This is one of the most common questions we get asked at Cartoon Media.
And there’s both a short answer and a long answer.
In short, your video needs to be as long as it needs to be to get the job done.
Here’s the longer explanation:
Every marketing whiteboard or explainer video needs to end with a call to action, whether it’s to encourage viewers to visit your website, sign up to your email list, call you for a free consultation etc.
So we need to consider what the viewer needs to know, understand and feel about your business before they will take that call to action. You are trying to walk the viewer through the ‘Know, Like, Trust’ journey as quickly as possible.
Not all calls to action are created equal. If you’re giving away something of value to the viewer for free, such as a free report explaining how to choose a business in your niche, in return for their email address, then your video has to do less heavy lifting than if you want them to attend a face-to-face presentation.
Not all business models are created equal, from an understanding viewpoint. If you’re running a business under an established and well known business model, such as an estate agent or divorce lawyer, your video doesn’t have to spend time explaining what you do – it just needs to show why your service is superior to that of your competitors. But even if you’re launching a new, revolutionary startup and looking for a video to attract potential investors, your video only needs to explain enough about your business model and purpose at a ‘big picture’ level to intrigue them enough to want to contact you for more information.
And not all potential customer-bases are created equal. Does your target customer usually have an urgent need for your product or service, or are they more likely to spend a lot of time shopping around before making a decision? Do they have plenty of money to spend or will they often come up with a raft of objections before justifying their decision to buy? Is your video being shown to a group of people who are already aware of your brand, or to cold traffic? Is their attention span usually low or high?
And is there any information that must be included in your video, such as legal wording? Should the structure of your video be based on a story, or simple facts and figures, or both?
All of these factors and more need to be considered before determining the ideal length for your Whiteboard or Explainer video. When writing scripts for our videos, we work on a length of about 150 words per minute, which is the average speaking speed of our voiceover artists. So a typical 90-second video would contain about 225 words of script.
During our script consultation process, we usually end up with pages and pages of information that we need to cut down to the core message. We define the call to action with you and then use the above questions and more to select the minimum information that will encourage your target viewer to take that call to action. And of course present your message in an engaging and entertaining way.
If you’d like to discuss how one of our Whiteboard or Explainer videos can bring your message to life in a concise but compelling way, please click here to contact us and we’ll be happy to help.