Create impactful explainer videos

Like you might guess from the name, an explainer video is designed to explain something to its audience. And this “something” really could be anything: a concept, process, skill, product, service, etc. 

Most explainer videos are short and designed for some kind of marketing or sales purpose. Longer videos that have a purely educational intent tend to be classified more as tutorial videos or training videos, though there’s definitely some wiggle room in terminology.

It’s easy: start right here! WeVideo is a free explainer video maker that you can try right now. We do offer completely free accounts (with some feature limitations, like watermarks and restricted video publishing times), or you could take a Professional or Business account for a spin through a free trial.

Either way, the basic steps for making explainer videos are the same:

1. Upload your explainer video assets as images, audio, and/or video files.
2. Use WeVideo’s editor to polish your video by adding text, voiceover, animations, music, and more.
3. Download your file, send it to cloud storage, or share it on social media. Done!

You can get all the same key features from any device, from iPhones to Androids to desktop computers. As long as you've got internet, you can make an impactful explainer video with WeVideo.

There are all kinds of explainer videos out there. Over the last decade, the animated whiteboard style has been especially popular.

Other common types of explainer videos include live action videos, talking head videos, animated infographics, and simple slideshows with narration. You could even lightly edit a webinar recording and re-release it as an explainer video!

All of the best explainer videos are short, clear, engaging, and relevant to the audience. They also provide an obvious call-to-action or next step for the viewer to take.

No matter the topic, the most important thing for an explainer video is to clearly answer a question or solve a problem that your audience has. Beyond that, some creative video edits can add visual interest and make your video even more memorable!

The best length for an explainer video will depend on the video's intent, publishing platform, and audience.

If you're posting an explainer video as a social media ad, for example, you'll want to keep it as short as possible. Definitely under 90 seconds — but 60 or 30 seconds would be even better. (And remember that many social users watch videos on mute, so add some on-screen text for sure!)

If you're creating a customer onboarding video, on the other hand, you can probably get away with a longer video — especially if you're demonstrating a tricky task or niche topic.

A good rule of thumb for creating explainer videos is this: simpler and shorter is always better. Show your video to an unfamiliar audience to see whether the topic has been explained as clearly as possible in as few seconds as possible.