Nowadays, with everyone surrounded by information, news and advertisements, brands within the creator economy are finding it increasingly difficult to capture and maintain their audience’s ever-dwindling attention spans.
As millions - and sometimes billions - of people linger around social media platforms and search the web for information, coupled with the rise of artificial engine optimization (AEO), it’s become drastically more challenging for any business focussed on digital product marketing to strike that emotional, lasting connection with their audience.
However, a clear trend that’s remained popular in recent years - and one that’s not slowing anytime soon - is video content. For coaches and trainers looking to take their online coaching business to the next level - with the help of user-friendly mobile app builders like Passion.io, perhaps - a key goal is often educating, informing, and reaching more of their ideal client base. One of the most effective ways to optimize community engagement is to create concise, visually appealing, and clear explainer videos.
Explainer videos in digital coaching can highlight how your products and services work, demonstrate your expertise, and create those vital meaningful connections with prospective clients, all while driving interest in your app. This short guide explores how to create explainer videos for online coaching that are both compelling and engaging, converting viewers into clients, and strengthening your position in a creator economy.
What Makes Explainer Videos Effective?
Before getting bogged down in how to create effective explainer videos for online coaching, it’s important to summarize why and how they are effective. This is particularly important for coaches and trainers trying to use digital product marketing to branch out to new markets and reach more of their target clients.
Compelling explainer videos can:
- Simply explain complex topics, techniques or processes in an easy-to-understand way
- Build a personal, relatable connection with viewers
- Boost conversion rates, which are key KPIs for many coaches
- Help prospects understand how your mobile app can solve their pain points
- Be dispensed across a range of channels, including your app, website, social media pages, paid ads, and emails
In this brief explainer video below, Passion.io explains how to take payments through your Passion App. This is exactly what we’re talking about.
How to Create Winning Explainer Videos
1. Identify the Pain Points of Your Audience
The most effective explainer videos focus on specific problems faced by your target audience. Therefore, establishing these pain points should be a priority before any content creation takes place. Begin by asking:
- What challenges do your potential clients struggle with most?
- What misconceptions might they have about your coaching methods?
- What obstacles prevent them from trying your app-based solutions?
For example, if you’re a fitness instructor or personal trainer, your audience’s pain point might be “lack of time”, “lack of accountability”, or “budget”. Your digital product marketing strategy needs to focus on creating explainer videos that showcase how your app delivers efficient, cost-effective workout plans, while also optimising your community engagement with regular check-ins.
2. Build a Believable, Compelling Narrative
Great explainer videos in digital coaching don’t overcomplicate things. Instead, create a simple and powerful structure.
As an example:
- Grab your viewers’ attention within the first 5-8 seconds (a recent video content creation guide by MPB suggests the average person gives a video roughly 8 seconds before deciding what to do next)
- Validate their pain point(s)
- Introduce your coaching method (and app) as the solution
- Highlight specific outcomes clients can expect
- Direct viewers to download your app or sign up for a free trial (or a similar call to action)
A pro tip is to keep your script concise and not overload your video with endless words or captions. Emotional connections drive decision-making, so create a narrative that encourages genuine community engagement, rather than less digestible streams of facts or statistics.
3. Choose the Right Type of Explainer Video
Coaches, trainers and instructors have their own unique methods, styles and approaches to their services and/or products. As a result, your digital product marketing will vary, and not every explainer video will be cut from the same cloth.
Consider the following different video styles to see what works best:
- Live action: Demonstrating processes and techniques and showing genuine emotion
- Animation: Explaining abstract, complex concepts or methodologies
- Screencast: Great for showing how your app works and highlighting its features
- Whiteboard: Effective for breaking down complicated sequences into easily digestible steps
- Overlay: Showcasing content in a slider with a voice-over or side-by-side first-person recording, as well as captions for accessibility
For more inspiration on video explainer styles, consider the relevant examples curated by Synthesia here.
For instance, a nutrition coach may use animated videos to explain the effects of different food groups on metabolism, while an at-home personal trainer might use guided live-action videos showing movements and positions with a direct voiceover.
4. Structure Visual Elements Accordingly
Viewers of all content love consistency with the brands they follow and resonate with. Therefore, consistency is key with any branded assets - including videos - if you wish to secure and sustain community engagement across all your material:
- Color scheme: Use colors that match your logo, app and website
- Typography: Select readable fonts that reflect your brand personality
- Visual metaphors: Find creative ways to represent abstract concepts
- On-screen text: Highlight key points with text overlays
5. Record High-Quality Audio
It’s vital to ensure that audio quality isn’t overlooked; this can make or break how to create explainer videos for online coaching. Invest in a good microphone and record in an environment with no background noise. Brand Vision highlights a selection of affordable microphones worth considering if you’re on a tight equipment budget.
Poor audio quality can drive viewers away, especially if it’s not balanced adequately for viewers using headphones, or not supported with descriptions or captions to aid users with hearing impairments.
6. Don’t Ignore Video Production and Editing
While most trainers and coaches won’t need to invest in top-of-the-range video production equipment to make explainer videos compelling, that doesn’t mean simple production techniques can’t be applied to give them that professional look.
Even if using smartphones or basic video editing software, ensure each video contains:
- Stable footage: Use a tripod or stabilizer
- Good lighting: Natural light works well, or invest in simple LED lights
- Clean backgrounds: Remove visual clutter that distracts from your message
- Smooth transitions: Keep editing transitions simple and consistent
- Appropriate pacing: Allow viewers to absorb information without rushing
SkillShare recently created a comprehensive guide for educators on how to film using a smartphone, which is well worth considering for inspiration and advice.
7. Emphasize Your Value Proposition
Assuming you are attempting to drive viewers to sign up to your coaching program(s) through your mobile app, it’s important not to let that aim get lost in translation during the video. As such, your digital product marketing needs to emphasize how your app enhances the client experience, highlighting specific unique selling points (USPs), which could be:
- 24/7 access
- Interactive features
- Real-time messaging and support
- Progress tracking
- Past or saved challenges
For instance, a language coach may demonstrate how daily app usage creates an immersive and fulfilling learning environment. Similarly, a fitness application may upload daily workout sessions and goals for users to take part in.
How to Create Effective Digital Product Marketing
Once you have created your explainer video(s), the next step is to distribute it in the right places to maximize visibility for your content and brand.
Consider the following:
- App Store listings
- Website landing pages
- Targeted emails and newsletters
- Social media channels (including ideal platform-specific cuts and dimensions)
- YouTube advertisements
- Sections within the app itself for users to access at any time
For further reference, we’d recommend familiarizing yourself with the most up-to-date social media image and video sizes, dimensions, and file formats, such as those aggregated in Meltwater’s recent guide.
Next Steps
Explainer videos in digital coaching are more than assets aiding your marketing strategy - they are quintessential gap-bridgers and relationship-builders that prove that you truly understand your audience. Following the steps above in the curation of videos that support your mobile application will give you the best possible chance to succeed in an increasingly crowded and noisy creator economy.
Remember that it’s not about being squeaky clean and perfect; it’s about being authentic and relatable enough to secure community engagement, enabling passive users to become aware of - and familiar with - your brand. Let your personality and passion shine, and don’t try to mimic exactly what others have successfully done. Good luck!
Why wait? Start launching your app today by signing up to Passion.io!
