A video series naturally lends itself to success across industries, from marketing, to training, to teaching.
That’s because the value of animated videos for engaging messaging is undeniable: they are captivating, informative, and inspiring. Add an additional touch of thoughtful strategy, and you’ll find that using a video series for engagement can go from valuable to downright transformative for your organization.
At Next Day Animations, we’ve spent nearly fifteen years transforming even the most complex ideas into stories that stick.
Whether it’s for commercial use, placement on your website, or employment in your company emails and social media, a well-made animated video series has the power to engage audiences, build loyalty, and deliver real results.
In this blog, we’re breaking down the five most common missteps that we’ve seen organizations make with animated series—and how to turn each one into a marketing masterpiece.
Think of this blog as your shortcut to understanding what makes an effective animated series (and how you can create the best one for your brand).
Ready to learn the tricks of the trade? Let’s dive in.
Don’t: Assume One Long Video Will Cover It
Let’s bring it back to basics. Why use an animated video series?
When it comes to animated content, it’s tempting to think, “We’ll make one fantastic video, and it’ll cover everything.” While this might work for certain standalone projects, trying to cram all your messaging, goals, and audience touchpoints into one video often leads to an overwhelming—and forgettable—experience.
Do: Think Big and Maximize Impact with a Series
Instead of overloading a single video, consider breaking your story into a cohesive series.
Animated video series are excellent options for internal training, product launches, and community outreach – anything with multiple important pieces that work in unison to make a whole. They’re particularly useful in cases where your goal is to share a significant amount of information while still retaining attention, or when your goal is to share the same information catered to multiple unique groups of folks.
A series lets you build suspense, dive deeper into complex topics, and sustain audience interest over time. By delivering smaller, digestible pieces of content, you create more opportunities to engage your viewers and reinforce your brand message.
Don’t: Forget to Define Your Goals
Diving into a video series without clear objectives is like setting off on a road trip with no map. It’s easy to get lost, miss important milestones, or worse—end up somewhere completely unexpected. Without defined goals, you risk creating content that feels aimless and doesn’t resonate with your audience.
Do: Set Crystal-Clear Objectives from the Start
Before you begin, ask yourself: What do you want your audience to do after watching? Is the goal is driving website traffic, boosting brand awareness, or informing and educating?
Having a clear purpose will guide every decision—from the script to the visual style. Spending time at the start to align your entire team around goals leads to a more comprehensive, cohesive animated series overall.
That’s why our award-winning process always includes our tried-and-true kick off call.
During the call, usually held by video conference, you will meet with your core video production team: each project is managed by one of our excellent in-house producers, who will introduce you to our scriptwriter and any other people who might be supporting the creation of your video. Together, you discuss things like your mission, vision, values and how this information about your organization informs the goals of your videos.
These planning meetings are also the place to strategize on style, and how our expert illustrators will infuse your organization’s branding into every aspect of the project. You can click here to learn more about our explainer video process – through some explainer videos!
Goals also ensure that your series stays focused and delivers measurable value – more on that a little later.
Don’t: Address Only One Type of Audience Need
Attending to a variety of audience groups is another winning strategy utilized by successful animated series.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of making videos that you find interesting—but your audience might not feel the same way. Overlooking the specific needs, challenges, or preferences of your viewers is a fast track to creating content that feels irrelevant or even dismissive.
Do: Create with Every Target Audience in Mind
Compelling animated video series start by understanding the people watching.
What questions are they asking? What problems can you help solve? Providing solutions to these questions is going to be your one-way ticket to a viral video series.
Use real-world audience insights to drive your creative process, like buyer personas or customer profiles you might have created for other projects. Considering data around preferences, pain points, and interests go a long way to developing content that feels personally impactful for your audience.
A Lesson from Experience
Clark Pacific’s ‘Infinite Facade’ technology was worth investing in, for a number of reasons – and these reasons all differed depending on who you talked to.
Clark Pacific reached out to our studio to design a sales video that could accompany their product, and explained that – while they knew they needed to keep the video short – they wanted their multi-faceted solution highlighted in all it’s glory. Their goal was to ensure that different stakeholders saw themselves using the product.
Our solution leveraged the power of animation for representation. By segmenting their project into three unique, but related, videos, we were able to specifically target their three main buyer personas.
Each script had similar elements, but used unique terminology, visuals, and voice over that catered individually to architects, building owners, and general contractors respectively.
Check out the series here to see how each video turned out, or click here to read our blog about determining who your target audience(s) may be!
Don’t: Treat Each Video as a Standalone Story
Now that we’ve discussed the ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy for an animated video series, allow us to emphasize an important point: Animated video series thrive on consistency and connection.
One of the biggest mistakes brands make is creating disjointed episodes that feel more like individual efforts than parts of a cohesive whole. Without a unifying narrative or theme, audiences can lose interest—or worse, feel confused about your message.
Do: Plan a Narrative Arc to Tie it All Together
Great series succeed because they’re more than the sum of their parts—they tell a bigger story.
Once your overarching goals are clear (and if they’re not, head to the top of this article!) you can start by mapping out each video in your series and considering if there is an evident narrative arc connecting them. Although this can be one of the most creatively challenging parts of script-writing, it is also the most rewarding. Landing on a clear narrative structure gives your crew the scaffolding it needs to build a truly engaging series, from the words up to the visuals.
At our studio, the development of a comprehensive and engaging narrative falls to our expertly trained scriptwriters. Here are their tips: Think about how one video will flow into the next. Recurring characters, signature visual styles, and consistent tone all help build recognition and keep audiences hooked – so find ways to weave consistency through the story.
Don’t: Treat Video Launch as an Afterthought
You’ve invested time and resources into crafting an incredible animated video series, but if you’re not strategic about how you launch and distribute it, your hard work might not reach its full potential.
Simply uploading and hoping for the best isn’t enough to achieve success.
Do: Plan a Strategic Launch and Ongoing Promotion
A strategic video launch is so crucial. In fact, we’ve even reshaped our productions process over the years to include a complimentary launch consultation because of how impactful this has been on our clients’ success.
We’ve linked below to our full blog on this topic below, which dives into some of what we’ve learned from 15 years of successful video launches. Here are some top tips:
- Launch across multiple platforms: see how far our video shines when posted anywhere your target audience might spend time, such as Youtube, LinkedIn, Instagram, direct email.
- Build anticipation: tease content before the series release to please the algorithms and amplify engagement during the rollout.
- Monitor performance metrics: don’t confuse posting for project completion! It’s crucial to check engagement analytics after the fact to see how your animated series impacted your overall goals.
There you have it – 5 tips for your successful video series.
Crafting a successful animated video series might feel daunting, but with the right strategy and the right partner, you can create a standout series that captures hearts and drives results. At Next Day Animations, we’ve mastered the art of making complex stories engaging, memorable, and effective.
Let’s make something unforgettable. Reach out today, and let’s turn your vision into a series that doesn’t just play—it wins.
