How long should your web video be? Maybe not as long as you think, but you don’t want to cut out your message either. There are many ways to get your message across. Some are effective and many are not.
Surveys show that most viewers drop off from watching web videos right around the 2:00 minute mark. That should be plenty of time to get the most important features, advantages, and benefits across and hopefully leave them wanting more information.
So the lesson here is to create a 1 to 2-minute promotional intro video as your lead generator to draw people in and get those that are most interested to follow the call to action.
There is one exception in the surveys about the 2:00 length, especially with business to business content. For demonstration videos that are visually superb and had well defined, ‘how to’ steps, viewers stayed on for the entire video, almost without regard for length.
With that said, if the content is compelling and imparts what you need to learn or what you need for it to show you, you’re going to watch until you don’t have a need to watch any more. Like an effective TV commercial, your video should be clear, concise, and compelling. Save more detailed information for a printed fact sheet, your website, or the sales professional closing the sale.