Animation: Impact beyond words

As creative folk, we love making animations but we realise they are a lot more than a simple product of creativity – they really do make business sense. We thought we’d put our business hat for this article and share with you why your website could benefit from a video animation.

1. Increased Conversion.

By placing a video animation in prime position on the landing page of your website will give you the opportunity to grab the visitor’s attention and get your message across with a powerful mix of pictures, motion, text, voice, sound effects and music in a few short minutes. Watching an animation is far more fun and engaging than clicking through website text – perhaps the reason visitors stay on sites for an average of 2 minutes longer when an animation is involved. The longer someone spends on your site the more likely they are to buy / sign-up / get involved. Research shows that people are 64-85% more likely to purchase a product after watching a product video.

2. Engage people and they will share!

One of the highest value uses of animations is in communicating ideas or information that would otherwise be difficult (or very dry) with plain text. A great example is Air New Zealand’s Safety video. Airline safety videos are notorious for being ignored. By using a bit of humour and a video animation, the Air NZ Safety Video created a safety video that to date has had 1,280,385 views on YouTube. Not bad eh?

By creating something fun and engaging people are more likely to share it with their friends – a fantastic way of getting your audience to market your message for you!

3. Get your message heard.

Research shows that viewers retain 58% more information* watching a video than reading similar information on a page. This isn’t really surprising considering only 7% of a message is conveyed through the words themselves – the remaining 93% is down to all of the non-verbal communication that goes with it. Everyone has a favoured method of taking in information and an animation is a great way of covering all bases – clever use of images and motion can illustrated the concept visually whilst effective use of a voice-over, music and sound effects gives a fantastic auditory experience.

* Canadian Journal Of Psychology (1991) Volume: 45, Issue: 3, Publisher: Canadian Psychological Assn, Pages: 255-287

4. Increased SEO.

Since Google own You Tube (as well as most of the rest of the web!), by having a YouTube animation embedded in your site, you are 53 times more likely to get listed on the front page of Google search results. YouTube is of course a search engine in it’s own right but it is also a fantastic social tool. Getting an animation on there is a great way for encouraging people to share it which is a key way of boosting SEO.

5. Memorable brand identity.

Definitely not one to be overlooked. An animation on your site is your opportunity to get across your personality and make your business / service more human. By creating something fun and lively, people will associate this feel with your business as a whole. After watching the Air NZ Safety Video I am sure you would expect the airline staff to have a more fun and friendly approach than many!

We love a good animation and we like creating them too! If you’re interested in crafting one for your website then get in touch.

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