through smell, 1% through
taste, and 1.5% through touch.
- The studies suggest that three days after an event, people retain
10% of what they heard from an oral presentation, 35% from a visual
presentation, and 65% from a visual and oral presentation.
"Presenting Effective Presentations with Visual Aids" May 1996
OSHA Occupational Safety & Health Administration U.S. Department of
Labor
http://www.osha-slc.gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/traintec.html
Excerpt
Recognition Information
To communicate information that people need to recognize, pictures are
extremely effective. In one study (Shepard, 1967), people looked at
600 pictures, sentences, or words. On an immediate test, recognition
accuracy was 98% for pictures, 90% for sentences, and 88% for words.
Another study (Nickerson, 1968) found that people had 63% recognition
accuracy for a group of 200 black and white photographs one year after
initial viewing. Other researchers (Standing, Conezio, & Haber, 1970)
showed people 2,560 photographs for 10 seconds each. After three days,
the study participants recorded recognition accuracy of over 90%. Read
and Barnsley (1977) showed adults pictures and text from the
elementary school books they used 20 to 30 years ago. Recognition
accuracy rates for pictures and text were better than chance, with
pictures alone being recognized more accurately than text alone.
Finally, Stoneman & Brody (1983) found that children in visual or
audiovisual conditions recognized more products in commercials than
children in an auditory only condition. Pictures seem to allow very
rich cognitive encoding that allows surprisingly high recognition
rates, even years after the initial encoding took place.
Spatial Information
Illustrations are superior to text when learning spatial information.
For example, Bartram (1980) arranged for college students to learn how
to get from a starting point to a destination using a minimum number
of buses. The researcher presented the bus route information via maps
or lists and asked the students to provide as quickly as possible the
correct list of bus numbers in the correct order. Bartram measured the
time it took to correctly complete each bus route task. The study
found that the students learned the bus route information more quickly
when they used a map than when they used lists. Bartram believed that
the students performed a spatial task, and the maps were superior to
lists because the map presentation of information is consistent with
people's preferred internal representation of spatial information.
In an exploratory study, Bell and Johnson (1992) allowed four people
to select pictures or text for communicating instructions for loading
a battery into a camera. Qualitative results showed a strong
preference for pictures rather than text. The researchers believed
that the information to be communicated was spatial, and that the
results supported the hypothesis that spatial information should be
presented pictorially. "
"Multimedia Information and Learning" by Lawrence J. Najjar, School of
Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1996 Journal of
Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 5, 129-150.
http://mime1.gtri.gatech.edu/MiME/papers/multimedia_and_learning.html
Excerpt
"Long-Term Retention
One of the basic ways that illustrations aid retention relates to the
well-researched (but not undebated) dual-coding theory of memory
(Paivio, 1971). This theory proposes that information is stored in
long-term memory both as verbal propositions and as mental images. It
suggests that when information is presented verbally and visually it
has a better chance of being remembered. Corroborating research shows
that concrete words are remembered better than abstract words, and
that pictures alone are remembered better than words alone (Fleming &
Levie, 1978). From the dual-coding perspective, an explanation is that
concrete words help us generate associated mental images, and that
pictures alone help us to generate associated words, in addition to
detailed mental images. The combination of verbal proposition and
mental image establishes multiple pathways by which the information
can be retrieved from memory...
Retention in Working Memory
Illustrations can also be seen as assisting the short-term or working
memory by making more information readily available. Illustrations can
present simultaneously all the information needed to explain a topic
or perform a task. Where a linear string of words must use a series of
semantic cues to its organization over the course of its passage, an
illustration can use lines, boxes, arrows, space, color, typefaces,
and the relative distance between elements to communicate information
about the relationships of those elements. Because the reader can see
this information at a glance or with minimal study, graphical
presentation can be more efficient than words alone (Winn, 1987). For
example, charts with multiple columns and rows can reveal the complex
relationships between large amounts of information. Such information
would be difficult to present and even more difficult to comprehend in
words alone. When students read prose or hear exposition, they have to
hold information in working memory long enough to relate it to
information presented later– a difficult task in a long passage.
Simultaneous presentation can reduce the processing load on the
working memory and thus help students better see relationships within
the information."
"The Instructional Role of Illustrations" Cooperative Program for
Operational Meteorology, Education and Training
http://www.comet.ucar.edu/presentations/illustra/illustrations/illustrations_new.htm
Excerpt
"Mayer and Anderson's (1992) contiguity principle asserts that
multimedia instruction is more effective when words and pictures are
presented contiguously in time or space. Studies involving multimedia
instruction have shown that learners perform better on problem solving
and recall tasks when related text or narration are close to an
illustration or animation sequence rather than when they are far away.
In a series of studies reported by Mayer and his colleagues (Moreno &
Mayer, 1999; Mayer, 1997) students read a text passage or listened to
a narration describing a cause and effect system (e.g., how a bicycle
tire pump works) and either studied a diagram or an animated sequence
illustrating the process that was described verbally. In each study,
students receiving text contiguously in space (text physically close
to the diagram or animation) or time (narration chronologically close
to the animated sequence) performed better on recall and problem
solving tasks than students under less contiguous conditions. The
current research was designed to determine whether the contiguity
principle applies to leaning from geographic maps. Comparing rollover
and hyperlink features to a separate narrative allows us to study this
variable experimentally....
