How Quickly do People Lose Attention Watching Videos

Our attention spans have decreased in just the past 15 years. In 2000, our attention span was at 12 seconds. By 2015, they had shrunk significantly to only 8.25 seconds. That drastic change in our ability to stay engaged with whatever we are viewing plays a significant role in video animation in website design.

Any website that has a video on its landing page improves visitor conversions by 86%. With so much competition for viewers in the online ecosystem, you need to build your websites with fun, exciting, and captivating video. This will encourage your audience to explore the rest of your information, especially your CTA’s, products, and services.

Why is Capturing the Viewer’s Attention Important?

The social media giant Facebook discovered that if you can get your viewer to watch at least the first 3 seconds of your video, you can get them to stick around for a full 30 seconds. With 30 seconds, you can deliver a ton of value that includes a unique CTA.

Take a look at this photo of a cat on a rock. By itself, it is not very interesting. However, when you put the cat in perspective of the enormous city, mountains, and coast in the background, suddenly the photo becomes really engaging.

You can feel your eyes soaking up all of the detail, right down the expression on the cat’s face. Couple that with the fact that cat photos attract a broad audience, and you have an excellent example of an engaging visual. Now try and incorporate that same idea into your video content.

The American attention span needs to be constantly fed with captivating, fast-moving, brilliant visuals. The more you can create those first 3 seconds of a great video, the more likely you will have people explore your website. Increasing your visitation to your site will grow your brand awareness.

The greater you can expand your brand awareness, the more revenue you can expect. It is a game of numbers. If you make 1 sale with 100 visitors per day, imagine if all of a sudden you get 10,000 visitors because of excellent video. How many sales would you make then? This formula doesn’t change as you scale. The more visitors you get, the greater your sales will be.

How Do You Increase the Attention Span?

If the average attention span is only 8.25 seconds, and we know the first 3 seconds of any video, animation, or advertisement is essential to engaging your audience, then you have a small window to increase your website traffic. Remember, everything starts with the visual. So the first thing you should do is have a cover image for your video that is eye candy. Go to YouTube.com and perform a search for “funny cats”. You can see the top three results we got. Don’t these images immediately offer a sense of what the video will be about and if you want to keep watching, all from the cover image. Couple your image with a compelling title targeted to your specific audience, and you probably have a winner. Use your video to tell a story. People with short attention spans appreciate being led along a journey that both informs and entertains their minds.

How Do You Increase Retention?

The “stickiness” of your video matters a great deal. Once you have your audience for those first 3 seconds, you are going to have to deliver on your promise. After that, you need to keep them watching so they can get to your CTA. If your audience retention is 70% for the first 30 seconds, then you probably have an excellent video hook. Make your videos visually engaging using cutaways, pop-up text, different footage, exciting angles, and other graphics to keep their attention.

Get right to the points that your audience wants the most. You need to leverage your data analytics to hit those keywords and categories your audience enjoys the most. For example, you wouldn’t want to spend the first 30 seconds of a fashion video talking about the models of different jackhammers available at the hardware store. If you are trying to target the millennial or younger crowd, check out what is popular on the social media site TikTok. 

These videos use cutaways, striking imagery, or dances with popular music to captivate their audiences. Obviously, your video may be different, but there are valuable elements that you can copy over to your own content creation.

How do Attention Span and Retention Equal Greater Sales?

The first challenge of building launching your website is engaging fast attention spans to draw in new visitors. Once you have that traffic, now you need to retain the kinds of customers that will translate into new sales. The more you can keep customers, the more they will drive your sales. Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.

You want to keep eyes on your site for as long as possible. Pay close attention to what your returning customers gravitate towards. If you have one video that way outperforms the rest of your videos, odds are that is the type of content resonating with your customers the most. Whatever that content may be, it has the power to get through their short attention spans.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you know what they want. Let your analytics inform your decision-making. There is a lot of trial and error in creating quality content. So don’t be afraid to take some risks. You may be surprised where this journey takes you.

Attention Spans and Explainer Videos

A quality explainer video is still an excellent way of engaging your audience’s short attention span. Explainer videos are short-form stories about a company, product, or idea. They provided your audience with a quick idea of your content. They also can increase your conversion rate by up to 20%.

Using a streamlined explainer video offers your audience a clear presentation of your value proposition. You allow them a direct line to what they will get if they continue to watch your video, visit your site, or engage with your company.

Remember to keep your explainer video in line with your customer’s demographics. Use their interests to guide your content and drive greater sales. Keep your videos short and to the point, with the first 3 seconds being as crucial as the rest.

Need Some Help?

The good news is that there are professional companies out there to help you create highly engaging, fun, and entertaining video content for your website. Darvideo Animation Studio is an excellent resource for customized 2D and 3D video animation that you can use to build your own explainer videos.

Each of their videos incorporates your brand identity and allows you to create CTAs that are sure to boost your customer retention rates. 

Reach out today to our contact page. You’ll be connected with one of their expert team members that can best provide guidance on how to move forward with a video that will shatter the short attention spans of your audience.