B2B Explainer Videos: Formats, Strategy & Real Examples for Businesses

Introduction

If you’ve ever tried to explain a complex B2B solution like an enterprise SaaS tool or a supply chain platform, you know how quickly attention fades. You build decks, run demos, share spec sheets… and still, decision-makers walk away unclear or unconvinced.

Why? Because B2B products aren’t simple. You’re often talking to multiple stakeholders with different priorities: technical, financial, operational. A plain product page or sales deck just doesn’t cut through the noise.

That’s where B2B explainer videos help.

These aren’t your average animations. They’re short, sharp, and strategically designed to simplify complexity, engage busy decision-makers, and drive clarity at every stage of the buyer journey. Whether you’re targeting a CFO, a product manager, or a procurement head, explainers help align your message with what matters most to them.

In this blog, you’ll learn what B2B explainer videos are, why they work, and how you can use them across different formats, funnel stages, and industries to simplify complex messaging, improve engagement across your funnel, and drive faster sales decisions.

What Are B2B Explainer Videos?

B2B explainer videos are short, visual tools that simplify complex products or services for business buyers. These videos use animation, screencasts, or live action to highlight benefits clearly and quickly. They help sales and marketing teams communicate value, build trust, and drive conversions. 

Most B2B explainer videos follow a problem-solution format and run between 60 and 90 seconds. They work best in digital funnels, including websites, landing pages, and sales decks. Businesses use them to boost engagement, reduce sales cycles, and improve product understanding across decision-makers.

According to a Statista report, in Q3 2024, 25.8% of global internet users engaged with educational or explainer videos, while 25.6% watched tutorials or how-to content, highlighting a strong and growing preference for informative video formats.

What makes B2B explainer videos so effective is their ability to break down layered solutions into simple, relatable narratives. Unlike B2C content that often entertains or evokes emotion, B2B videos focus on clarity and decision-making support, accelerating longer buying cycles and catering to decision-makers and leadership teams.

Why B2B Explainer Videos Matter

Explainer videos might seem like a creative add-on, but for most B2B teams, they’re becoming mission-critical. When your product is complex, your buyer is distracted, and your sales cycle is long, you don’t just need clarity. You need speed, consistency, and relevance. That’s what explainer videos deliver.

21% of marketers say short-form videos deliver the highest ROI, making them the top-performing content format in 2025.

Here’s how they make a difference:

1. Simplify complex product messaging

Explainer videos break down layered features, APIs, and workflows into clear, visual narratives that are easier to understand than text-heavy assets.

2. Align multiple stakeholders with a single narrative 

Instead of repeating your pitch to each stakeholder, a video delivers one clear story that product, tech, finance, and leadership teams can all align on.

3. Sharpen brand differentiation

Explainers highlight your key benefit visually, making it easier for people to remember why your solution is better.

4. Boost engagement across funnel stages

Videos perform better than text on landing pages, emails, and ads. They reduce bounce rates and help buyers stay longer and learn more.

5. Accelerate long sales cycles

When buyers understand your product clearly, they move faster. Videos remove confusion and help them say yes sooner.

6. Standardize and scale your sales pitch

Whether it’s your best salesperson or a new hire, a video ensures your message is delivered the same way every time.

In fact, eMarketer reports that short-form video now drives the highest engagement across B2B campaigns, especially when used for product education.

To get these results, choosing the right type of explainer video is key. Let’s look at your options.

Types of B2B Explainer Videos (With Examples)

B2B explainer videos vary based on your goal, audience, and platform. Choosing the right type ensures your message is understood and remembered. Below are the key formats with business explainer video examples that deliver results.

1. Format Comparison – Animation, Live Action, Screencast, Hybrid

Choosing the right format for your B2B explainer video directly affects how well your message is understood. Each format solves a different communication problem. Some simplify abstract concepts, others demonstrate real product functionality.

1. 2D, 3D Animated Explainers:

These are fully animated videos using flat (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) visuals. They’re ideal for simplifying abstract ideas or technical workflows that are hard to film or demonstrate directly. 

At Red Bangle, we used 2D animation for Multiplier, a global HR-tech SaaS. The product simplifies payroll and compliance across countries, which is tough to explain in words. The video made the solution easy to grasp and became a lead generator during their global launch.

2. Live-Action Explainers:

These are videos shot using real people, locations, and scenarios. They’re best when you want to build trust, add a human touch, or show real-world impact.

Our live-action explainer for Vymo featured sales reps dealing with CRM challenges. By showing their daily friction and the solution in a real-world office setup, the message became more human, memorable, and easy to follow.

