How To Make An Explainer Video with Instructor Miguel Hernandez

Welcome! It’s exciting to get a chance to get you on as a featured video marketing expert! If any of our readers haven’t already heard of you, please tell us, who you are and what you do professionally!
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ / GRUMO MEDIA:
 Glad to be interviewed! I’m the Founder and CEO of a animation studio located in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
We specialize in producing fun explainer demo videos for companies of all sizes around the world.

Some clients include Microsoft, Walmart, inDinero, Hipmunk, Ashton Kutcher, Clipboard, RedBeacon, and many other cool startups!

I also teach how to make animation videos for business too… more on that later though…

What initially compelled you to become an video marketing leader through your online presences?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: I got into marketing videos by chance.

Originally I created a demo video for a previously failed online business I had. 
A local startup (Summify.com) watched it, liked it, and asked me to produce one for them.

At that time I was short in cash because I had spent all my savings working 1.5 years developing the online business I created that first demo video for so I accepted the job.

The video I did for that local startup was very well received and that gave me the idea to start a business producing this type of explanation videos.

In order to further validate this new business opportunity I created a spec video for a Silicon Valley startup called Hipmunk. The Hipmunk demo video out to be an even greater success and gave me a ton of exposure within the startup community world wide.
Dozens of leads came from that exposure so in order to handle all the requests I decided to incorporate and that is how Grumo Media was born.

Editor: You can learn more about Miguel and how he started Grumo Media by reading this interview.

Great! Miguel, tell our readers about what you do – it's pretty special!
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: At Grumo Media we produce explainer demo videos and provide online animation training.
Our demo videos are usually about 90 seconds or less and take about 5 weeks to produce.
We handle the entire production process which includes script writing, storyboarding, voice over, animation, and sound design.

Our main animation course has been taken now by over 3000 students and teaches newbies everything they need to know to produce their own demo videos with a small budget.

Why video? Video been around for a long time in various mediums already – why is it suddenly so important now?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: Video has always been very important but originally was not a viable marketing alternative on the Internet due to bandwidth limitations.

However as the Internet has gotten faster watching video online has become easier and therefore one of the preferred ways to promote products and services online.

What are the big opportunities for businesses to start use video in their marketing?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: Let's get to it – a good marketing video will help to:

1. Increase conversions up to 40% or more.
2. Help drive more traffic via organic searches as videos properly tagged rank very high on search results
3. 
Simplify your sales team life by helping more potential customers understand your business proposition in a concise and effective way.

If a business or sole proprietor is debating to simply ignore video, and hope it’ll go away, what dangers are they facing?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: Video as a marketing tool is not an option anymore for businesses but a must.
Consumers are now accustomed to watching videos explaining new products and in many cases expect to watch a short demo video explaining what a company does before they even consider purchasing a product.

For landing pages a good video can help increase conversions dramatically so any company not leveraging this advantage will be losing a load of potential sales until they a proper demo video produced.

How should a business get started with video? OR Is Do-It-Yourself (DIY) video an okay starting solution for businesses?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: 
If you are resourceful and creative human being the DIY approach can be very effective as well.
To create an animated demo video you only need a bit of software and a lot of imagination.

Professionals like us use very powerful animation software like Adobe After Effects or Flash but if you don’t have the time and don’t mind your end product being a bit rough around the edges you can get by with simple and affordable tools like Powtoons, GoAnimate or even Keynote.

A lot of the magic in a demo video comes from how well written is the script.

Once you have that solid script then there are many ways to bring it to life and the chances of your video being successful will be a lot higher.

This of course assumes you or your team knows how to write an awesome script!
If you are not sure how to get started writing an effective demo video script we have a few resources available on our blog. i.e: How to write your own explainer video.

Is it rational for ‘newbies’ to intimidated with the idea of learning how to produce basic video?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: 
It makes sense to be a bit overwhelmed with the idea of producing a demo video from scratch.
After all it does take a lot of work to produce one professionally, typically 4 to 5 weeks of intense work split among a few professionals.

However, with the right guidance and a bit of patience almost anyone can produce a decent video in a few weeks.
At Grumo we have taught thousands of non-technical people to create their own marketing videos with our online animation course.

