Miguel Hernandez

Miguel Hernandez has produced marketing videos for with many Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft and Walmart and dozens of top Silicon Valley startups.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Miguel’s success

Making an explainer video that doubles conversions

Result if you follow the steps in Miguel’s session

Explainer video scripts that convince your audience on the value of your business

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

The big question is that, how do you make one of these things? How do you make one of these videos? Right? And specifically, how do you do one of these videos consistently, because there’s many ways you could start thinking about writing an explainer video?

So there’s several production steps. We’re going to concentrate on the script writing, but that’s just the beginning. In reality, you start with a script. But then you have to come up with the storyboard, which is basically visualizing what the animation is going to look like.

Then you have to hire voiceover artists to read the script, then you have to create what we call style frames, which is the in between step between the storyboard and the animation where you have a chance to actually, we actually grab the storyboard and create the actual final illustrations that are going to be animated. And we show the client the final look before we commit to it. That’s called the style frames or move frames.

Then we go into animation, which is the longest and most tedious part of the whole process. It’s the most technically involved. And then finally, we add sound effects and music.

This takes anywhere from four to six weeks on the average for demo videos under two minutes, right, so the video is longer, it’s gonna take longer, and if you start usually thinking longer, but this is every single video, you’re going to have to go through these six stages.

Now, I actually say here four to six weeks, the average price goes from five to $10,000. The main differentiator in cost is going to be whether this video is very simple, or we’re using more complex animation or 3d animation, or whether we spend a lot more time developing the script, but typically five to ten grand, four to six weeks to produce one of these things.

Now we’re going to focus on the script. So we’re going to talk about that the script. So what is the big challenge?

When you’re writing one of these explainer videos, the big challenge is that you have to explain why do you have to do it clearly, concisely, creatively and convincingly? Like we mentioned in the beginning, right, has to be short to the point, it has to convince people to take action and it has to be creative.

So it may help you differentiate yourself from your competition. So this is the chance that we’re coming up every single time, right? So clearly means that no corporate mumbo jumbo. It has to be understood the first time it’s listened to. So you cannot use very complex or technical wording.

It has to be less than two minutes. Or if you’re measuring length in words, usually less than 300 words. It has to be creative. So you have to think how to make a unique and engagement.

It has to be convincing. It has to be truthful and accurate, you cannot just, you have to be very accurate about the information that you’re sharing as well, right? So that’s the challenge.

Now, the script framework that we use has five parts the in three x plasma something that we call success, and this is kind of like the secret sauce of how we create these demo videos. It’s not a secret right now because I’ve been sharing for the last five years, but anyway, I’m sure most of you are not familiar with it. But I have a course where I teach people how to read these videos and has been thinking by almost thousand people.

And this is exactly what we teach them. This is exactly the process that we use every time they create one of these videos. It’s actually pretty straightforward and easy to remember. So hopefully, you find that useful.

So when I say five parts, this is exactly what I mean. Every single script for one of these explainer videos has these five parts.

The first one is that we cover what is the problem that the service or product or company is solving with this video, so whatever we’re promoting. So in the case of the Hipmunk video, the problem is that it’s hard to find the perfect flight at the right price. And so they create a very unique and easy to understand and to use system which is called Hipmunk.

And so the second part is we explain why it is the solution that is solving that problem. Then we go a little bit into the actual high works, you know, so you have to log in here and this is how the interface looks like. Like, then we go in what we call the wrap up.

Typically, all of this is part of our mini story. It’s not just which is throwing information and numbers and data and images, we’re trying to make these as part of a story.

And then we have a call to action. The whole purpose at the end of this video is to increase conversions to get people to take a specific action. So it’s very important that in the last part of the video, which is the last thing people will see, by default, the last thing that they will remember the most, it has to be clear, what would be the next action. Right? So those are the five parts.

Now, this is divided into three acts. And the reason why is because when we think of an explainer video, we’re not just thinking of, like just pure information. We’re thinking about, it’s kind of like a mini movie, and most movies follow the three act structure. So we got the act one, act two and act three.

So the act one is the reduction in the activities, the resolution and the sort of the act. Act two is where all the meat and the action happens. And the act three is where the resolution of the story happens, right?

So it’s very important to always remember that when we write one of these things, we’re trying to tie everything with some kind of a story that is relatable that is realistic.

So in the Hipmunk video, now we’ll go the story, is that there is this guy that wants to meet his girlfriend, but she lives across the country, and she wants to get there right away. And she’s trying, he’s trying to find the best possible flight and all these search, flight search companies are too complex, and he gets very confused.

So that’s a realistic possible story, relatable story. And then right away people can relate to that. And now once we introduce that story and our problem, then we were going to create this mini movie that solves the problem, right?