creating an impact on current audiences is a lot more difficult now than it was years ago
People these days are well aware of the importance of videos for the promotion of all kinds of businesses. But the actual problem that lies, is how long should the video be? Spending thousands of dollars and finding the most creative people to do your work will not be worth it if your video fails to capture the attention of your audiences. Although there are no rights and wrongs in creativity, when it comes to dealing with the masses, their choices and preferences cannot be ignored. The length of a video hugely depends on the kind of video we are dealing with, for example, the length of a preview video cannot be similar to that of an explainer video. What factors and reasons govern the length of each kind of video are listed below. Keep in mind iOS App Previews are limited by Apple to 30 seconds in length.
- Video Promos (adverts):
Typically, these videos should be 15 to 30 seconds long. Anything more than this will be highly undesirable. Here’s an example of a recent snappdemo project with the app Wish. Styles can very quite a bit, but you can see the message and length are spot on. You need to capture the attention of the user, not bore him by bombarding heaps of information to him. There is no need to go into the details for such kind of videos because that only makes the user frustrated and your purpose of selling your product or anything else will be affected in the most negative manner. Our demo video packages ALL cover up to 1 minute with everything, so this would be a great option.
- Explainer Videos:
Though the name indicates that these videos require a lot of explanation, this does not mean that each and every detail needs to be said and told within this time. It definitely exceeds the time that of a video promo, but the ideal length of an explainer video is around a minute and a half. That is enough to capture all the parts that interest your viewers. Here’s an example of a recent snappdemo project with the app DipQuit. We used animated characters to tell some much needed story and give that traditional “explainer” feel. Add the benefits, features, and call-to-action within this time frame so that your message is put across precisely and effectively. After all, you definitely do not want your viewer to stop the video and move on to doing something else online, right?
- Training and Product Videos (in-depth):
There are certain kinds of videos which can exceed these lengths under certain circumstances. It all depends on the needs of the user with the only liberty that lies with the video maker is what way he adopts to retain the interest of the masses to his video. These videos can go up to 3 to 4 minutes depending on the necessary details that need to be delivered to the audiences. I typically recommend videos like this be geared towards existing customers rather than sourcing new customers due to the length.
Keep in mind that creating an impact on current audiences is a lot more difficult now than it was years ago. The attention span of users in the year 2000 was 12 seconds which has now reduced, in 2015, to 8.25 seconds. The video should be two minutes or less than this and about 94% of video marketers agree to this. Your skill and your creativity lie on the fact that you need to inspire the audiences and keep the length of your video as short as possible while doing so. Video should be efficient and not a strain on your budget, contact us today to chat about all your video needs.