Is it possible to use animation as a lead generation tool?

Any business, no matter how small, big or unique, is in constant need of attracting leads. In other words, any business needs supporters, buyers and clients. While it might be possible to grow the audience with traditional approaches (social media, webinars, etc) outreach is a rather “inside” tool that is easier to use across the places on the internet where your leads spend their time. Let’s start from the very bottom and get a clear understanding of the term “outreach”.

What is outreach?

You might have heard this word before, but to grasp all the meanings of the process is not easy in one or two lines. So we have to learn first a definition that won’t confuse us. And what does it have to do with animation after all? Well, we are getting to the point.

Outreach marketing is a number of strategies that aim to target persons and organizations that are the audience of your business, and, therefore, that may be interested in joining you or buying your product.  

The idea behind it is not merely to find people interested in your product so they could buy it; it is more than that. The goal is to deliver information about a product to those who need it. Outreach marketing considers mutual benefits for both parties.

Benefits of Outreach Marketing

Most of these points worked for our client, but especially they managed to improve the last two features in this list with our video.

Why? Because once the audience you are trying to reach is getting your product, they want to share it with their friends. At least on Facebook or Instagram. This is exactly how it worked out in this case. Solutions is a well known consulting company that specializes in supply chain management.

Overall, these complex services require a lot of time and money thus unaffordable for smaller companies. This simple motion graphics explainer shows What-If Service, a solution that can provide some basic insights for much fewer costs and significantly less time.

Such a video is a real engagement tool – it makes people interested in the project and quickly turn them into advocates of the brand. 

Why is outreach efficient today?

The aims of outreach strategies include more than reaching out to your prospects. There are a variety of goals: to find business partners, make partnerships with influencers, or establish connections with certain individuals if your business is unique and the audience consists of a handful of people. 

One of the most important reasons to use outreach today is pretty obvious: it is not that easy to find your brand. Even for those who will be interested in it. The amount of information is overwhelming. To come through it and find whatever you need is an arduous task.

So, if you are hiring a lead generation team or have your own at the company, make sure they use the right channels of communication with the potential leads.

Channels of communication

A successful outreach campaign depends on the results brought. However, these are very hard to achieve without determining the right communication channel.

You should know your target audience well enough to reach them on the platforms that are suitable for them.  In other words, your prospects prefer some channels of communication, and while outreaching them you have to find what truly works. There are several main communication channels for those who work with generating leads.

How to understand that your approach doesn’t work

Obviously, animation on its own can not bring any leads. However… If you are using email outreach, Facebook or LinkedIn outreach strategies not as the book taught you, but with creativity and mixed approaches, the animation is your benefit.

Why? Let’s imagine a situation: Therefore, you need another approach to your audience. First of all, you can outreach several people from one company.

What does it mean? The standard approach assumes that you have to contact one person from one company. But don’t you want to increase your chances by talking to several at once? Advice: try to reach a few people at once.

Maybe they will talk about your company with each other and this will affect their choice. Andrew Johnson, the head of lead generation

“In my experience, contacting several leads at once can be a great advantage. First, this is how you show them your interest in the company. Second, you give them this opportunity to talk about you. Third, the chances of convincing them that your product is worth their attention are better.”

Why is animation a lead generation tool?

The animation here can be a great addition that helps to learn about your product in visual form. What is the way to do that?

An animated video will engage these people, make them interested in you. All you have to do after that is to continue communication in order to lead this person to a buying decision. Besides, he or she can be a loyal part of your community later.

The case

One of our cases is a video we made for MyAds platform. What is it? Planning and activating a digital campaign in today’s complex ecosystem remains a challenge. It requires a lot of time and expertise, and it’s not always 100% efficient.

Aiming to facilitate such efforts, MyAds Platform is a one-stop shop that allows clients to easily forecast, plan, create and broadcast a premium digital targeted campaign – whether it is display or video – using DMP-based data and machine learning.

This video was capable of convincing several leads to try the platform. Why? Because it is much more memorable and simply more engaging to learn about some services through the video. 

Why won’t it work?

If your business is not one of a kind, most likely standard ways of attracting the audience is not something they haven’t experienced yet. Your competitors might use email sequence with some classic outreach tools – which is, by the way, out of whack. Or maybe they reached some of the big clients of yours directly.

None of these approaches will work ever again. Besides, the triggers you are using must be unique and not get out of system. So you have to come with something new. Here’s where animation is your lucky star. Or maybe the message is too boring… Well, that’s the case. And that is exactly why we recommend using animation in messages.

How to use animation as a lead generation tool?

As you might know already, animation is an incredibly conversive tool. People tend to react to cartoon-like moving images more vividly than to verbal information. For example, in the video below you can see many reasons why people enjoy and share it. The hot topic, humour, visual abundance, and something all of us experience one way or another. 

While in lead generation you can not use simply an animated video, but the message you write should be emphasizing the video content this letter/message contains.

Let’s take a look at the example: when you know who your target audience is and turn these people into contacts – whether it is email or Facebook – you can use animated video as part of the message and core of communication with them.

If you want to jazz your message up a little bit, the animation is literally a way to make everyone interested in the message and the company behind it. There is also something called omnichannel outreach. Here you can use several channels at once, including posts on the influencers pages. And… as you might get it at the moment, here animation fits the best.

Did you know that….lead generation is number one challenge in 2021 for marketers

How animated content can work in omnichannel outreach campaigns?

We assume that you are already familiar with your target audience, know the main triggers and activators. So, at this point, you have to make a few animated videos: about your product, explainer video and video about benefits.

Advice: stick to personalized videos. If you are looking for partnerships or your audience is very narrow, it won’t be hard to make personalized videos. But it will be rewarding. Here’s a wonderful example of personalization with redirecting a prospect to a video.

Use a Scale vs Personalization strategy, where you can apply personalization to lead to your real need to get in contact. Now you can act: send an email or message with a convincing script, and attach the first video. During the communication use the rest of them. Another approach is to post slightly different videos on thematic channels. You can use native advertising here or ask influencers to post these videos in sequence.

Summary

The goals behind your outreach strategy can be vastly different depending on your business needs. What we can say for sure is that traditional approaches like cold-calling are not a thing anymore.

Today you need mixing modes of attracting leads, and one of the underrated ways is to use animation. And you will see what mesmerising results it brings you. :)) If you want to enrich your outreach strategy with a set of videos for such a purpose, you have to reach us first:) Our animation studio will make unique videos that win you over the audience you are looking for.