What Is The Most Effective Length Of Video For Marketing?

It is a question that is more powerful than ever before, as video marketing dominates the world.

It used to be that clients wanted to get as much into video as possible to ‘really make the most of it’.

Times have changed and more enlightened clients, after reading about how shorter content is key, are asking to reduce running times although sometimes without reducing the messages.

Generally speaking, shortening your content is a good approach.

Stats compiled from over 40m organic views thanks to Econsultancy, show average viewing time of our content to be about 1.5 minutes, but increasingly 30 seconds or less is becoming much more popular.

It’s those 30-second films that have demonstrated the best returns when it comes to view rate (as defined by Google: View Through Rate, or VTR, is the number of completed views of a skippable ad over the number of initial impressions) and click-through rate (CTR).

Interestingly, research that the Mobile Marketing Association conducted with its partners showed that although duration didn’t have a massive impact on view rate, it did influence the CTR, with longer videos achieving fewer clicks.

Average CTR for non-skippable ads by duration

A factor that does actually affect the VTR is the size of the video, with larger ads (pixel x pixel) having a higher view rate.

So it is important to consider exactly how your films will be displayed, not just how long they run for. This research is really interesting and can be applied to all video content.

Even if we aren’t creating ads, understanding how audiences respond to our content influences everything we make, whether it is a TV ad, an online ad or a corporate video.

Going live

Live video is a relatively new area which requires some thought around duration. Facebook, for example, recommends a duration of at least five minutes, and people I have spoken to have found 5-20 minutes works well.

Live is challenging because you need to be around long enough to attract your audience and deliver content that is still interesting for those joining late.

Don’t forget to edit and reuse your ‘live’ content elsewhere, make the most of it! Just to make things even more complicated, the platform your video is on also makes a difference to the engagement over time.

For example, on Facebook shorter videos get more engagement (although the value of that ‘engagement’ needs to be measured), on YouTube engagement can actually increase the longer someone watches.

Below we list 3 ideas on improving your Video Marketing.

Make it Useful

Making useful and accessible videos should be a staple in your video marketing strategy.

• What are you trying to achieve with your video?
• What is it you want to say and how is it going to benefit your prospects?

These are the first two important questions you need to ask yourself before producing any video content.

Whether you’re creating a promotional short for a fast food joint or explaining the benefits of your SaaS business, the primary underlying concern is always the same.

Show Off Your Brand’s Personality

Every brand out there knows the importance of establishing a solid brand identity and voice, something that can be a quite difficult to achieve and maintain through text alone.

Everybody reads the text in their own way. When you rely solely on the written word you run the risk of multiple interpretations and potential misunderstandings of your message.

Choose Your Platform

If I asked what platform you should use most would answer Youtube. It’s unsurprisingly the most popular choice and comes with a wide variety of benefits.

Whilst Youtube can be a great choice for your video under the right circumstances, it’s not always the best option.

If you’re creating a purely promotional video Youtube is the way to go. Youtube is actually one of the world’s largest search engines and hosting your video there gives you the potential to attract a much larger audience.

To learn more, visit our Digital Solutions page. Leave your comments below.