3. Screencast Explainers:

These are recordings of a product’s interface, often with voiceover. They work well for software walkthroughs, onboarding, or help videos.

Gong’s “How Gong Uses Gong” video walks through real dashboards and analytics workflows. It makes reporting features feel practical, showing how they help teams track outcomes and drive enablement.

4. Hybrid Explainers:

These combine multiple formats, like animation with UI screens or live-action with motion graphics. They offer flexibility when you need to explain both emotional and technical aspects.

For Infosys Equinox Studio, we blended screencast walkthroughs with motion graphics. This helped explain a no-code digital experience platform without overwhelming the viewer, keeping the visuals dynamic and structured.

Takeaway: Choose your format based on the message, the complexity of your product, and your viewer’s preference. A good B2B explainer video connects the right format to the right moment in the buyer journey.

2. By Funnel Stage – Awareness, Consideration, Conversion

Mapping your B2B explainer video to specific funnel stages ensures your message aligns with buyer intent and helps move prospects closer to a decision.

1. Awareness (Top of Funnel):

At this stage, explainer videos are designed to introduce a broad pain point or idea to first-time viewers. They’re short, engaging, and usually animated to grab attention and spark curiosity.

Dropbox’s classic explainer used simple analogies and clean 2D visuals to introduce cloud storage, making the concept relatable to a wide audience.

With the global short-form video market projected to grow from USD 34.79 billion in 2024 to USD 289.52 billion by 2032, awareness-stage videos are a key brand asset.

2. Consideration (Middle of Funnel):

Now your viewer is evaluating solutions. These videos explain how your solution works and why it’s better than alternatives. They’re more detailed than awareness videos and are often used in product pages or follow-ups.

3. Conversion (Bottom of Funnel):

Buyers want clarity and reassurance before they act. These videos are designed to convince. They highlight ROI, use cases, integrations, or benefits.

PayPal’s “Pay Later Options” video is a great example. It’s short, benefit-driven, and helps remove final hesitation for buyers by showing value quickly and clearly.

Takeaway: Aligning your business explainer video with funnel stages improves clarity, increases conversion, and helps sales teams close faster.

3. Use Case Based – Product Demo, Sales Enablement, Onboarding, Customer Support

Explainer videos work best when designed for specific business needs. Tailoring videos to each use case improves clarity and team efficiency.

1. Product Demo:

A product demo explainer shows how a product works through a guided walkthrough. It replaces long presentations with a short, focused video that clarifies functionality.

ClickUp’s screencast-style video walks through task views, dashboards, and AI features in a clear, concise format. It shows the value fast, which is what great product demo videos aim to do.

2. Sales Enablement:

These videos support your sales team by standardizing the pitch and making complex value propositions easier to explain.

At Red Bangle, we helped SLB introduce a new sales digitization toolkit through an interactive explainer. It featured modular stories tailored to different user journeys. The language was simple, and the visuals matched the oilfield context, leading to stronger internal adoption. 

3. Onboarding:

Onboarding explainers guide new users through the first steps of setup or adoption. They reduce support dependency and create a smoother first experience.

Deloitte Digital Bank’s onboarding video walks new users through mobile account setup in just a few minutes. It uses live action and narrative clarity to simplify the steps and build early trust.

4. Customer Support:

Support videos reduce tickets and improve user satisfaction. A well-made explainer can walk customers through common tasks or troubleshoot problems, reducing dependency on live agents.

Takeaway: When your business explainer video is tied to a clear use case, it isn’t just a communication asset. It’s a performance tool that drives outcomes across teams.

4. Industry-Specific Explainers – SaaS, Manufacturing, Fintech, HealthTech

Every industry has its own communication style. A B2B explainer video works best when it aligns with sector expectations around tone, speed, and clarity.

1. SaaS:

SaaS explainer videos focus on ease-of-use and interface clarity. They typically combine screencast visuals with simple narration to explain features. 

Trello’s explainer video shows how teams manage work using dashboards and integrations. It blends screencast and light narrative to make productivity features feel intuitive.

2. Manufacturing:

These videos emphasize technical precision. Visuals often highlight processes, equipment, or infrastructure to support procurement or engineering conversations.

3. Fintech:

In fintech, messaging must be clear and compliant. These videos need to convey trust and security while simplifying complex financial workflows. Precision and minimalism are often prioritized over creativity. 

Visa’s explainer for Visa Direct simplifies push-to-card payments using clean 2D animation, striking the right tone for financial audiences.

