Explainer video vs. "How it works" page
Which is your preference for explaining your product or service for your target customer, if you need to choose only one? Why?
Which is your preference for explaining your product or service for your target customer, if you need to choose only one? Why?
I need to see how it works on the page. I almost never watch videos even when videos are available because: it takes longer (I can scan a page in a few seconds); I usually don't want to turn on sound; overall video is just much higher effort and watching it takes longer than reading the page.
That means if I look at a page that does not explain the product/service to me using text and images I bounce. Videos can be nice but not necessary for most products.
Exactly, the same for me. Still wondering why do makers spend hundreds and even thousands on explainer videos... Of course it doesn't hurt, but I see explainer video as nice to have, while clear "how it works" page is a must.
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
I was asking myself this very same question. Good to see the responses here :)
From a technical point of view, I've found that a video is much harder to maintain; when it becomes outdated, you're stuck with it, or have to remake it.
An explainer video should be for getting leads on social media and a "how it works" page should be on your product's landing page.
Good point.
my preference as a customer tends to be how it works (explainer videos seem to be hard for folks to get right)
I'd choose YouTube. It's been great for its intended purpose, but also stands out in search results compared to my competitors.
Maybe can you do both?
https://kaktana.com/pages/howitworks.html
We use small autoplay videos with a bit of text. The results are super good!
Great! How do you measure the results?
A video can make a nice addition further down the fold, but I wouldn't recommend it instead of a written explanation.
So often videos take too long to load and then aren't even that great that I don't click them until I'm already strongly interested in the product (and that has to come from the copy).
In other words you can ask yourself: do I want to hide this content between 1-2 clicks, make it not visually scannable, make it inaccessible for people on slow internet connections, ...