
10 reasons why explainer animations work for charities
1. Animations are perfect to explain even difficult messages
Quite simply, animated videos are incredibly effective when it comes to explaining and simplifying even the most sensitive of subjects. Using carefully created characters and great scripts, animations can bring the message to life – generating impressive results.
Furthermore, the creative aspect animations offer allow organisations to articulate messages that they can’t through a standard film.
2. Building a relationship with your audience
The stories and messages you can share in an animation allow you to build trust with your intended audience. By carefully creating content that’s tailored to your viewers, you can demonstrate your understanding of them – ultimately capturing their attention so they absorb your message.
By using animation, you can create captivating characters your audience will relate to, associating your organisation’s brand with emotion – the objective every charity video should be aiming for if they want to initiate a response.
Animations are modern and sophisticated, they don’t have to include characters if the subject matter doesn’t call for it.
3. People like to watch videos
We’re all busy these days, so it’s no surprise people prefer to watch content rather than reading paragraphs of information – regardless of its purpose.
Did you know our brains process video content around 60,000 times faster than text? Makes sense to use video to communicate your charity’s message, whether it be fund-raising purposes or raising awareness of a particular cause.
Because of this, they offer multiple opportunities to be shared through different channels; speaking at events or conferences too?
4. Videos can work wonders for your SEO
We’ve already mentioned people enjoy watching videos that captivate them, so, if they’re researching information related to your organisation’s cause online and come across your explainer animation, there’s a high chance they’ll watch it before visiting your website. When people are watching your video on your website, the time they spend on your site increases.
So why is this important? Because Google values that browsing time; having a video on your website will send good signals to those search engines and boost your rankings. In other words, your site is more likely to appear higher in Google if you have a video embedded into it.
5. Videos can secure your organisation a place on one of the world’s biggest search engines.
Nope, we’re not talking Google here; people often prefer to use YouTube when searching for videos that teach viewers how to do things or maybe solve a problem.
Plus, because YouTube is owned by Google, it goes without saying that they both work together in terms of optimisation – searching for ‘how to’ videos on Google will often bring up results from YouTube. If you can create an animation for your organisation with this approach in mind you’ll maximise your visibility and improve your website traffic.
6. Transactional results are higher thanks to video
Statistics show a website with no video content has an average conversion rate of around 1 – 2%. By featuring an engaging video within a website, organisations have seen increases of up to 80%. Consider how this could be translated into donations, which leads us onto point no. 7…
7. Bang for your buck – Return on Investment
We’re all familiar with the term Return on Investment, it’s arguably one of the main things charities worry about when making decisions about their communications activities. Yes, a good quality animation requires a reasonable amount of budget, but we’ve been developing animations for the charitable sector for over ten years and our clients tell us they have the greatest ROI, it’s money well spent.
Don’t forget, animations are easier and much cheaper than films – no need for film crews and location expenses.
8. Social media networks love video
It’s no secret the giants of the social media world – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – are placing a strong focus on video content.
Users will share your animation if it’s entertaining, engaging and strikes a conversation. And with 1.6 billion Facebook users globally, this presents huge opportunities for your organisation to be at the centre of the conversation just by creating great content.
9. Increase your email marketing responses
Email marketing can be a powerful communication tool, but it’s also quite a challenge to achieve those important high open rates.
Telling recipients there’s an animation in your email, by simply adding the word ‘animation’ in the subject line of your email can increase your open rates. Similarly, by putting a clickable image in the body of your email can also have an impact on the click-through rates for your campaign.
10. Viewing on the move
We live in a world where people carry out so many daily tasks on their mobile devices; consuming news; communicating with each other; shopping etc. but one thing people don’t do much of is to read.
Research indicates around 33% of tablet owners are watching about an hour of video every day, while 28% of smartphone users watch a video at least once a day and this is increasing – especially among younger audiences. Video fits perfectly on small screens, presenting great opportunities for your organisation to get your animated message out there.


Want to find out more?
We’ve been doing this for 20 years, working with international clients including BBC, Cambridge University Press, News UK, Medical Aid Films and Friend. Your creative projects will be in good hands with Alternative View Studios.
Call us on 020 8374 4760 or email on hello@avstudios.com