What are the most common fears that you typically see first-timers getting caught up on?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: The main fear is always how to overcome the technical challenge of bringing to life what it is in your mind to a computer screen.

Luckily with some of the tools I mentioned before you don’t need to be a computer genius to get started!

The second most common fear is not knowing how to draw properly.

Drawing characters well can take years to learn but to tell a simple story you don’t need complicated graphics at all. In fact, some of our most popular demo videos are made of simple stick characters! (Hipmunk, Padmapper )

How can a beginner learn to overcome these problems?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ:
 Grab a pencil and a piece of paper and pretend you are back in 1st grade.

Let your imagination run wild and start drawing doodles everywhere, all the time.
Eventually you’ll get better those doodles will become viable candidates to be cast on your first animated demo video.

Use Google images to visual references.

For instance if you want to draw a cute monkey search for “cute monkey cartoon” on Google and you’ll have lots of samples to draw inspiration from.
As for the technical aspect, I’d recommend you subscribe to Adobe’s creative cloud (first month is free) and start playing around with Illustrator, Flash and After Effects.

There are hundreds of good tutorials online for all those tools.

Just search for “(software) Tutorials” and start going over those videos.
Of course, taking our Grumo animation course can help leap and bounds to shorten that learning curve!

Name a few projects that have benefited from your services.
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: A few startups we have done videos for got acquired soon after they published their demo videos.

Here are few of them:

Clipboard (acquired by Salesforce)

Spool (acquired by Google):

RedBeacon (acquired by Home Depot):

Fridge (acquired by Google):

Summify (acquired by Twitter):

Why does video work to get buyers to make purchases or take the first step to making the purchase?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: 
Video is only effective in converting prospect customers into buyers if it is a good video.
A bad video can actually be detrimental to sales as it may scare people away! oh no!

This is why it is so important to have a good strategy in place before making videos to promote your products or services. For instance hire a studio with a good track record producing demo videos (hint, hint) 😉 or take a good course that teaches you all the fundamentals behind a winning script (more hint hint…)

So providing you have a good video produced there are a few factors that explain why they can be very effective on getting people to make the purchase.

First of all, people are lazy, their attention span is almost non existent which means you have only a few seconds to make a good impression when they first land on your website.

Don’t expect people to sit down with a cup and coffee and read through boring text explaining why you are so much better than your competition, BORING!!!

Booohh!

You have to cater to your audience’s instant satisfaction needs and make their life easy and the best way to do so is by showing them why you are so awesome with a short and fun demo video.
We actually created a demo video for Grumo where this concept is clearly illustrated in just 40 seconds.

Check it out here:

Tell us more – go into depth about your services/product!
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: Grumo Media demo videos will help you:

1. Increase your conversion rates: your visitors are impatient. You have a few seconds to grab their attention before they move on to the next webpage. A great demo video will catch their attention and will encourage them to buy your product or subscribe to your service.
2. Promote your product effectively: your solution may be complex but how you explain it must be simple if you want people to listen. A demo video will make sure your audience finally understands why are you so great for them.
3. Attract investors: VC's and Angels go through hundreds of investment opportunities and need to learn your value proposition right away. A great demo video will help them “get it” and help you raise money easier.

To learn more about the benefits of having a demo video produced please visit this link!

Where can a reader go to try out/learn more about your product/service!
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: For those interested in learning how to produce their own demo videos I have a special discount for Reel Designer readers for our main animation course:

The course is 10 hours long, has over 80 lectures and covers the entire demo video production process: script writing, voice over recording, storyboarding, illustration, animation, sound design, and even advice in promoting your video more maximum exposure.

Glad to have you on, and that we’re finally able to get your company featured as part of the Reel Designer interview series! What are the best way for someone to get started with your company to see if your services are a fit?
MIGUEL HERNANDEZ: Just visit my Udemy page and take a peek!

You can learn more about me here:

YouTube: http://youtube.com/grumomedia
Twitter: http://twitter.com/grumomedia
Facebook: http://fb.com/grumomedia
LinkedIn: http://be.linkedin.com/company/grumo-media