How to retain audience engagement throughout your videos

Would you like to retain audience engagement throughout the full duration of your video?   

First, grab your audience’s attention by making a big entrance – you do this by putting your biggest clincher in the first moment of your video.  The biggest clincher is the thing that the audience is most interested in out of everything that’s in your video. This short article shows you how to do that.

After this, present the remaining content in descending order of interest to the audience.

Structure your video BY INTEREST LEVEL

It’s really important to structure your video from the most interesting content to the least interesting content. Today, to retain our audiences we need to move away from the traditional story telling formula, where you:

• start from ‘the beginning’ by introducing the person being interviewed
• set the scene by describing your services, e.g. saying that you’re a market leader in your field
• present a catchy statement
• animate your logo
• show an opening slide

All of the above can cost you viewers. Although it might feel natural to start your video this way, it’s often the reason why viewers stop watching video content part way through – they’re just not interested anymore after the first bit.  They are actually more interested in some other piece of content but you’ve placed it later on in the video. Sadly, because you’ve lost them after the first moment they won’t even get there.

CONTINUAL audience engagement

The question to ask is, “After I’ve hooked my audience by putting the content that they are most interested in at the very start of my video, what is the piece of content they would be most interested in next?”. Present that item, followed by the next most interesting content and then the next most interesting content after that and so on.  Start with the most interesting and finish with the least interesting. That’ll keep them continually interested in your content.

• You’ll be giving your audience reasons to keep watching your video as it plays
• You’ll get more viewing time out of their short attention span

The end result

A video that grabs the attention of your audience and then keeps their attention as it plays.

If you need help to retain audience engagement with your videos, a video producer and director with experience in script writing for video content will ensure that it all comes together well.