Content Marketing Strategy: Find the Perfect Video Length

Content Marketing Strategy: Find the Perfect Video Length

Creating engaging video content is not an easy task to master. Your content marketing strategy is dependent on crafting video content that is not only exciting and interesting but the right length. The balance is a tough one to strike. If your video content is too short, then you won’t have the chance to provide background and communicate your message as clearly as you might hope. On the other hand, if your video content is too lengthy, you may find that your viewership drops off. If the “punchline” comes at the end of your video, then viewers may miss it. Moreover, a pronounced drop-off rate is bad for search optimization and recommendation algorithms. To aide your content marketing strategy, we’ve fleshed out some recommendations for approximate video lengths depending on the nature of your video.

Explainer Videos

If explainer videos aren’t a key feature of your content marketing strategy, then they should be. This format is a time-tested medium for introducing your message and providing any easy template for broadcasting your message. However, explainer videos can be a challenge to produce, especially when it comes to length. A highly successful explainer video often comes out to around 75 seconds, or 1 minute 15 seconds.

You’re probably saying that there’s no way that you can tell your audience everything you want to in such a measly amount of time. And you’re right! Explainer videos are not meant to give audiences the whole picture. They’re often a quick snapshot of one product or service that your company offers. It’s the “elevator pitch” of your online content marketing strategy. As such, many details can be skated over in the pursuit of maintaining audience engagement.

Testimonial Videos

The target audience for a testimonial video has some very particular characteristics. With a testimonial video, you often are targeting potential customers who have already done some research and are familiar with your offerings to some extent. What you’re trying to do with this video format is to push the audience over the edge and convince them that your offerings are superior to those of any competitors. As such, when crafting a testimonial video, you already have a relatively captive audience. They are engaged by virtue of their continued interest in your offerings. As such, a testimonial video should clock in at roughly 150 seconds, or 2.5 minutes.

Highlight Reels

Highlight reels are a specialized video type that is primarily used for event recaps and by video production companies as a portfolio overview. The goal here is roughly similar to that of the explainer video discussed above. The video must engage the audience in order to properly express your message, and as such can’t drag on too long. That said, highlight reels often feature fast-paced clips and abrupt cuts from scene to scene. This naturally draws in the audience, but this technique should still not be depended on too heavily. As a result, the ideal length of a highlight reel is roughly 90 seconds, or 1.5 minutes.

Social Media Video

The category social media video is slightly misleading. Different social media platforms have very different features, and as such, video content posted on social sites can vary widely. However, if we focus on a few of the most popular and notable social media platforms, we can develop an idea of the optimal social media video length. Most content marketing strategies focus intensely on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The challenge presented by these platforms is that audiences have virtually endless content fed to them constantly. If your video fails to engage viewership within the first fraction of a second, then your audience will simply scroll to the next picture of a cat in boots.

As such, a social media video needs to be a condensed message, and contain only the distillation of your message. Aim for no more than 30 seconds, and videos of around 20 seconds tend to perform best.

Commercials

Commercials, either broadcast or online, make the length decision much easier. Commercial slots are often sold in the form of a 15-, 30-, or 60-second time frame. As a savvy marketer, you will evaluate these options in terms of your content marketing strategy, and decide which to choose based on some criteria. For example, you will evaluate the complexity and importance of your message, the amount of background the video might require, and what your budget is.

Comment below and let us know what you think is the right length for a video commercial and why?