Creating an awesome explainer video is a big project that takes a lot of time and resources, so you wanna make sure you do it right.
Is there a sweet spot that you want to aim for? Is there a limit you shouldn’t go over? Are shorter videos actually better? Is there a time and place for longer videos? In this article, we’ll look at all that!
The general sweet spot that all explainer studios and marketers seem to agree on is that on average an explainer video should be anywhere between 30s and 2 minutes. And that’s something that we agree with as well, as a general guideline.
A lot of companies have conducted their own studies looking at video analytics to study engagement and the biggest such study that I know of, which literally everyone is citing is from a video player called Wistia, which looked at over 500,000 videos with more than 1.3 billions plays collectively.
The biggest takeaway from that research is that video engagement tends to be pretty steady until around the 2-minute mark, after which it starts dropping.
So as a general guideline, we try to keep most of our videos under 2 minutes.
BUT – it’s very important not to sweat the small details. If your video is a few seconds longer, the engagement will be pretty much the same.
Now, a lot of companies say that shorter is always better and we completely disagree. An explainer video is not a Superbowl ad where you only have 30s and it costs you millions of dollars.
The logic behind it is that if it’s shorter, more people will watch all of it. Which might be true, but it’s a wrong way to look at it. If 100% of people finish your 15s video, that’s 100% of people who still have no idea who you are and what you do, and why they should care.
So, that metric is actually not that useful. It’s like those people who have 100k followers on Instagram and only get 3 people to like their posts. They have the width, but don’t have any depth with their audience, that’s why they’re not engaged.
The most important thing we focus on when writing a script here at The Explainer Company is to make it as long as it needs to be in order to engage the audience and communicate your key messages effectively. That’s all really!
You would rather have fewer people finish watching your video, but the viewers who actually go through all of it will be more invested in your product, service, or company and ready to follow through with the call to action.
Because the number 1 thing that drives engagement is not the duration of your video, but your script. Is your script amazing? Is it relevant to your target audience? Does it solve any problems they have?
That’s where you have to focus your blood, sweat, and tears, not stress over the fact that your video is 7 seconds longer than the recommended guideline.
So as a recap so far, try to keep your videos under 2 minutes if you can, but the most important thing is to make it as long as it has to be for your own unique case.
Most of our videos are 2 minutes or shorter, but every once in a while we make a longer one like 3, 4 sometimes even 5 minutes on a rare exception.
Now, what’s the deal there?
It all depends on how big of a problem you’re solving. Usually, in the Business to Consumer sectors, the problems are quite small and the attention spans are quite short.
The Mall: RewardMe – B2C Explainer Video
But many of our clients in B2B sectors actually solve huge problems and sometimes save their clients millions of dollars a year with their solutions. So for example, the administration staff of a hospital looking to optimise their resource allocation and save 7 figures a year, basically a very complex problem, will have a longer attention span and easily watch a longer video. It’s a big problem, so you definitely need to go a little bit deeper into how you solve it, but if your video is good and relevant to the viewer, they will be hooked and still watch a lot of it and get invested in the solution that you’re offering.
iQueue for Operating Rooms – B2B Explainer Video
So there you have it. There really isn’t a cookie cutter answer to the length of your explainer video, just a set of guidelines that you should know. Your video is unique so make sure your script works perfectly for you.
If you want to find out more, check out our entire Explainer Series on YouTube for free or check out our blog Explainer Guides where we go even deeper and cover everything related to Explainer Videos.
And if you want to get an amazing explainer video for your company to stand out from all the noise, produced by a professional and experienced team with over 10+ years in the industry and more than 400+ videos produced for clients all over the world, then browse our website, check out our portfolio and get in touch!
