How to Create Luring Video Thumbnails for Explainer Videos?
How to Create Luring Video Thumbnails for Explainer Videos?
Attracting a large number of viewers to an explainer video is what companies want to promote their products and services. Besides, animated video marketing has widely grown in popularity over time. Explainer videos have a great potential to receive applause from a massive audience.
Specifically, it is true when your explainer video has short yet engaging video content. In addition, video thumbnails of an explainer video give the audience the first impression of your video. If your video thumbnail cannot provide a strong impression to viewers, they won’t click on a video and watch it.
Businesses and brands heavily rely on animated explainer videos today to attract customers to their products and services. In addition, a captivating video thumbnail can make an animated video successful and go viral. Video thumbnails serve the purpose of enticing the target audience while promising them palpable information inside a video. Further, a video has no purpose if your video thumbnail fails to fascinate your audience.
Ninety percent of the most popular videos on the world’s most popular video platform, YouTube have unique thumbnails. A YouTube survey also affirms the preceding statistic. You can understand the role of a video thumbnail as a book cover or a movie poster because it tells your target audience what your video is about. It is important that you choose a proper video thumbnail image to lure the audience and make a difference.
A good video thumbnail can successfully reflect the theme of an animated explainer video. Moreover, we shall also share tips with you about creating tempting video thumbnails. Before we do, we shall like to demystify what a good video thumbnail can reflect about your explainer video.
Logo and Animating It
What Can a Captivating Video Thumbnail Reflect about a Video?
The right thumbnail for an explainer video can make a huge difference for a business to boost conversion rates. All of your efforts will go in vain if you fail to lure the target audience to watch your video. Further, one of the best techniques to attract viewers to your explainer video is to create a fascinating thumbnail. A good video thumbnail can build curiosity in the viewers to watch your video. In addition, a customized thumbnail can help you accomplish it while making your animated video look more professional.
Furthermore, many video hosting platforms include explainer videos with graphics that lure customers to watch them because their thumbnails look nice and inviting. A captivating video thumbnail encourages viewers to watch the video though it is likely a static shot from the video. If you don’t choose a thumbnail for your video, video hosts will randomly choose one from images from your video.
A default thumbnail may force the audience to watch a video that isn’t of any interest to them. On the other hand, a customized thumbnail can make the concept of your video clear to the viewers. It will help them decide whether they should watch a video or not plus benefit the video editor and viewers.
Creating captivating video thumbnails for explainer videos is a great technique to portray your video-making ability to the audience. It shows your creativity and tells a story to the target audience with a few elements and still images. A video thumbnail can either make your explainer video stand out or receive no applause at all. Thus, you must create a fascinating video thumbnail to make your audience curious and eventually watch your explainer video.
Our 7 Tips on Creating Fascinating Video Thumbnails
Now, you know that a video thumbnail gives the audience the initial impression of a video. Moreover, you will want to create a fascinating video thumbnail to attract the target audience to your animated explainer video. In addition, a personalized video thumbnail will allow you to promote your brand as well as your video more effectively. You should also give your audience a reason to watch your video with a fascinating video thumbnail.
You should adopt the approach for video thumbnails to grab your viewers’ attention at first sight. A customized yet captivating video thumbnail can make your audience curious about the video and finally watch it. We also have some good tips to share with you to help you create captivating video thumbnails. You may follow our tips to create fascinating video thumbnails and attract the audience to your animated videos and finally boost your conversions.
Here are seven tips on creating captivating video thumbnails for animated explainer videos:
Tip No. 1: Only Include Clear-Cut Information While Avoid Overstuffing It
More often than not, marketers overwork video thumbnails; consequently, they become perplexing for viewers to understand. Please remember that a video thumbnail is a static and singular image. Thus, it is important to only include the necessary, succinct, and clear-cut information in your video thumbnail. Otherwise, you can expect your target audience not to click on your video because of a confusing video thumbnail.
You may take the appropriate screenshot of your explainer video or create a custom video thumbnail. Further, creating a custom video thumbnail is a better approach to giving the audience a positive first impression of your video. You can add an attention-grabbing title and some text to make your video thumbnail do its magic for you. Make sure the text of your video thumbnail is brief and to the point. Viewers will hardly pick out the static image if you stuff too much information.
Tip No. 2: Keep Away from Auto-Select and Choose a Thumbnail Yourself
You have the privilege to choose a video thumbnail on your own for an animated explainer video. If you don’t choose it, your video host will choose a thumbnail itself. However, you won’t want a video host, such as YouTube to choose a thumbnail when you can choose it yourself. In any case, it is your video, and you can better judge the best video thumbnail for your video. Please remember that viewers won’t click on a video that fails to make a strong first impression on them.
In addition, you will want your target audience to watch your animated explainer video. For the same reason, you must exploit your resources to make your thumbnail give a positive impression to your viewers. While selecting your video thumbnail, ensure it accentuates your company and brand identity. Make sure you select a thumbnail for an explainer video that can persuade your audience and contains the information they’re seeking.
Tip No. 3: Emphasize Emotions and Appealing Faces
You may think like some people that emotions play no part in the design. Nonetheless, this perception is far from the truth. In fact, video thumbnails with facial expressions give viewers a sense of feeling videos may generate.
In other words, emotions and facial expressions can give your viewers a better idea about your explainer video content. They also give you a strong competitive advantage on video hosting platforms. You can attract a lot of attention if your video thumbnail reflects accurate and true emotions about your video.
