Every year a wealth of information is shared by various companies who conduct research into the effectiveness of video marketing. The results are very useful but often the figures are only marginally incremental on the previous year’s reports. Trying to decipher what this means – and which information to pay attention to – can be a time-consuming exercise.
So I wanted to distil some recent findings and give you 5 key stats that, in my view, are important to take away from two of the 2019 reports I’ve read in detail (I appreciate that we are in the final quarter of 2019 but these stats remain relevant to date!):
1. The average video length in B2B is trending shorter and shorter
In 2018, the average video was 4.07 minutes long, 33% shorter than 2017’s 6.07 minutes*. So average video length is consistently decreasing and, considering the average length in 2016 was 13.14 minutes, this drop in the space of just a couple of years is vast.
This naturally backs up the common wisdom that videos need to be short and succinct to achieve optimal engagement. But I would urge B2B marketers to be cautious of this assumption. While we’re seeing that the majority of videos are less than 2 minutes long (73%), more viewers will actually watch a video that’s between 2-4 minutes all the way through than a video that’s 1-2 minutes*. I believe this comes down to what value the viewer places on the content. Educational content, for example, will always be longer than a promo video and that’s fine; it shouldn’t be crammed into a 2-minute video just because of the hype around dwindling attention spans. This is something I’ll cover in a later blog.
2. Most B2B video is still watched on desktops
Despite 75% of worldwide video viewing being done on mobile, 87% of B2B video is viewed on a desktop*.
How your audience will view your video, and what device they will use to view it, is an important factor to consider before you shoot anything. For desktop viewing, for example, vertically shot video wouldn’t be advisable. It’s a case of knowing your audience and keeping tabs on your viewing stats to see which devices dominate.
3. Mid-week is the most popular time for business video views
Deciding when to post a video on social platforms or share a video in your digital marketing activity can be tricky. Research suggests that Thursdays see the most views overall of business videos (22%), followed by Wednesday (18%) and Tuesday (17%)*. This closely follows the outcome of research looking at the optimal day to share email newsletters.
When it comes to time of the day, again we need to consider when people are at work in front of their computers. Research suggests that the peak window for business video viewing mid-week is between 12-2pm).
4. Demos, webinars and explainer videos are the most popular
With the exception of social channels (for which succinct, punchy social video is clearly the front runner), for every other channel – from landing pages and emails to websites and YouTube – educational content is currently the most popular content being created by B2B marketers. And this kind of content is clearly in demand. 39% of respondents to wyzowl’s 2019 State of Video Marketing research cited explainer videos when asked to identify one type of video they’d like to see more of from brands**.
By investing in the development of educational content, businesses are clearly seeing a return on their investment. In fact, 83% of marketers in the same research say that video gives them a good ROI, up from 78% in 2018**.
5. Optimising business video for Chrome is key
61% of business video is viewed in Chrome, followed by Internet Explorer at just 15%, according to Vidyard’s 2019 Video in Business Benchmark Report. The use of Internet Explorer as a browser for viewing video has fallen year-on-year from 34% in 2016 to 20% in 2017.
This means that, although it’s important to ensure video content plays smoothly across all browsers, Chrome is the one to check for perfection. Vidyard’s advice is to ‘look for a video player that works across browsers (including older versions) and can handle multiple playback formats’.
So, if you’re thinking of creating B2B video content in the coming months, my short advice would be to keep it educational, aim for a maximum length of around 4 minutes, optimise it for desktop, share it on Thursday at 12pm and check that it plays well in Chrome!
Clearly, this is an over-simplification. Each piece of video content should be created with specific audiences, platforms and CTAs in mind.
So, if you’d like to discuss an idea you have, or just have a chat about what kind of video content could deliver results for your business, get in touch.
*2019 Video in Business, Benchmark Report, Vidyard
**The State of Video Marketing 2019, wyzowl