To make a lead generation explainer video, build it around one specific offer and work backwards. Write a 150 to 230 word script (60 to 90 seconds at 150 spoken words a minute) in five parts: the exact situation your buyer is in, the mechanism of how you fix it, one piece of proof, the offer, and a single next step that collects a name and an email or books a call. Draw the mechanism rather than filming your office, put the form directly under the video, and judge it by how many viewers go on to fill in the form, not by how many press play. A lead video that gets views and no forms has failed.

A lead video has a different job from a brand video

Most small companies already have, or want, a general "who we are" video. That is a brand video. Its job is to make a visitor feel they are in the right place. A lead generation video has a narrower and more measurable job: it moves one kind of person from interested to identified. At the end, you know their name and you have permission to follow up.

That difference changes almost every decision.

If you try to make one video do both jobs, it will usually end with three calls to action and a logo, and nobody will fill in anything. Make the brand video separately. There is a guide to making an explainer for your startup homepage that covers that version.

The five parts

1. The situation, said precisely. Name the buyer and their week. "Dental practices with two to five chairs whose new-patient bookings dropped after their old agency left" is a situation. "Businesses who want more leads" is not, and every viewer who hears it assumes you are talking to someone else.

2. The mechanism. How your fix works, in two or three steps. This is the part a drawn explainer is genuinely good at, because a buyer who understands how something works trusts it more than one who has been told it works. If you are an agency, the mechanism is your process. If you sell software, it is the one idea the product is built on.

3. One piece of proof. A single, checkable result from a real client, with permission. "Went from 9 to 23 new-patient bookings a month over one quarter" is proof. "Amazing results" is noise. If you do not have a number yet, use a short, specific description of a real piece of work instead. Never invent a figure; buyers in a niche talk to each other.

4. The offer. What they get for giving you their details. A free audit, a call, a checklist, a short teardown of their current setup. Make it something a sensible buyer would actually want, and say exactly what it is and how long it takes.

5. One action. "Put your website address in the form below and we will send the audit within two working days." One sentence, one action, matching the form they can see.

Worked example: how lead generation works for a small agency

Here is a script for a four-person agency that gets new patients for small dental practices. The video explains how lead generation works for a practice like theirs, which is also the agency's own lead magnet. It runs about 190 words, so roughly 75 seconds.

Situation. If you run a dental practice with two to five chairs, new patients usually find you in one of three ways: a search, a map listing, or a friend. When bookings drop, it is almost always one of those three that broke.Mechanism. Lead generation for a practice is a short pipe. Someone searches "emergency dentist near me". They see your map listing and your reviews. They tap through to a page that answers one question: can I get seen this week. And the booking form takes under a minute. Every leak in that pipe costs you patients. Most practices we audit have two: a map listing with old opening hours, and a booking page that asks for eleven fields.Proof. One practice in Leeds fixed both in a fortnight and went from 9 to 23 new-patient bookings a month by the end of the quarter.Offer. We will check your pipe for free. You get a one-page report showing where it leaks.Action. Put your practice website in the form below. The report arrives within two working days.

The names and figures here are illustrative. In your own version, every number is one you can show a prospect if they ask.

The scene list, one claim per scene:

1. A small practice front with two to five chairs drawn inside, labelled with the buyer's situation.
2. Three arrows arriving at the door: search, map, friend.
3. A pipe drawn left to right in four sections: search, listing and reviews, landing page, booking form.
4. Water flowing through it and dripping out at two points.
5. Close-up on the first leak: a map pin with the wrong opening hours.
6. Close-up on the second: a form with eleven fields, nine of them crossed out.
7. A simple bar going from 9 to 23, with the time period written under it.
8. The one-page report, drawn, with the leaks circled.
9. The form, with the single field: practice website.

The pipe is the whole video. Once the viewer has seen it, every later scene refers back to it, and the buyer leaves with a picture of their own business they did not have before. That is what makes them fill in the form.

Where the video lives

The same video performs very differently depending on what surrounds it.

• On a landing page. Video at the top, form directly beneath it, nothing else above the fold. Do not make people scroll past testimonials to reach the form the video just told them about.
• In a paid social ad. Cut a 15 to 30 second version that is only the situation and the mechanism, ending on the offer. The landing page then carries the full video. Write it to work with the sound off, because many viewers will never unmute; key words should be drawn on screen.
• In a follow-up email. After someone downloads something, send the full video as a link from a still frame. People who already raised their hand will watch a longer version, so this is where a 3 to 6 minute walkthrough of your process can work.
• On YouTube. Useful for search, weak for capture, because viewers cannot fill in a form there. Put the offer link in the description and on an end screen, and accept that this is the top of the funnel.

Should you gate the video, hiding it behind the form? Usually not for the short version. The short video is what persuades people to give you their details; hiding it removes the persuasion. Gating makes more sense for a longer, genuinely useful piece, such as a 10 minute teardown, where the video itself is the thing being offered.

Make it

1. 1

   Write one sentence about the buyer

   Who they are, how big, and what just went wrong for them. If the sentence could describe any business, narrow it until it could not.

2. 2

   Draft the five parts at 150 words a minute

   Situation, mechanism, proof, offer, action. Aim for 150 to 230 words for a landing page video. Read it aloud and cut every sentence you would not say to a prospect on the phone.

3. 3

   Paste the script into openCanviz

   Use Keep my wording so your claims and figures come through exactly as written. Set the target length and pick one style; whiteboard suits a process like a pipe, cutout suits a step-by-step product flow.

4. 4

   Check every number and name on screen

   Drafted visuals can get a figure or a label wrong. Edit any scene where the drawing does not match the line, and make sure the proof number matches what the client agreed you could share.

5. 5

   Replace the voice if you can

   Your own recording of the script tends to convert better for a service business, because the buyer hears the person they will be talking to. A generated voice is fine for a first test.

6. 6

   Put it above the form and measure form fills

   Publish on a page where the form is the only next thing to do. Track form fills per hundred people who started the video, and change one part at a time.

How to tell if it is working

The number that matters is conversion: of the people who started the video, how many filled in the form or booked a call. Views tell you the ad or the email worked. Average watch time tells you where people lost interest. Neither tells you whether the video generated a lead.

Diagnose in this order:

• People leave in the first ten seconds. The situation is too vague, or it is about you rather than them. Rewrite the first line.
• People watch to the end and do not fill in the form. The offer is weak, unclear, or does not match the form. Fix the offer before you touch the video.
• People fill in the form and never reply. The video attracted the wrong buyer. Narrow the situation further, even though fewer people will respond.

Change one thing at a time. A new opening line and a new offer in the same week tells you nothing.

Common questions

Should I appear on camera? Not necessarily. For a service business a face can build trust, but a drawn explainer of your process often does more, because it shows how you think. A good compromise is a drawn video with your own voice. See how to add a voiceover to a whiteboard video.

How long should a lead generation video be? For a landing page, 60 to 90 seconds. For an ad, 15 to 30. For a follow-up email or a gated teardown, 3 to 6 minutes is fine, because the viewer already said yes once.

Can I make one video for several buyer types? You can, and it will usually underperform. Make the video once for your best buyer, then duplicate the project and change the situation and the proof for the next one. The mechanism scenes rarely need to change.

What if I have no client results yet? Show the mechanism in more detail and make the offer lower risk, such as a free audit with no call required. Do not borrow statistics from industry reports and present them as yours.

Is this different for a software product? The structure is the same; the mechanism is the product's one idea rather than your process. How to make a product explainer video for a SaaS app has a worked CRM script.