There are many fancy marketing metrics but at the end of the day, what matters most is engaging the audience and converting them into customers. And what do people engage with? Content.
In fact, surveys and reports have revealed that companies of different industries use content to drive brand awareness, educate audiences, and generate revenue. With that, marketers are tasked with figuring out the best ways to communicate with their audience via content. This is where motion design in marketing can prove useful.
But why use motion design in marketing?
Motion design is basically a form of animation, except that it focuses on animation graphic design elements. Here are reasons why you should be using motion:
1. Motion design evokes emotion
People have been attracted to visual communication since the early ages. In fact, we process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. This is why motion in design evokes more emotion – it is human-centered and uses movement to tell a story that relates to the audience. It can be key to building delightful user interfaces and injecting visual storytelling to your content marketing approach.
Statistics reveal that social media videos increase views by 48%. Meanwhile, for business-to-business (B2B) companies, product videos were the most widely used, with how-tos and explainers being a popular choice for marketing campaigns.
With animation or motion, it brings static characters and elements to life, making it easier for users to emotionally connect with - 84% of people say they have been convinced to invest in a product or service after watching a brand video. Additionally, marketing becomes less hard-sell, and is more entertaining for the audience.
A good example of this is Instacart’s video that explains what they do and has garnered over seven million views. It is fully animated to show how people can browse and use Instacart to ease the hassle of grocery shopping. Coupled with a voiceover for easier content consumption, the end result is quick content that narrates their product in a fun, engaging way with relatable animation.
2. Motion design creates engaging content and drives conversions
Visuals in motion are far more effective than static visuals - Socialbakers reports that photos are less likely to reach audiences, while there is a 135% increase in organic reach when you post a video instead. Moreover, a study has revealed that viewers retain 95% of a message when it is seen as a video or animated content, compared to 10% for static texts or graphics. You’re more likely to get someone to swipe up or click on a call-to-action when they’re engaged with the content.
For example, The Guardian used Lottie animations for an interactive piece on British wildlife. It takes readers on a journey through a lush forest in spring, as they listen to the calls of various animals. Interactive pieces like these can serve as valuable marketing content – according to BuzzSumo, a content analytics tool, this page has over 2,000 Facebook shares!
In addition, many websites and landing pages now use micro-animations or animations in elements like buttons, cursor movements, as well as sliding or scrolling motions to keep their users engaged. And crucially, Motion design is also used for loading animations. A one-second delay in mobile site load times can impact conversion rates by up to 20%, so keeping your users occupied while your site or mobile app can directly affect revenue.
3. Marketing with motion design drives better brand awareness
Branding is becoming increasingly important for businesses, especially when competitors are plenty in the industry. When more consumers recognize and trust your brand, conversions will eventually follow. This is where motion design can help to drive your brand awareness. With motion design, you have the power to create highly engaging content for the consumer to better understand your brand, drive top-of-mind awareness and ultimately, give them the confidence to convert.
twobirds is an example of this. The French design studio used Lottie animations in their website by integrating their animations using vector-based elements. The result? Unique animations that are one-of-a-kind to them, helping people to identify with their brand better.
Marketing with motion design is extremely impactful in branding and can also be used to tell your brand story - Lyft has previously used a fully animated video to communicate their unique brand story.
With the play of brand colors, exciting story-telling or brand-related animation, you can explain the how-tos of your business much better than a static image would. Plus, moving images are more memorable than static ones - exploring an animated logo might also give you an extra edge when it comes to brand recall.
4. Complex concepts are simplified with motion design marketing
When products have too many elements, they may seem complicated - and the lack proper marketing assets to guide users may discourage purchases. As a marketer, it’s your job to show them how your product works and convince users to convert. For example: the process of adding an eWallet to your online store. How do you do it? How can you process refunds? Business owners will need to be educated in a simple way before they engage in such products.
This is where motion design becomes useful. You can split every part of the process into separate assets using motion design for each step.
Razorpay has done just that by using motion graphics to show varying elements of their products - it includes motion design elements that showcase how to create payment links and track payments. Motion design helps to visualize and present complex information as easy-to-digest pieces.
5. Motion design makes educational content exciting
If you were trying to teach an inquisitive child about the solar system, you could tell them there are eight planets that revolve around the sun, each at their own particular speed. But wouldn’t it be great if you could actually show them how it worked?
