Video LengthOne of the most common questions our clients ask us is, “How long should my whiteboard and cartoon animation video be?!”

This is a really good question — the last thing you want to do is create an amazing video, but have people click away after a few seconds because it’s too long…

And of course, you don’t want to have people watch your entire video, only to miss out on key details they needed…and could have easily gotten, if only the video wasn’t so darn short.

So, you definitely want your whiteboard and cartoon animation video to be just the right length.

Some people break out statistics as the solution to this question…but this really isn’t the best way to figure it out. Why? Because the number of variables are insane! There is just no way to compare YOUR video to industry averages. At least not accurately.

Think about it…

…if your company has a totally revolutionary mousetrap, then marketing it through a video is going to take a bit more explaining than someone who sells more traditional mousetraps…

…a video marketing a $3,000 online course should be longer than one marketing a $6 pair of athletic socks…

…and if you’re creating a whiteboard and cartoon animation book trailer for a 600-page mystery novel with 26 characters and a plot twist on every third page, then you’ll probably want to do a bit more teasing than if it were a 180-page chicklit piece…

The list goes on (and on…).

But the bottom line is that your video needs to be just long enough to tell your story in a way that inspires people to action.

So, based on that, I guess you could say that asking how long your video should be, is actually the wrong question.

Instead, what you should be asking is: “How can I grab–and hold onto–people’s attention?”

Because, if you can’t do that, then you’ll have a very hard time getting people to even watch a 30 second video…

And if you DO command attention, then even 3 and 4 minutes of video will fly by for your viewers in the blink of an eye.

So, I’ll close with some tips on how to do that:

  • Speak to the audience in their language, not yours. This keeps things interesting and relevant to them.
  • Make sure you’re creating a video for something people really want. Ideally, this takes the form of a pain or problem they need to solve.
  • Make THEM the hero of the story, always — never you or your company. Remember, we’re all tuned in to the radio station WIIFM (what’s in it for me)!