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Discover Boating Animation

Our project for Discover Boating was an ambitious edit. We took an entire blank slate approach and designed the project from scratch to meet their needs.

 

A campaign centered around boating, we were able to animate a lot of icon builds – such as the pontoon boat at the beginning. Working with liquid as a design tool is often challenging, but this project pushed us to find different ways to simulate water in both the rolling oceans as well as the transitions and end bumper.

The most dense part of this video is actually the Analytics section. We entirely recreated the Google Analytics dashboard in Adobe Illustrator and separated it out into hundreds of individual layers so that they could be animated independently. This allowed for a really intricate entry animation. If you watch how each element enters, it is incredibly complex. And to allow for zooms and the 3D effects, we build this on a gigantic canvas – 13,209 px wide and 7,958 tall. It’s a beast of an export!

Overall this was a really fun project to pursue. Icon builds are always super fun to do as it adds personality to stagnant objects. So having icon builds along with the different ways this project pushed us, it was a fun one to complete.

Why Associations Are Using Explainer Videos

If you go anywhere on the internet these days, it’s hard to avoid video content. There’s a good reason for that: nothing engages audiences like video. Associations are coming around to this trend, using video to boost engagement and motivate their members and industry to act in a number of different ways.

One type of video in particular is working well: explainer videos.

This is a member benefits video produced for the Southern Medical Association:

Explainer videos are short but powerfully informative videos that clarify a subject, topic, or even a service/product to a specific audience. With a small amount of effort, associations can engage their members for promotions, launching a product, or even selling services. Explainer videos are popular with associations because:

1) The ROI is So Great

The hard part about professional-quality videos is usually the high costs. Finding a video production crew, ones with years of experience hopefully, then paying for them to travel to your event or area, is all an expense that deters many associations with strict budgets. With explainer videos, especially ones with animation and motion graphics, you can create a video for far less than you would pay for a crew to come out and shoot onsite. Not only are they less expensive, but they often engage better for certain topics, especially when the goal is to clarify complex material in a simple to understand way that leads to an action.

2) They Educate, But Are Also Sales Focused

Most explainer videos are structured around a single topic, whether that’s a product, service, or point of information that members should know. These videos educate the members but also call them to act on that information and create some change. Whether that’s signing up for a special class taught by the association, supporting some legislation, or simply to further engage with the association, an explainer video is a great opportunity to compel members to action.

3) It’s Evergreen Content for Marketing

Content Marketing is all the rage in some circles, and it’s easy to see why. People, including your members, are clamoring for more and more content. They have questions and it’s your job to help them figure out the answers. One way to do that is to create great content that explains a subject in detail, yet easily enough that it fits in a short video. Creating explainer videos that deal with topics at the core of what your association helps members deal with will stay relevant for years to come.

Associations are using explainer videos to not only educate and engage their members, but also to help increase their budgets. They are a great way to share information while also calling the audience to action. To see great examples of explainer videos at work you can check out more videos here . You’ll find pricing information and to order your video here.

Blogging Tactics to Raise Engagement

Before I started working for Association Studios, I thought blogging was just something teens, moms, or super fans did. I knew some companies and associations had them, but I did not think they were used as much as they actually are. Come to find out, they are a main source of clicks for many associations. After working with some of these associations and clients, I realized that I was not alone in this thought. I have watched our company advise our clients to create a blog if they do not have one, and to use a blog more if they do have one. From that, we see an automatic increase in engagement from current members and an increase in leads from Google searches. Keeping that in mind, let’s see how those blogs can be used most efficiently and effectively.

 

Blogging is a unique form of in-bound marketing that allows for the spread of information with a matter of a couple of clicks. One of the primary goals is to actually get your blog noticed, though. How does this happen? Well, with systems such as Smart Bug Media, companies can determine exactly which key words were searched that lead a person to their blog. For example, if someone was searching about what an animated explainer video is, they may come across a past blog we’ve written about here at Association Studios. From that, we can determine that those key words are something valuable to use in future blog titles.

 

This tactic can really benefit niche associations specifically because the searches are looking for a very specific type of content. In turn, this creates a much more engaged reader when they ultimately do find your blog through their search. The next goal is to have a blog that cross-promotes other aspects of your company or association. Following the previous example of animated explainer videos within AS, we could mention the importance of promoting those videos via social media. By having statistics and examples of that being a successful next step to accompany the video, the reader is likely to click on the next blog and learn about that topic as well.