4. HealthTech:

Videos in this space need to balance technical detail with empathy. These are mostly 3D animation or live action. They support onboarding, treatment explanations, and patient education through short, clearly narrated content.

In fact, healthcare video production has proven to be cost-effective while ensuring every patient receives uniform clinical information, making it especially powerful for user education and compliance. 

Takeaway: Align your explainer video’s tone and structure with your industry to boost trust and message retention.

5. Emerging Formats – AI-Powered, Interactive, Personalized

B2B explainer videos are evolving to be smarter and more targeted. These new formats improve relevance and scale without losing clarity.

1. AI-Powered Videos:

These use artificial intelligence to automate production tasks like editing, voiceovers, and translation. They speed up delivery and make versioning easier.

According to Deloitte’s 2025 report, AI-driven video targeting is now outperforming traditional digital distribution for B2B brands.

2. Interactive Videos:

These videos let viewers engage with the video by clicking through features or choosing their own journey. This improves engagement and recall. 

Future Market Insights reports 38% of B2B marketers are testing AR, VR, and interactive video tools for better engagement.

3. Personalized Videos:

These videos customize the message for specific names, industries, or pain points, making communication feel 1:1 and boosting response rates.

Takeaway: Brands that adopt these formats early gain a serious edge. They communicate faster, connect deeper, and scale smarter, all while staying relevant to today’s B2B buyer.

These formats are solving core challenges around scale, attention, and audience relevance. Businesses that adopt them early are likely to see better engagement, clearer messaging, and improved ROI on their video content.

Also read → 3 powerful video formats proven to drive customer acquisition across the funnel.

Anatomy of an Effective B2B Explainer Video

A powerful B2B explainer video is clear, concise, and conversion-driven. It helps buyers quickly understand your product, see the value, and take the next step. Here’s how to get it right.

1. Hook: Capture Attention in the First 5 Seconds

B2B buyers are busy, and attention is earned quickly. Your opening must immediately signal relevance and usefulness.

What to do:

• Start with a relatable problem or pressing question your viewer faces.
• Use visuals or copy that speak directly to the buyer’s world.
• Avoid slow intros or background and get straight to the point.

Why it works:

A strong hook boosts watch time and signals that the content is worth their time. It shows you understand their problem before pitching your solution.

2. Problem to Solution Structure

Structure your message like a mini buyer journey. Start with the problem, then present your solution as the logical next step.

What to do:

• Describe a pain point your audience knows and feels.
• Introduce your product as the solution, not as a sales pitch but as a helpful answer.
• Use visuals to simplify the solution and keep the flow intuitive.

Why it works:

This structure builds trust by showing empathy first, then offering clarity. It mirrors how B2B buyers evaluate real-world solutions.

3. Clear Value Proposition and Strong CTA

If your viewer doesn’t walk away knowing exactly what your product does and why it matters, the video didn’t do its job.

What to do:

• Highlight the core benefit in simple, tangible terms.
• Focus on outcomes, something like what your product helps them achieve or avoid.
• End with one clear, specific call to action that’s easy to act on.

Why it works:

B2B buyers need direction. A strong value message paired with a next step keeps the momentum going after the video ends.

4. Brand and Tone: Professional Yet Conversational

In B2B, your tone should reflect credibility without feeling cold. Your brand personality should feel like a trusted advisor, not a corporate brochure.

What to do:

• Keep the tone conversational but precise like a helpful peer, not a salesman.
• Match the visuals and narration to your brand’s look and feel.
• Maintain consistency across fonts, colours, and pace so the video feels integrated with your larger brand experience.

Why it works:

The right tone makes the message feel more human. When your content sounds like it understands the viewer’s world, it builds familiarity and trust.

How to Produce a B2B Explainer Video (Step-by-Step)

A well-made B2B explainer video does not begin with visuals or editing. It begins with clarity. From messaging to workflows, each step should be designed to keep things efficient, collaborative, and creative. 

Here is how to approach the process the right way.

1. Strategic Briefing and Audience Alignment

Before anything is written or designed, you need a sharp, strategic brief. This defines what the video must achieve and who it is for. That clarity sets the tone for the entire project.

What to do:

• Identify your primary goal such as awareness, lead generation, or onboarding
• Define your audience personas and their core pain points
• Align your internal stakeholders on messaging and intent
• Choose a video format that fits the use case and audience expectation

At Red Bangle, we often help clients sharpen their briefs during the very first conversation. Many come unsure of the format or message. We emphasize on the brief’s clarity and collaborate to define what will work best based on the objective, timeline, and budget.

