Can short form videos drive more traffic?

There can be little discussion these days with regard to the effectiveness of video in a company’s quest for quality traffic and conversions. While it seems that video can help you build your brand and drive traffic, far too many small businesses have failed to deploy this weapon especially the short form video. Using shorter length videos for brand building and explainers has been found to be extremely effective in the long term. Some recently compiled data from Soocial just may prove the point. The following comes directly from that published data:

  • HubSpot’s 2022 Marketing Industry Trends survey found that 54% of marketers were already investing in short-form videos to achieve their promotional goals. What’s more, 85% of the marketers surveyed said they believe short-form videos were the most effective format on social media. Short-form video content ranked at the top of the list of marketing options for lead generation and engagement, and 47% of marketers said shorter videos were more likely to go viral.
  • HootSuite conducted a study on social media trends in 2022 and found that 39.4% of companies said they were using short-form videos to sell services and products. This made short-form video the most attractive investment option for all companies selling on social media. The second most popular technique leveraged by these companies was social ads at 29%, and a further 29.6% of companies said they were actively investing in user-generated content.
  • In a survey of its customers, Animoto discovered that longer videos actually deter customers from watching. Around 59.9% of respondents said they would avoid watching a video they considered to be too long.
  • Vidyard’s annual Video in Business Benchmark report found the average length of business-related videos did start to rise from six minutes in 2020 to almost ten in 2021. However, the report also noted the majority of videos were less than 2 minutes in length (56%).

  • In a study of the retention and engagement rates of explainer videos, SumoMe found the sweet spot for most explainer clips is one to two minutes. When a video goes over 2 minutes in length, views drop from approximately 77% to 57%.
  • Analyzing the engagement rates of instructional videos, Techsmith discovered the majority of viewers prefer their instructional content to be between 3 and 6 minutes in length. Notably, however, 83% of the respondents in the study said they preferred to watch a video to access informational or instructional content rather than reading an article or listening to audio.
  • The Wyzowl report on video content in 2022 found that 73% of consumers would prefer to watch a short video to learn more about a product or service. Only around 11% of consumers said they would prefer to read a text-based article, and 4% said they would like to see an infographic.
  • Notably, Wyzowl also discovered that 96% of their respondents had watched an explainer video to learn more about a service or product. A further 78% of consumers said they had been encouraged to download or purchase software due to watching a video. Additionally, 88% of consumers said watching a video had convinced them to purchase a product or service from a brand.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer