New questions are raised for B2B marketers. How much video content is enough? What trends stand out for different industries? How long should videos be? How are videos performing in comparison to the competition?
These are some of the questions that the team at video platform Vidyard set out to answer with the 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report. The study analyzed data from more than 500 businesses and nearly a quarter of a million videos in November 2016, together with engagement data from more than 600 million video streams over a 12-month period, to produce some interesting insights into B2B video stats and viewing habits.
The Production Numbers
The numbers already in video libraries and under production are pretty impressive. Keep in mind though that the sample was from companies that have already converted to the benefits of video as users of a publishing platform (companies that produce video as their primary business and those that monetize video were excluded). They therefore don’t necessarily represent the true position across the whole B2B industry, but they are still a key indicator of the direction things are going.
- The average number of videos in a business library was 293, with an average of 18 new videos being added every month—a rate that will double the size of the library in just 18 months.
- Organizations in the High Tech and Manufacturing sectors are the most active publishers of new video content, Retail and Food and Leisure the least active.
- The largest companies tend to produce the highest number of videos. However, there wasn’t found to be a direct correlation between company size, as some smaller companies having sizeable video portfolios—it’s a reflection of the low cost of production and low barriers to entry that video offers today.
- Eighty-five percent of businesses report using internal staff and resources to produce video content. The report notes high production values are rare, as a consequence. Simple demo videos or productions by teams within an organization are most common, and all count toward the total.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
Viewing Habits
We’re all viewing video much more on our smartphones these days, however video viewing in the B2B space seems to be bucking the trend.
- Eight-six percent of video views were on desktop with just 14 percent on tablet or mobile. Business publishers need to bear this in mind when producing content and not go all in on mobile, but continue to cater to the desktop user with features such as large screen and interactive video.
- The same message comes with browser use. Chrome accounts for more than half of all views. However, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari are all still regularly used. Older versions need to be supported and, as the report points out, need to be able to accommodate both Flash and HTML5.
- B2B buyers like to consume their video content in the morning with 7am to 11am (PST) showing a spike in consumption. The most popular day for viewing is Wednesday and while weekends see fewer views, there is still quite a bit of business video watching happening.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
Content
Explainer videos, described as “short videos that describe, or explain what a company does in a fun and engaging way,” were by far the most common types of video published.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
How-to and product feature productions also featured strongly, although their use varied according to the distribution channel, with website and email being the most commonly used.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
The average length of video was just over 8 minutes, with the majority (56 percent) less than 2 minutes in length, not surprising in view of the average attention span of the digital viewer. Intriguingly, there were fewer videos between 7 and 20 minutes in length. Productions either tend to be short and punchy, or packed with information in long-form content such as a webinar.
Smaller companies and those in Media, High Tech, Manufacturing, and Communications favored shorter videos. Professional Services, Financial Services, and Healthcare companies were more likely to use long-form video content.
How Viewers Engage with Video Content
The true measure of success is the level of engagement viewers have with your content. Do they watch the whole video? Do they lose interest and move away immediately? Critically, do they see the message that you trying to convey?
It’s not a great surprise to learn from the report that the length of the video is a critical factor in audience retention.
- Videos of less than 90 seconds in length saw on average, just over half of viewers (56 percent) retained until the end. That dropped to just one in ten for a 30-minute video. (Keep it short, people!)
- A significant proportion of drop-off occurs in the first 10 percent of the video, irrespective of the length. That could be due to either poor content, or poor research on the part of the viewer.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
A more interesting analysis comes with a comparison of these overall averages to the results for the top performing five percent of videos.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
The average retention rate is 77 percent for these top-performing videos, with short productions (less than 90 seconds) retaining an impressive 99 percent of the audience. Videos of 30 minutes in length retain a third more of the audience compared to the average, although the report notes that even these see a sharp drop off towards the end.
Personalized video, where the viewer is presented with some form of content that’s unique to them, was found to have a positive impact on engagement, whatever the length of the video.
Image source 2017 Video in Business Benchmark Report
Critical Analysis
Many organizations appear to have little ability to track results, with almost a quarter (23 percent) having no means of analysis at all, and another 42 percent having only basic measures, such as numbers of views. That’s nearly two-thirds that are unable to measure engagement or ROI from their video marketing.
Just one in seven said they use advanced analytics to collect and evaluate metrics that allow them to determine the impact on revenue and ROI.
The study identified some key correlations between the use of analytics and the effectiveness of video campaigns. Marketers who churn out video without analysis would be wise to take note.
- Organizations using advanced analytics were found to be “twice as likely to report that returns on their video investments are improving.”
- They were also twice as likely to increase their video budgets.
- Those organizations producing more than 50 videos annually were far more likely to be employing video analytics than the rest.
Although the report doesn’t draw any firm conclusions about the effectiveness of video, it does highlight some key trends in B2B sales and marketing. Namely B2B buyers are demanding video content, B2B sellers are beginning to produce video content to meet that demand, and that the majority aren’t yet able to fully measure the effectiveness of their video marketing strategy. It will be interesting to see how these trends develop in future benchmark reports.
Are you an advocate for video marketing in the B2B space? I would love to hear your thoughts.
You can find out more about this study by downloading the full report (registration required), with this infographic or—of course—by viewing this short video.
Photo Credit: Joe The Goat Farmer Flickr via Compfight cc