As Lakshmi Rebecca, Founder at Red Bangle, puts it:

“We don’t just respond to a brief; we help make it sharper. Most clients walk away with clarity on what they actually want, options to choose from, and how much it’ll cost them.”

This clarity ensures fewer revisions, better storytelling, and a final video that speaks directly to its intended viewer.

2. Scripting and Storyboarding

The script carries your story, and the storyboard shapes how it will be visualized. Get both right, and the production becomes easier, faster, and more aligned.

What to do:

• Focus the script on one problem-solution narrative
• Use simple, conversational language with a clear beginning, middle, and end
• Create a storyboard to visualize each scene and gather feedback early
• Align all decision-makers at this stage to reduce back-and-forth later

At Red Bangle, writers and visual leads work closely with clients to build stories that balance brand tone, visual clarity, and engagement. Our real-time review tools make script and storyboard iterations easy to manage.

3. Production and Post-Production

This is where creative thinking turns into content. Whether you are using animation, screencasts, or live action, consistency and polish are key.

What to do:

• Choose the right production style based on your story and audience
• Record voiceovers that feel natural and align with your brand tone
• Use visuals and pacing that enhance the message without overwhelming it
• Edit with purpose, and plan for versions based on different platforms

With Red Bangle’s global production network and cloud-based workflows, clients can track progress, give direct feedback, and stay involved throughout the process without delays or guesswork.

4. Distribution and Integration

Your video only works if it is placed in the right context. Plan distribution with the same care you give to creation.

What to do:

• Embed videos on high-impact pages like landing pages, product tours, or email sequences
• Optimize versions for LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp, and internal portals
• Use attention-grabbing thumbnails and subtitles for better performance
• Track watch time, drop-offs, and CTA clicks to refine your video strategy

At Red Bangle, we ensure that all video assets are delivered in platform-ready formats, versioned for reuse, and stored on a central dashboard so clients can retrieve and share them easily at any time.

Partnering with a full-service B2B creative agency like Red Bangle gives you a competitive edge. The platform combines the creative depth of a global network of storytellers with the structure of a proprietary creative cloud platform. From briefing to delivery, every step is designed to give you clarity, consistency, and control without the usual back-and-forth or production chaos.  

Common Pitfalls & How to Avoid Them

Even with the right intent, many explainer videos fall flat because of small but costly mistakes. In B2B, where time is limited and stakes are high, avoiding these pitfalls is as important as getting the structure right.

Avoid these mistakes to make your explainer video effective from day one:

1. Overloading the script with features:

Trying to explain everything at once dilutes the core message. Instead, focus on one key value proposition per video. Leave the rest for follow-ups or deeper product walkthroughs.

2. Prioritizing aesthetics over clarity:

A slick animation or cinematic live-action video won’t work if viewers don’t understand what the product does. Clarity is more important than creativity. Always ensure your script and visuals align to explain, not just impress.

3. Forgetting the CTA:

Great videos often miss out on telling the viewer what to do next. Always include a strong, relevant CTA, whether it’s booking a demo, signing up, or exploring more features. This is especially critical for mid-funnel and bottom-funnel explainers.

Avoiding these mistakes ensures your video doesn’t just look good. It drives real engagement and results.

Measuring Success & Optimizing Performance

To justify investment in B2B explainer videos, you need measurable outcomes. Here’s how to track, test, and improve performance:

1. Track the right metrics: 

Match KPIs to funnel stages.

• Awareness: Views, watch duration
• Engagement: Retention, drop-off points
• Conversion: Click-throughs, form fills, demo requests

2. Test what matters most:

Run A/B tests on thumbnails, intros, and CTAs.

• Try bold vs. question-based hooks
• Swap CTA language: “Book a demo” vs “See it in action”
• Measure performance using watch time and click-throughs

3. Improve SEO impact:
   • Embed videos on landing pages or blogs to increase time-on-page
   • Use transcripts, schema markup, and keyword-rich titles
   • Target featured snippets and Google’s video packs

When optimized right, your explainer video becomes a lasting asset, driving views, engagement, and leads well beyond the launch.

Conclusion & Next Steps

Explainer videos simplify your message, engage your audience, and drive results at every stage of the B2B funnel. They make your communication more effective, your brand more memorable, and your sales process more efficient.

Red Bangle brings structured storytelling, strong creative direction, and end-to-end production to help you create explainer videos that perform with purpose. You get a partner who understands your brief, sharpens your message, and turns it into a compelling visual experience.

You get clarity, creativity, and consistency in every frame.

Book a call with us to get expert advice on how your product message can be transformed into a high-impact explainer video that drives real results.