Moreover, choosing a friendly face for a thumbnail can significantly help you grab the attention of the audience. It is unlikely for viewers to watch an animated explainer video with lifeless, boring, and annoying faces. On the other hand, a lively, engaging, and pleasant face will immediately bring life to your video thumbnail.
Select an elated and friendly face with meaningful emotions to get successful play rates for your animated explainer video. It will also allow you to connect with your audience more effectively.
Tip No. 4: Try to Incorporate Animation in a Thumbnail
Incorporating animation in a video thumbnail is quite a hard nut to crack; still, it is fabulously effective. Static images look uniform, and candidly, they also look dull. Nonetheless, bringing some motion to your shots can likely grab the attention of your viewers. Furthermore, animation is the art of attracting the masses, and you can thank the advancements in video marketing tools for it.
You can use several techniques to incorporate animation in a video thumbnail. Moreover, it will prove somewhat difficult for beginner video makers to choose the right image for a video thumbnail. Nevertheless, there are some free tools like Adobe Spark and Canva to incorporate animation and create a custom video thumbnail.
Tip No. 5: Test Several Video Thumbnail Options First to Finally Choose the Best
Have more than one thumbnail idea for an animated explainer video? If you have, it is great. You can test-run each thumbnail for your video first to find out which suits your video the best. You can also take advantage of the A/B testing method to help you confirm the best thumbnail for your video.
For example, if one thumbnail gets 13 views, whereas the other gets a hundred, the choice becomes clear. Of course, you will choose a video thumbnail with more views for your animated explainer video.
Tip No. 6: Create a Precise yet Catchy Headline for Your Thumbnail
The clearer a video thumbnail is, the more are chances for viewers to click a video. Besides, the whole success is contingent on how informative your thumbnail text is. In addition, you will also want to keep an element of mystery in a video thumbnail. How can you accomplish it? Any ideas?
Marketers need a dextrous hand as well as a smart tactic to use words. They should know how they can shorten the headline and reduce it to a legible length. Further, creating your headline will take some time but you should take the time to create it. If you take some time to create a headline, you will come up with a precise yet catchy title.
If you are making an explainer video for YouTube, the recommended length is seventy characters with spaces. If you exceed the aforementioned length, you should know what other options you have. One technique to reduce the length of your thumbnail title is to condense something without losing its meaning. Finally, you will reduce the character size with a meaningful title.
Tip No. 7: Endorse Thumbnail as Your Own
It is vital to add your brand name to the video thumbnails you create. Doing it will endorse that the video is yours. Moreover, it will serve as proof of your legitimacy to the audience. In other words, it will build the audience’s trust in your brand.
Once you persuade the viewers with your videos and post new ones, the audience will recognize the videos as yours. They will recognize your brand identity with your brand name on thumbnails. Moreover, they will click on your videos once they recognize you because of your logo on a thumbnail.
Final Words
Attracting a large number of viewers to animated explainer videos is what companies want to promote their brand identity. Further, video thumbnails give the first impression of an explainer video to the audience. Statistics suggest the most popular videos on the best video hosting platform, YouTube has unique thumbnails.
A good video thumbnail can powerfully reflect the theme of a video. An interesting video thumbnail can make your audience curious about a video and eventually watch it. Lastly, implementing the following tips can help you create a fascinating video thumbnail for your animated explainer video:
1. Only Include Clear-Cut Information While Avoid Overstuffing It
2. Keep Away from Auto-Select and Choose a Thumbnail Yourself
3. Emphasize Emotions and Appealing Faces
4. Try to Incorporate Animation in a Thumbnail
5. Test Several Video Thumbnail Options First to Finally Choose the Best
6. Create a Precise yet Catchy Headline for Your Thumbnail
7. Endorse Thumbnail as Your Own
FAQS
1. What Is the Thumbnail of a Video?
A video thumbnail is generally a static image, which acts as the preview image for your video. Besides, a thumbnail for your explainer video should lure your potential audience to click on it and watch it. Besides, you can also create custom-animated video thumbnails for your videos, like YouTube videos.
2. What Is the Importance of a Video Thumbnail for an Explainer Video?
A video thumbnail for an explainer video tells your audience what your video is all about. Besides, viewers first see the thumbnail of a video and the title later. A video thumbnail gives your viewers a glimpse of what your video content is all about. If your viewers find a video thumbnail of your explainer video enticing, they will likely watch your video. Put differently, a video thumbnail gives your viewers the first impression of your video. Hence, it has its importance when it comes to videos, such as animated explainer videos.
3. How Do I Choose a Video Thumbnail for My YouTube Video?
YouTube video thumbnail gives your target audience a quick view of what your video is about. You cannot only choose automatic thumbnails for YouTube videos but also custom thumbnails. Further, here are the steps you will need to go through to choose a thumbnail for your YouTube video:Step 1: Sign into YouTube Studio.Step 2: Choose “Content” from the menu on the left.Step 3: Click the video that you want to edit.Step 4: Now, choose an “auto-generated thumbnail” or click “Upload thumbnail” if you want to create a custom thumbnail for your YouTube video.Step 5: Save, and you are all done.
4. Does Changing the Thumbnail (Creating a Custom Thumbnail) for Your Explainer Video on YouTube Increase Its Views?
Firstly, you should know that YouTube recommends changing the way your YouTube title and thumbnail look. It recommends it as it can possibly help you get more views for your video. If people find your thumbnail for an explainer video interesting, they will definitely click on it and watch it. However, it is also important that you choose a thumbnail for your explainer video that perfectly summarizes your video content. Additionally, you can make the most out of a thumbnail for your explainer video if you create a custom thumbnail for your video and leave a positive first impression of your video content on your audience initially.
