Content Marketing Today

To Sell More Products Make the Complex Simple

Cool company uses videos to explain complicated concepts for its customers.

Common Craft is a very small company with a very big idea.  And, it is one that you can emulate easily and inexpensively.

To understand what they do, think for a moment about the current generation of UPS television commercials. These uniquely simple UPS commercials use drawings to explain complex supply-chain concepts. 

UPS is big enough and wealthy enough to afford unbelievably expensive television advertising.  They could have gone with a cast of thousands, elaborate outdoor shots, and expensive spokespeople.  Instead, they offer commercials that are content rich.  They understood that their customers almost certainly did not understand many of the concepts and practices behind their ability to get packages exactly where they needed to be, when they needed to be there, anywhere in the world.  To make the complex simple they use animated drawings that perfectly illustrate a variety of supply chain and logistics concepts.  This content is powerful because it makes customers believe that UPS understands its business so well that it can explain even the most complicated process in a very simple way.

As Stephanie Diamond stresses in her new book, Web Marketing for Small Businesses, we must always be simplifying what we do and how we explain what we do.  In fact, Stephanie mentioned Common Craft in the book I was intrigued enough to take a look–and was fascinated by what I found.

As they explain what they do, “We are two passionate people and Common Craft is our company. Our product is explanation.”

This two-person company uses video that can be even simpler than the simple UPS animated drawings.  Using nothing more than paper, pen, and a moving and drawing hand, they make it easy for us to understand a broad range of difficult concepts.  For example, their explanation of RSS–or really simple syndication–makes it easy to understand what it is, how it works, and why it’s important. Here is the actual video:

They also do more sophisticated videos such as those that introduce the salesforce.com/Google apps integration.  Although these videos are significantly more polished than the pen and paper versions, they still explain complicated ideas in a very simple way.  If you take a look at this video you’ll see exactly what I mean:

Common Craft shows us how powerful video can be when it is used to make the complex simple.  Even if you cannot afford to hire them, with enough thought, creativity, some basic materials, and a video camera, you may be able to do exactly what they do to explain your products and services so that your Web visitors are much more likely to buy.  Once again, it’s much more about the ideas that it is about the money.