“More is not better in this case.”

During a recent research session, I was watching some compelling business videos on CNN Money dealing with The Economy in general. Clip after clip, from Boat Building, to an Ice Cream Store featurette, all paraded across my screen in short, to-the-point, segments. The Ice Cream segment was only about two minutes long and the boat video was only 2:26 in length.

Short videos and The Web were made for each other. On many levels, this is a marriage that we won’t see changing much in coming years beyond getting more prolific and ubiquitous.

Here are the top ten reasons to make sure your web video for business or promotion is a short one.

-Customers Want Shorter. An article from a company called Newfangled reports a theater wide average of web views as only 4.6 pages and 4:53 in duration. If you can’t get pertinent info to your viewer within 4 clicks or 4+ minutes, you are gambling with your advertising assets. And, in my experience, the folks figuring those averages failed to throw out the longest hits as they should have because I have found that the best video length to get results in any campaign of mine is closer to three minutes than four.

-Shorter Brings ‘em Back. A shorter video experience will engender return visits from your audience. Since they watched an engaging, pleasantly short and to-the-point video on your site last time, they are way more likely to book mark and revisit your site in the future.

-Shorter Makes Clearer. A video designed to be shorter does a much better job of making an important message clear. Longer videos tend to become wordy and the message becomes murkier instead of clear and concise.

“Setup the problem, solve it, and ask for the call-to-action, all in three minutes or less.”

-Shorter & Faster = Stronger Call to Action. A faster paced video does a better job of setting up the viewer to understand the sense of urgency in your call to action and therefore produces more conversions.

-Shorter Video Allows Space and Time for Other Assets to Work. After watching your longer 20 minute video, what will be the very next action your viewer will most likely take? It will be to rush to the bathroom or into the kitchen for a refill. Instead, they could have clicked on an order form, or read more about a specific product or service, or taken the extra motions to share your video with others who are interested in the same information. Short videos play nice with all of your other assets.

-Short Videos Cost Less to Produce. The resources that go into making the shorter, more concise video are going to be less than that of a longer video. Just scripting alone in the conventional creative industry can be hundreds of dollars of difference between a three minute and a fifteen minute video.

-Shorter=Smaller Bites. One of the best marketing secrets learned by professional advertisers is the fact that consumers are much more likely to act upon small, more powerful pieces of information than longer, more involved story lines. Setup the problem, solve it, and ask for the call-to-action, all in three minutes.

-Shorter Videos Can be Grouped. Try grouping your 20 minute sales video with your 15 minute promotional feature followed by the 5 minute How To video. What do you get? 40 minutes of boredom with short bursts of mere tedium.

“…the more important element in the whole producer/viewer relationship is the viewer’s likes, not the producer’s whims.”

A 4 minute product video showing the product or service in action, coupled with a 3 minute call-to-action video, tagged on the end with a 1 minute special sale video has only gotten 8 minutes of your customer’s time invested and it was accomplished in short steps with two intermissions.

-Short Videos =Better Saturation. Many who follow Tweet statistics know that the optimum video for going after the elusive ReTweet bird is the two minute video. This computes to better market saturation.

-Shorter=More. If shorter videos are easier and more fun to produce, then this means that you can produce more of them. Three short videos that explain the top three most important messages about your business, service or church are going to be way more powerful than the single video that attempts the same information all-in-one. It may seem more efficient, convenient and cost effective to make the longer, all inclusive feature length video, but the more important element in the whole producer/viewer relationship is the viewer’s likes, not the producer’s whims. More is not better in this case.

Time in itself is certainly not the most important element, but as an example of how important it was for Evian when choosing a venue in which to highlight their award winning and industry busting Evian Babies web video, they chose the 1:01 version for the entire European market.

Have a video that you want to share now? Click on the “Sign Up Now“, or “Try it Free” buttons.

Stuart Marks
Executive Creative Director
Business Video Applications

For tips on Video On Your Web Site, under real business conditions, check these links;

• Custom Branded “White Label” Video Player, Live Streaming Drives Demand
• 10 Reasons to Add Video to Web with YouTube AND a Cloudfront Online Video Player
• Publish Web Videos and Drive Up Views, No Website? No Problem!
• How EZWebPlayer Makes Uploading Videos Easy
• The Explosive Growth of Mobile Video Ads and Why You Should Ready Your Holiday Campaign NOW!

RESOURCES
Newfangled ,  CNN Money. Evian Baby Video