Whiteboard animation is a style of explainer video, just like cartoon animation, motion graphics, and other kinds of explainer or corporate videos. But, with so many different video styles to choose from, are you sure that a whiteboard animation video is a good idea for your startup?
 

Of course it is! Whiteboard videos are an awesome marketing tool, excellent for explaining any product or service in a quick and engaging way. Besides, they're also a very flexible animated explainer video style, because they work great for any target audience!

In some cases, making a whiteboard video or a cartoon style video isn’t very different from what you could get with other styles, because they can help you attain the same marketing objectives. But sometimes the use of the whiteboard animation technique is not just an option, but a must to get the results you’re looking for!
 

Here are 4 moments when you need to choose whiteboard animation as your explainer video style:
 

#1. If your product or service is very complex

What’s more educational than a whiteboard?

People have been using whiteboards for centuries to give lectures and presentations, so it’s no coincidence that animated explainer videos adopt this technique and apply it in the marketing field. It has worked for years – why wouldn’t it work now?

If school has taught us anything, it's that when you see a whiteboard with someone drawing on it, you know that you're going to learn something valuable. This simple but powerful insight makes whiteboard video animations excellent teachers in conveying the most complex concepts and ideas.

This is not a perception. Certain studies have shown that whiteboard videos boost the information retention by 15% when compared to “talking heads” videos. In other words, people watching whiteboard animations will retain what you show them more clearly and for a longer period of time. You want to be remembered, right?
 

#2. If you need extra time to explain yourself

If you have the right scriptwriters at hand, any business idea can be summed up in a 90-second long explainer video, which is the amount of time we recommend for almost any explainer video. But sometimes, if your product or service is more complex, you can push this limit a little; and whiteboard animation is a great technique to push that time limit. There are some great whiteboard documentary videos that last over 20 minutes!

Ok, animated marketing videos should never last for 20 minutes, but with a nicely done whiteboard animation, you can make a 2 1/2 minute video and keep it engaging enough through to the end. Why is that? Well, again, when you see a whiteboard video in action, you already know that the following “lesson” could take some time, so your mind gets ready for a thorough explanation.

On the other hand, the fact that, with whiteboard videos, the story is being drawn in front of your eyes, always generates expectations and keeps the viewer hooked and entertained. Don’t get too excited and abuse your potential customer’s time, but if you do need more time to explain yourself, bear in mind that whiteboard video animations work great for that.
 

#3. If you want to keep all the goodies of character animation
 

It’s always useful to use animated characters in your whiteboard video: your potential customers can easily identify with custom-made characters because they look, dress and act like them, and this generates great brand allegiance and reliability. If you can successfully combine the engaging benefits of character animation with whiteboard videos, you’ll get the best of both worlds.

If you opt for character-based whiteboard animation, you must be very careful when choosing the production company to get your video made, because animation quality plays a key role. In other words, always make sure that your characters look lively and emotional, in order to get engaging results.
 

#4. If you have a B2B or B2C business (it fits with both!)

Whiteboard video animation is one of the most versatile explainer video styles: like cartoon-style videos, it’s always full of lovely characters and great visual humor; and like motion graphic videos, it explains complex ideas in a simple way.

These assets not only make whiteboard videos one of the most complete video styles, but also one of the most adaptable ones in the marketing world: B2B (Business-to-Business) clients will love the way these videos explain and “sell” a business idea quickly, and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) customers will never look away from its compelling storytelling and lovely characters, like the ones in this video over here:
 

Bear in mind that the tone of your video script will define, from the very beginning, if your video is a Business-to-Business or a Business-to-Consumer one.
 

Engaging, lively, emotional, straightforward – whiteboard videos certainly look like the style that has it all, doesn’t it? And I haven’t told you about some of the other benefits you’ll enjoy with it! Some of them include:

 

• Positive brand image: people are quick to judge what they see on the Internet by how it looks. Think about it – haven’t you ever entered a site just to leave it ASAP simply because it looked awful? Looks are extremely important for this day and age, and whiteboard videos can help you look great. This style allows you to show your company with an upbeat feel and display your wit while showcasing that you know what you’re talking about.
 

• Cleaner website: in case you didn’t notice, people love watching videos and prefer to do so before reading long boring texts. So, given how much information you can convey through a whiteboard animation video, you can use this style instead of big text chunks on your site. The result is an ode to simplicity – your website will be free of clutter and you’ll have your product or service explained in a more engaging way.
 

• High sharing potential: most marketers dream about creating something that goes viral and gets shared thousands of times throughout the Web. Videos have the most potential here and whiteboard videos are among the ones with the most likelihood to make that happen. That’s because they can be educative and funny at the same time, characteristics that spark comments, likes and shares.
 

• Easily updatable: when done right, a marketing video can keep giving benefits for a long time. But perhaps, after some time, you wish to freshen things up or update a certain part that doesn’t fit with your brand’s reality anymore. Now, this can be a little bit difficult with certain styles – but not with whiteboard videos. Characters can be put in new scenarios, new elements can be added in no time and you can add or cut at your desire. That flexibility is truly priceless to keep your investment going.
 

• Multiple uses: whiteboard videos are great to introduce your company, sure, but that’s not all that they can do for you. Telling your company story, making a product demonstration, creating a training program for your employees – all of those benefits are from this style. So, don’t just think about whiteboards for your company video: there’s plenty more things you can do with it.
 

• Limitless possibilities: betting on a whiteboard frees yourself from the constraints you’d have if you worked with real people in front of the camera or an established setting for your story. Thus, your animated characters can do anything and go anywhere, they can fly, get big, transform into anything else or whatever you want them to do. That frees yourself from all restraints and allows you to create any story you want and need.