Why Motion Graphics Are Important

With competition in the digital space at an all-time high, underwhelming your customers with static visuals can mean the downfall of your business. Step up your game with motion graphics!

If you want to gather views and collect the precious clicks necessary to survive in the online landscape, you must stand out. You only have a mere 50 milliseconds to impress your website visitors.

Quality content such as motion graphics is pivotal in any content strategy. First, we’ll look at the definition of motion graphics before showing how they can launch your company towards success.

What are motion graphics?

Let’s not skip any steps and define an answer to the question: “what are motion graphics?”

Motion graphics are essentially graphic design elements that create the illusion of being in motion. These pieces of animation are usually displayed through digital media technology for multimedia projects.

With technology rapidly evolving, the options to create motion design follow suit. Using them can mean the difference between someone scrolling past your content without giving it a second thought versus someone engaging with your brand and trusting it.

From simple motion graphics to complex graphic animation, the world of moving visuals is vast.

Some examples of using motion graphics are:

• Explanation videos – Get your complex idea across in a clear and concise manner by using motion graphics. Motion graphics can visualize your information, helping people to understand and retain information much quicker.
• Animated logos – Logos may be tiny, but they contain much information. By animating them, you can have them tell your brand’s story in a fun, attention-grabbing way.
• Landing pages – Landing pages are often static. Motion graphics can help persuade your visitors to scroll toward the bottom. Trigger motion in your design elements whenever a visitor starts to scroll, and you don’t have to worry about the dreaded fold anymore.
• Call-to-action buttons – Entice people to click by having your call-to-action buttons move when visitors hover over them. You can have them glow up, or pop out, for example. Get creative and amp up your conversion rate.
• Social media posts – Algorithms on social media are getting stricter by the day. If your content is deemed not engaging enough, it’ll get banished into the depths of people’s feeds. Make it engaging and grab attention by adding motion graphics into the mix.
  

What makes a good motion graphic?

There is one big but, and that’s the fact that your motion graphic has to be good. With evolved technology, the audience becomes smarter and more capable of processing digital information, allowing them to spot glitches or mistakes instantly.

Additionally, with steep competition, you don’t want to be the one with amateurish motion designs in a market filled with smooth and snazzy animated visuals. But what makes a good motion graphic anyway?

Good motion graphics…

• …have a clear goal – It should be clear what the intention of the animated graphics is and refrain from causing confusion.
• …fit in with the rest of your design – If you have a neutral, minimalistic website, and you start posting very colorful and quick-paced motion design, it doesn’t promote authenticity.
• …have a seamless flow – Glitchy motion design could cause confusion and frustration among your audience, so your motion graphic designer needs to ensure smooth visuals.
• …don’t contain too much flash or fluff – With the endless possibilities and the moving character of motion graphics, it’s easy to go overboard. Keeping things simple is key to ensuring your motion graphic contains the above qualities.
• …have stellar design – Needless to say, a motion graphic can only be considered good when it contains good design.

Want to feast your eyes on internationally acclaimed motion graphics? Motion Design Awards has pages filled with them.

Reasons why motion graphics are important

Now that you’re up to speed on what good motion graphics are, let’s look at what they could mean for your business.

1. Communicate to a broad audience

With the internet came the added benefit of accessing information worldwide. If you want to tap into various markets on different continents, you’re only a few clicks away. But what a shame it would be if your stunning message finds its way to a potential customer, only to have them click ‘X’ because they don’t speak the same language!

That’s where motion graphics come in. They can help you quickly and effortlessly change your message into the target audience's language. It will help them understand the message and show that you care about your versatile audience.

Instead of spending a pretty penny on creating multiple videos, motion graphics will help you create multilingual content for a fraction of the cost.

2. Instantly grab attention

The average attention span of humans when looking at advertisements has decreased to 8 seconds. Add up every other company out there vying for attention, and it’s crystal clear that you need to impress straight away.

If your audience considers your content boring, something more interesting is only a tiny scroll or a single click away. Motion graphics can help your content stand out from the crowd and entice your audience to engage.

3. Simplify complex information

Remember that short attention span we collectively have? Explaining complex information is a tough gig, especially in the digital space. If you have a product or service that needs some form of explanation, motion graphics are your best friend.

Motion graphics offer an engaging way to simplify complex information and help your audience understand it quickly.

Complex information doesn’t necessarily have to mean that it’s difficult to understand; it could also mean sensitive or awkward information that you need to convey in a lighthearted and engaging manner. The ultimate case proving motion graphics are up for the job is Melbourne Metro’s video called Dumb Ways to Die.

They are warning people about the horrific consequences an accident with the metro can cause in an extremely engaging way. The video has over 240 million views, and there is even an app with a game surrounding the characters in the video. The public campaign to promote railway safety went viral and still has an active YouTube account.

4. Increase brand awareness

A solid brand identity is essential to increase conversions and create a loyal audience that trusts and recognizes your brand. Storytelling is a big part of offering potential customers a glimpse of what your product or service could mean to them. Step it up a notch by creating an immersive experience with the help of motion graphics.

According to Wyzowl, video has helped 94% of marketers increase understanding of their product or service. From a customer’s point of view, 88% say they’ve been convinced to buy a service or product by watching a brand’s video. But there's the problem; creating high-quality and unique video content regularly can rack up costs fast.

Motion graphics are much more affordable since you don’t need a team of producers, actors, a set, permissions, etc. All you need is a solid motion graphic designer and an idea.

With the use of motion design, you can effortlessly increase your creative content production and create a solid stream of engaging content. In return, this will help you increase brand awareness.

5. Enhance the user experience

User experience design revolves around creating a user-friendly experience for the user. In the digital space, it mainly refers to creating a seamless experience on a website or an app so that users can easily and quickly use the interface for its intended purpose.

Motion graphics can make the user experience that much more hassle-free. By adding animated transitions or graphic cues, for example. These moving visuals can nudge visitors in the right direction or provide them with live feedback on their actions.

Think about a call-to-action button that glows up when you hover over it or a field that turns red and flickers when you fill in the incorrect password.

Wrapping up

As you can tell, there are many different reasons why you should tap into the world of motion graphics and add them to your marketing mix.

Bear in mind that good motion graphics start with stunning design. If you don’t have access to professional design yet, ManyPixels’ subscription-based service may just be the perfect fit.

Motion graphics are a great way to promote your business in a world where our attention spans are decreasing, and competition gets steeper. Hopefully, this article has convinced you to start using them!