That’s exactly what Vividbooks did. Vividbooks combines Lottie animations and augmented reality to create interactive textbooks. Each lesson transforms educational content into an exciting, immersive experience for students – a feat that would be a lot harder without motion!
How you can use motion design in marketing
a) New product features
For new product launches, motion design can prove effective. As we’ve covered, explainer videos are a great way to communicate your products to customers.
Google makes exceptional use of motion in its videos. The smart use of shapes and colors and the minimal design make it easy for users to digest their content, especially for explaining their new product features.
b) Communicating your brand values
We’ve covered how motion design can impact your branding while evoking more emotion and engagement. Using it as a tool to communicate specific brand values can make a larger impact because it can hold a lot more content than a picture or static visual.
Apple is no stranger to using motion design in marketing. They have used Lottie animations on their website, and in various videos. The example above shows how Apple used motion graphics in this video which showcases their carbon neutral initiatives - it utilizes mostly text with motion graphic elements to complement their narrative.
In almost every Apple commercial, you will see motion graphics when the product is displayed. Moreover, all presentations in Apple conferences also depend highly on animated screens and visuals.
c) Animated logos
While we are used to static logos, it can be a good branding strategy to include an animated one that you can use across videos, or on your website. It helps improve brand recall because it is unique to the brand. Think of PIXAR’s animated logo with the hopping lamp - it is always used before their movies and we can always recall it.
Meta has taken a different twist to their logo. In their rebrand, they have amped up their logo with an animated version that showed the icon transforming and twisting up. All of their videos contain the animated Meta logo.
If you’re looking to animate your brand logo, check out our tutorial on how to turn any static logo into a Lottie animation – in minutes, without any design skills.
d) Animated text
You know this from your own reading habits – users mostly skim through text content when browsing the web. So adding motion can be a useful way to get someone’s attention. Use animated text as greetings in social media, in advertisements or as call to action elements.
e) Email marketing
Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool to communicate marketing campaigns, promotions, or other brand information. Emails are usually static, but you can actually use motion design.
With motion design, it adds a more personal touch from brand to consumer. This could include using animations to lead up to your call-to-action. Additionally, using motion design makes content easier to digest and grabs attention. Plus, readers avoid the hassle of scrolling down to get your entire message.
eHarmony, an online dating site, has used motion in their email marketing campaign. In the example above, they have used a simple animated clock ticking as the text changes from “12 HOURS ONLY” to “END TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT!”. It is paired with a large call-to-action that falls just beneath the animated text, giving their users a sense of urgency to click “Join now”.
Find out more about how to add motion to your emails here.
f) Social media content
We’ve presented you with a bunch of social media statistics above to show how people engage more with animated content than static posts. With motion design, you have the ability to amp up your social media marketing strategy to include animated product or info snippets for your brand. It can also cover other postings such as festive wishes.
On LottieFiles, we used animated social media content to show off the new Color Palette feature on the our mobile app.
To learn more, read our guide to adding motion design to social media.
g) Presentations
A beautiful and engaging presentation goes a long way in in convincing a potential of your product or service. If you're a marketer who wants to create presentations that convert and land deals, check out this guide to adding animation to your presentations.
Make motion design marketing assets with Lottie
In a nutshell, motion design in marketing is far more digestible since humans are visual learners; motion graphics and animation cash in on that part of human psychology.
But conventionally, creating animation from scratch can be expensive and time-consuming. You’d need to be familiar with animation techniques, as well as tools like Adobe After Effects (or hire someone who is).
Here’s where LottieFiles comes in. LottieFiles is a platform where you can get thousands of free Lottie animations, for both your personal and commercial projects. And if you aren’t familiar, a Lottie is a JSON-based animation. Here are a few advantages of using Lottie:
- Can be used on almost any platform, even without code.
- Have tiny file sizes, so they load fast and don’t slow down your website or mobile app.
- Can be scaled up or down, without losing quality.
- Can be easily edited, even if you aren’t a motion designer. Easily apply your brand colors with the Color Palette feature or make other customizations with the Lottie Editor.
So if you happen to be a marketer, we encourage you to check out our free collection of Lottie animations. See the impact yourself, and we firmly believe that you will see a drastic change in the way your consumers engage with your brand.
Remember, if pictures say a thousand words, moving images can say a million more to those across the screen.
