We identify five key areas where marketers can see the biggest benefits today.

Thinking back to grade school and being grouped alphabetically in class, I was always seated in the first row. Not only does my first and last name begin with A, but I was also the tallest kid in the class too and stuck out like a sore thumb. That meant, unfortunately, I was the center of attention and subject to being called on, often.

Unlike that kid in grade school who really didn’t want any attention, marketers need to differentiate their brand and get their message across to get their customer’s attention and engagement. From a global brand like Fedex to the local farmer’s market, everyone’s products or services need to be differentiated from the competition and communicated across the right digital channels to reach their target audience.

Since the pandemic, the amount of information coming at us as consumers of products and services has more than doubled, maybe even tripled by now. From digital marketing and advertising served across all digital channels to unwanted phone calls, text marketing, and even snail mail, it can feel overwhelming even with some level of filters in place.

So cutting through the clutter to communicate valuable information–such as new product launches, events, new services, new feature updates, software updates, or anything of value to existing or potential new customers that can benefit from receiving this information can get completely buried or lost in the noise.

Why add motion to your marketing?
As a digital agency working with companies of all sizes, we’ve seen the analytics of campaigns that utilize motion graphics vs. those that only use static graphic assets. The percentages vary based on the campaign objectives, audience, and budget, but across the board, assets that utilize motion typically get more attention, resulting in more clicks, and producing better results.

A marketer’s job is to move the needle so consider adding even a little bit of motion and get better potential outcomes in these five key areas:

1. Getting better engagement with your target audience
   If your campaigns are falling flat, it’s most likely in the way you’re communicating your value proposition that isn’t resonating with your audience. Starting with a compelling visual concept and messaging, animated videos, or motion graphics offer an extended opportunity to employ of range of creative strategies to build excitement and highlight essential features and benefits over a plain, static image.

   Have you heard the term “stop scrolling” as it relates to social media? This means serving content so dynamic that potential customers literally stop scrolling in the feed. Adding motion can provide increased engagement, a better brand experience, higher click-through rates, and improved conversion rates, especially in paid campaigns.

2. Boosting a specific action desired
   Every post on a social platform has an intended result: to make contact, link to a site, download an app, read a white paper, sign-up for an event, etc. Usually, if a static graphic accompanies a LinkedIn post, it contains limited real estate and a lost opportunity to build excitement and make a connection with your audience in seconds.

   Rather than utilizing a static post, create a short 5-10 second motion post that builds excitement by creatively conveying the key benefits and drives users to an actionable next step, such as view, download, sign-up, visit, etc. Like a TV ad, would you be moved to action with a photo and text only? Probably not.

3. Providing clarity and creativity to the complex
   In our experience, not all new features of products and services are easy to understand. It may sound good on paper, but if you can’t show customers how it elevates their experience, it’s a lost opportunity. For example, if you’re a global financial brand and you’re launching a new product enhancement that is a game changer but is not necessarily easy to explain, motion graphics and animation can cut to the value proposition, demystify how something works and demonstrate clearly how it solves for your customer’s pain points.

   How? There are multiple ways of providing clarity to the complex. From re-envisioning the complex in an animated user-friendly narrative to using data visualization to boil down the complex into visual graphics that walk a user step-by-step.

4. Personalizing your website and increasing its SEO performance
   In general, the majority of websites today are pretty straightforward: they use similar grids, similar stock photography, similar web-friendly fonts, and navigation. Incorporating motion or an interactive experience on a website provides a more active, personalized brand experience that differentiates the site from the competition and leaves a lasting impression. Adding motion on a website can help a professional services company provide transparency to their process, an app developer show how their platform works, a healthcare company reveal how its newest innovation works, etc.

   In addition, videos and other motion-based content can help improve your website’s SEO performance by increasing the time users spend on your site, reducing bounce rates, and providing additional opportunities for backlinks and indexing.

5. Standing out by doing the unexpected
   The four key areas above speak to specific desired outcomes, whereas this last area deals with the intangible, the “je ne sais quoi” or appealing quality that cannot be easily expressed. Like making a big change in your personal appearance that gets attention—from a new wardrobe to a dramatic weight loss—changing it up and thinking differently about your communication strategy is important to keeping your brand fresh and differentiated over the same-old approach. Doing the unexpected can’t happen overnight: it takes careful planning to ensure that no matter what motion-based solution is implemented, it aligns with the company’s overall brand strategy but pushes its limits.

   Total creative transformation may be more difficult for larger companies with rigid brand guidelines, but extending their foundational brand elements, such as color, fonts, images, graphics, grids, etc. into a re-envisioned, fresh creative strategy in motion is a new approach to getting attention and standing apart.