With lots of video content being created and attention spans dropping, getting viewers immersed in your explainer video is the name of the game. You need them to watch your video, understand your message, and trust you if you want them to contact you, sign up for a free trial, or purchase your product. Here are some tips to consider before starting your project to ensure that you’re optimizing engagement:

 

1. Keep It Short and Sweet.
The point of your video isn’t to cram every fact and feature into your script… it’s to give viewers just enough information that they understand what you do and take the action you’re intending them to take. Studies show that, on average, 0-30 second videos have 82% of the video watched; for 30-60 second videos, it’s 75%… and for 60-120 second videos, it’s 68%. As you can see, the longer your video, the less of it will be watched.

 

2. Define the Problem You’re Solving Early.
You need to make an emotional connection with your viewers early on, or they won’t stick around. The best way to connect with your audience for an explainer video is to clearly convey the problem in a manner that makes them want to stick around to hear your solution.

 

3.Test Your Engagement.
Video hosting sites like Wistia allow you to see which parts of your video viewers are re-watching, skipping, and dropping off. If your budget allows for it, tweak your video’s content in response to viewer patterns.

 

4. Split Test the Details.
Similar to the point above, there are aspects of the video that you can split test – like thumbnails, descriptions and titles. Settings up the actual tests involve a little common sense and intuition to see what works. For example, LaunchSpark might put a client’s video in our portfolio with their logo as the thumbnail to give viewers a sense of the types of companies that we work with, whereas that client might use a thumbnail that includes a screenshot to give the viewer a taste of what they’re in for. Split test and run with whichever works.

 

5. Get Personal.
Know who you’re target audience is and speak directly to them. With a recent video we produced at LaunchSpark, we knew we were speaking directly to CIO’s of Fortune 500 companies (typically banks). We learned about the demographics, pain points, and behaviors of this target market and crafted a script that spoke directly to those points. Having a bio of a fictitious user helps craft the message the same way it does during the user experience ideation process.