It was hypothesized that learners who study a map with animated
features would more successfully encode both map feature and map
structure information than learners who studied a static map. Few
research studies have been reported on the role of animation in
learning from geographic maps. However, research integrating animation
with simulations (Rieber, 1996), graphic organizers (Blankenship &
Dansereau, 2000) and problem solving tasks (Ok-choon Park & Gittelman,
1992) have shown positive effects for animated over static displays."
"Effects of Fact Location and Animation on Learning from Online Maps"
Jul 31, 2001 by Steven M. Crooks, Michael P Verdi, David White Texas
Tech University.
http://tigersystem.net/aera2002/viewproposaltext.asp?propID=3303
"IS THERE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LEARNING PROCESS WHEN MULTIMEDIA IS
INVOLVED? At the University of Maribor in Slovenia,
electroencephalography (EEG) was used to measure brain activity when
exposed to different media... The results show that students find it
difficult to form mental models from text alone. Multimedia
presentations trigger visualization strategies such as mental imagery,
which is crucial to many kinds of problem solving."
"The Affect of Multimedia on the Learning Process" Encyclopedia of
Educational Technology
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/Affectmulti/start.htm
Contact Ydraw for more information about video scribing and whiteboard animation. Or if you just wanna say hi to us.
Introducing Yswipe… the new cut out videos created by Ydraw.
These videos are a great way for businesses to market their products, ideas, and to help explain difficult concepts in a simple way. Ydraw had never attempted a video like this before, but after some thought and innovation we are so happy to announce that we now offer these as an option to all of our clients! The Yswipe videos are a new spin on the original whiteboard video and we are obsessed with them!
Let’s check out the stats these videos produce. We ran some tests here at Ydraw and the results are pretty impressive (if we do say so ourselves). In just a short period of time, the page where the video is embedded has been loaded 145 times by 114 people. 91% of these people played the video a total of 122 times, and spent a total of 3.1 hours watching it. On average, each of these viewers watched 86% of the video! Now that…is what we call incredible. We are certain that as the video continues to receive views, the stats of the video will maintain these high percentages and hopefully even increase viewer engagement.
At Ydraw…we are always looking to create and implement new ideas. So, when you see something you want…chances are Ydraw can do it. We love a good challenge and trying new things. So let us know what you think! And be prepared.. we have another awesome Yswipe video coming out in the next few weeks…it will blow your mind! So be smart!..and get the new Yswipe video…the Ydraw version of a typical cut out video.
Best Whiteboard Animation: the Best Form of Edutainment
When it comes to trying to sell your product to consumers, especially in the current economy, you may become frustrated with their short attention spans, fast-paced lifestyles, and tendency to hum simple tunes while plugging their ears and clutching their wallets in a vice grip. If only there were a way to trick potential buyers into learning everything they need to know about a product or service all under the guise of being entertained! Well, you’re in luck! Whiteboard animation is the best way to entertain your audience while educating them about your business and all the many ways you can help them better their lives. Here are just a few examples of why whiteboard animation takes the cake when it comes to edutainment:
Improved communication of ideas
Whiteboard marketing videos don’t necessarily need to be promotional. If you have a complex set of ideas that you need to convey to potential buyers or even employees – whiteboard can help to improve learning and increase message retention. The symbolic illustrations in whiteboard videos make complicated ideas easier to understand and therefore, remember.
It’s a different kind of media
With all the many media inputs consumers are bombarded with every day, people have grown skeptical of anyone who even remotely reminds them of a salesman, whether or not they’re actually trying to sell them anything. You could have a product that will make peoples’ lives significantly easier, but if they’re not willing to listen to a sales pitch, you have no chance. Whiteboard animation bypasses message filters in the brain with its visual storytelling method. The creativity and artistic illustrations in a whiteboard marketing video can get through consumers’ thick skin, ensuring your message will reach the intended prospects.
It has an impressive teaching resume
When it comes to education, whiteboard animation has been used as chapter summaries for textbooks, to teach languages, demonstrate new software or products, or teach employees company policies or appropriate workplace conduct. Whiteboard animation has the unique ability to incorporate several different kinds of media including photos, illustrations, audio, animation, even other videos. People tend to find the variety of media in whiteboard videos much more engaging than a traditional advertisement or talking head promotion.
It’s simple
Whiteboard videos use a simplified manner of illustrating to give information to the viewers. The simplistic illustrations combined with voice-over narration promote the feeling of storytelling – in most cases taking the viewer back to the innocence and simplicity of childhood. The presence of a hand in the video, or live drawing, makes the video seem more realistic and viewers are better able to fully understand and retain the message. Whiteboard animation keeps your audience captivated by engaging them in the artistic creativity. Illustrations, combined with a pleasant background tune and professional voice-over make up a deadly trio of advertising – consumers just can’t complain about something so easy.
