How Many Seconds Should My Explainer Video Be?
You’re probably already aware that a short, brief explainer video is usually preferable. Quick videos get right to the point and keep people’s attention better than lengthy, drawn-out tweets, according to this theory. Human attention spans are short, which has a direct effect on content and video marketing.
One of your key priorities as a business is to spread the word about your product or service. You’ll need a lot of time to prepare the audience and get and maintain their attention. In the case of a new venture, 75-90 seconds is the best range. Remember, no one has heard of you yet; your explainer video should be long enough to present your brand and cover a variety of topics without being tedious.
The length of an explainer video affects audience retention. The lengths of the majority of our explainers vary. For longer videos, we anticipated the viewer retention rate to drop. 90 second videos are expected to have higher viewer retention rates than three-minute videos.
One SUPER important point to keep in mind when it comes to the length of an explainer video; don’t force it. We have a saying at IGW when it comes to explainer video runtime length; let the story dictate the length, not the length dictate the story. Our scriptwriters are not given an assigned length to write a script to. Rather, they’re instructed to build a script that most effectively accomplishes the client’s goals, but ideally staying under 2 minutes. If you focus your attention on having your explainer video be a specific length, you’re setting yourself up for stifled creativity on the story side of things, which ultimately is what is going to accomplish your video goals. So at the end of the day, let the scriptwriter do their thing (assuming they do explainer video script writing for a living), and see where the length turns out, versus forcing them to think and work within a box.
Here are some tips to help you decide how long your explainer videos should be.
1. The Video Isn’t Meant To Be A One-stop-shop.
Keep your attention on 2-3 focal points and delegate the rest to your website or sales staff. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience with information; just enough to pique their interest. You can always make another video if you want to cover more topics or features.
2. In Most Cases, Shorter Is Better.
A shorter video not only keeps time and costs down during production but also increases the likelihood that your audiences will view more of it. Your viewers could miss out on more information if your video is too long. Although you want to ensure your video is long enough to cover all of the basics, you also want to keep it as short as possible.
3. Get Right To The Point.
Since viewers appear to abandon your video near the end, you should present your business or service as quickly as possible.
