Does the length of your movie matter?
IN SHORT, YES IT DOES
Shorter videos are better for getting people to watch the whole thing.
"Globally, consumer internet video traffic will be 80 percent of all consumer
Internet traffic in 2020, up from 64 percent in 2014"
"It would take an individual over 5 million years to watch the amount of video that
will cross global IP networks each month in 2020."
Source Cisco VNI Forecast Methodology
The following info graphics have been collated from a range of sources and evidence that keeping a video to an optimum length for viewing will ensure its viewed fully and possibly by more viewers. Its worth bearing in mind that this is not a catch all situation and for certain video content (training and instruction videos) the length of the video has to be determined by the content alone.
What we can learn from the above graph?
The way you organise the structure and content of your video could be key to its impact and success. For example placing the most important information at the start of your video followed by supporting details will get the message across to a larger amount of viewers.
For longer videos the drop off at the beginning is very steep; most viewers decide quickly if they would like to continue watching, when they detect that the video is wrapping up another drop occurs. So, if your CTA is at the end, consider a harder stop, rather than winding down so the viewer will stick around for your CTA.
After all, most business video is created to serve up a pre-packaged message, so the longer the video, the less people will watch.
When thinking of how to structure your animation consider using Aida marketing model
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
To summarise:
Make your content as concise as possible to achieve the highest engagement. If your message is more complex, give it the time it deserves, but understand that a major chunk of your audience won’t make it to the end of the video. Consider front-loading your video with the most important information at the beginning.
Shorter videos are more engaging than longer videos.
Sources:
Does length matter it does for video 2k12 edition
