Lights, Camera... Transaction!

LIGHTS, CAMERA.. TRANSACTION! HOW TO INCREASE YOUR VIDEO VIEWERSHIP In recent years, online video has evolved into a powerful (and cost effective) marketing tool. Video is becoming what a website was a decade ago-something that gave nimble, early adopters an edge over the competition. However, if time and money are going to be spent making a video, it also pays to analyze your video traffic and determine how to increase your viewership. Use the following guidelines to help fine tune your video-making endeavors and maximize your viewership. Data courtesy of Wistia. KEEP USERS ENGAGED KEEP THINGS SHORT 'N SWEET PUT "THE GOODS" AT THE BEGINNING In a study done by Wistia, two videos were shown to their users. The two videos were identical, except that the second video had an extra 10-second clip at the end. Most videos lose viewership as the video position progresses. Interest wanes as viewers get distracted, bored, or realize that the video is not for them. The On average, the shorter video was watched 72% of the way through, and the longer video was watched 50% of the way through. moral here is: if there's something that you really want people to see, it's best to put it in one of the first shots. ATTENTION SPAN BY DIFFERENT VIDEO LENGTHS ENGAGEMENT BY VIDEO POSITION 100% 100% 50% 50% 0% 45-60 min. 0-30 1-2 3-4 min. 5-10 min. 20-30 min. y min. У 10 sec. 20 sec. 30 sec. 40 sec. 50 sec. sec. 30 sec. - 1 min. 2-3 min. 4-5 min. 30-45 min. 60+ min. 10-20 min. From this chart one can clearly see the attention span decrease as the viewer watches more of the video. The "y" coordinate represents how much of the video was watched, as a percentage. The "x" coordinate represents different positions From this chart one can clearly see the attention span degradation for longer videos. The "y" coordinate represents how much of the video was watched, as a percentage. The "x" coordinate represents different video length brackets. Psychologists say that the average human sustained attention span is 20 minutes. But for online videos, it seems to be about 60 seconds. an individual video. BE SPECIFIC KEEP IT PERSONAL Make sure every shot contains specific and new information-people are looking for substance. If you aren't getting useful points across, people will stop listening. Avoid sounding vague. People are naturally interested in other human beings. Use this to your advantage to help your audience relate. Try to intertwine personal experiences with your main message. VIDEO LENGTH IS IMPORTANT SHORT VS. LONG VIDEOS VIDEO LENGTH VS. MINUTES WATCHED Wistia worked with one of their clients who was testing According to data from Wistia, the average 30-second video was viewed 85% of the way through, while the average 2-minute video was viewed 50% of the way through. That is a fast viewership drop-off. But what's surprising is that the average viewing percentage stays quite consistent for videos ranging 2 to 10 minutes in two variations of the same video. One video was 30 seconds and the other was go seconds. Both videos are identical up until the 30 second mark. The green line in the graph below represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The red line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. duration. Take a look: ENGAGEMENT OF TWO VIDEOS VIDEO LENGTHS VS. MINUTES WATCHED 100% 14 12 10 50% :.... 4 0% : 5-10 min. 45-60 min. 0-30 1-2 30 sec. 60 sec. 3-4 min. 20-30 min. 90 sec. sec. min. 60+ min. 10-20 30 sec. - 1 min. 2-3 min. 30-45 min. 4-5 engagement of 30 sec. video engagement of go sec. video min. min. Even though viewers were exposed to the exact content (until the 30 second mark), the drop-off rate of the go- second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the go-second video. The "y" coordinate represents the number of minutes watched. The time spent watching is increasing almost proportionally with the video length during this period. REMEMBER! The data is quite clear, shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos. For videos 2 minutes and under, you should strive to make your content as short and punchy as possible to guarantee the highest engagement. If your message is more complex, be comfortable taking the time to explain it, but understand that half of your audience won't make it to the end of the video. With this in mind, you would be well served to front-load your video with the most important parts of your message. KEEP TRACK OF PLAY RATES ABOUT PLAY RATES Play rate: The percentage of unique visitors that click play when presented with the video. One of the most important (and overlooked) aspects of video analytics is the play rate. The play rate of a video is much like the open rate for an email. If you have a poor play rate, then nobody is going to receive your message. The factors that affect play rate are the video's thumbnail, the placement of the video on the page, the size of the video, and the video's context. AVERAGE PLAY RATE of . 오오 오오 AVERAGE PLAY RATE ACROSS ALL DATA SETS: 16.9% According to a study done by Wistia, the average play rate across the entire sample set was 16.9%. This means that just about 1 out of every 6 people who loads a page with a video watches it. PLAY RATE OF PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS PLAY RATE OF PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS: 30% Wistia conducted another study in which they analyzed the average play rate for their homepage video. They already knew that roughly 30% of their visitors were existing customers logging into their accounts, and the other 70% were visitors, prospective customers, or folks just stopping by. Factoring out the existing customers, Wistia learned that about 30% of prospective customers watch the front page video (Wistia also had a higher-than-average play rate of 19%). REMEMBER! The key to improving play rate is measuring it and then understanding your users. The better you understand their motivations, the easier it will become to make decisions that can improve play rate. DESIGNE D BY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AKISSmetrics >WISTIA