 

The final step in creating an extremely affective blog is to use the recognized blog for furthering the information you are trying to get across. For some companies this will look like ebooks, for some it will be in the form of monthly magazines, and for some it may be semiannual conferences. Once your blog information can lead a reader to seek external information from you, the purpose of your blog is served.

 

Is your blog doing its job? Contact us at Association Studios about revamping your online presence, if not!

How to Engage Your Members with Explainer Videos

The Florida Dental Association works tirelessly for dental professionals throughout Florida. Besides education and training, FDA also monitors the state legislature for bills that could benefit its membership. The 2016 legislative session featured a bill that would ensure rural Floridians gained access to a higher level of dental care. The law would help the public as well as the FDA’s members, so it was a win for everyone.

In order to get some traction with the lawmakers in the state, Florida Dental Association needed to rally its members and dental professionals in the community behind the legislation. Unfortunately the bill had several details that proved difficult to explain to a broad section of the public. FDA needed a way to explain the key ideas of the legislation quickly and easily.

Having worked with Association Studios in the past, the FDA knew about our expertise with explainer videos. They asked us if we could take a complex idea and covey it in an easy to remember story for its members and the public.

The audience for the story was rather broad, Florida Dental Association members and also the general public that might benefit from the legislation. The members and public we wanted to target with the video’s message both wanted the same thing however, more dental services in more Florida communities. The central problem on the bill was that rural communities have a tough time finding dental care since most dentists choose to practice in larger markets and can’t afford to start a practice in the country. The solution came from two bills by fellow lawmakers, SB 234 by Sen. Don Gaetz and HB 139 by Rep. Travis Cummings. The bills focused on amplifying local support through matching funds to make sure that rural Floridians have the critical access to dental care that they need. Once you have more dental care, more kids stay in school, absence rates go down, it increases grad rates, and also helps the local economy. Not supporting this bill would mean more sickness and disease for a large group of Floridians.

The Florida Dental Association loved the video we created and it was perfectly timed for the upcoming Florida legislative session. Armed with an easy to understand explainer video, the FDA has a much better chance of gaining the support it needed to see their legislation pass.

Do you have any issues that could be better explained in an engaging video? If you want to increase and engage your audience, Association Studios will help you to create professional and effective content to do just that. Call Call John Kolditz, our National Sales Manager, at (512) 740-5143 or email john@associationstudios.com and we can get you started with your very own explainer video.

 

Educate Stakeholders With Explainer Videos

The Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors supports higher education accreditors around the country to better serve our nation’s professionals and students. They help the organizations that watchguard our college degree problems, making sure they are free from fraud and live up to their promises. If you want to make sure your doctor, accountant, or civil engineer graduates with the right knowledge to do his or her job, then accreditors are a welcome addition to the academic ecosystem.

The ASPA was experiencing some push back about it’s member’s relevancy or usefulness from several areas of government. They were taking issue with the idea that schools needed to be told what they could and couldn’t teach from outside sources, and wondered out loud if accreditation was the best method of showing a school’s competency. There was even a bill in Congress to loosen the standards for accreditation, allowing more schools to offer additional degrees that they wouldn’t otherwise qualify to offer.

What the ASPA needed to convey was the difference between the programmatic accreditation offered by its members and institutional accreditation that broadly sanctioned all the university or college programs. But describing such a nuance to lawmakers with limited time wasn’t something ASPA had experience doing. They reached out to Association Studios for an explainer video that would turn their talking points into an easy to watch story.

The main audience for the video was lawmakers who needed to understand the difference between the types of accreditation available in higher education. The lawmakers themselves wanted the best for students and also to look good with constituencies so that they could get elected again. We positioned the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors as the guide to show lawmakers that they could both help students and support local economies by actually supporting accreditation agencies. Since professional accreditation is made up of working professionals and experts in their fields, they would actually be hurting small businesses by limiting the power of professional accrediting bodies. All they had to do was contact the director of ASPA to get more information about helping students and the economy, otherwise if they voted for the bill, there would be many more worthless degrees milling around, which would hurt the economy and students.

Once they saw the final version, ASPA loved the video and appreciated how it took their issues, distilled them into easy to understand ideas, and presented them in a very attractive format.

Do you have a legislative message that needs to be turned into an entertaining and informative video? If you want to increase and engage your audience, Association Studios will help you to create professional and effective content to do just that. Call Call John Kolditz, our National Sales Manager, at (512) 740-5143 or email john@associationstudios.com and we can get you started with your very own explainer video.

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