How To Increase Your Audience Retention Rates | Instantly Double Your Retention 💥

By Andrew and Pete | September 18, 2018 |

Confession – we used to be terrible at video!

In fact our first YouTube videos weren’t even our ‘first’ videos – they were so bad and now thankfully deleted forever! 😅

BUT now we seem to have found a knack for creating engaging videos, in fact we’ve managed to increase our retention rates from the mid-30s to the high 70s on our videos.

Cool right!?

In this week’s video we want to share with you the 4 things we did, so that you can also double your retention rates and keep people watching your videos for longer.

👉 Watch it here

Special thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring this video. LEARN MORE ABOUT HUBSPOT VIDEO HERE:

RELATED TRAINING FROM ATOMIC:

▶️ How to Get a Video to Rank in YouTube Search

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▶️ YouTube Marketing: Show off Your Personal Brand

In this video 👆(which is brought to you by Hubspot BTW!) we talk to you about how to increase your video retention rates.

We’ve managed to increase our retention rates from the mid-30s to the high 70s, and we’re going to show you 4 strategies you can use instantly to double your retention rate too

This often overlooked but so important because higher retention rates lead to higher watch time, which helps your visibility in search!

But also, with increased retention, you’re much more likely to gain more subscribers and get people clicking on your calls to action.

Getting Confident with Video

People often tell us, “Andrew and Pete, you’re so good on video!”. BUT… confession, that was not always the case.

Like everyone we have been through the awkward, “I want to die out of cringiness” 🙈 phase of getting going with video.

BUT… we have learned, through the embarrassment and humiliation, how to create way better videos than ever before, and our retention rates have SHOT UP over time!

A lot of this wasn’t accidental either.

Here’s 4 things we’ve done to improve…

Tip 1: The Energy Drain Theory

This is an actual theory and we named it this (in case you’re ever looking for a citation 😜)

Basically, video SUCKS the energy out of even the most charismatic of people, so if you’re not giving it your all, it’s going to show and people are going to switch off.

If you’re giving it a 7/10 energy level… that’s going to come out as a 2… BORING!!!

So, we want you to go wild in front of the camera and give it a 15/10, a 20/10, just go ahead and defy maths!

Throughout this video 👆we felt like someone was going to come and tell us to calm the hell down! But, we always know that when we watch our videos back, we’re seem just ‘slightly animated’.

That’s what you’re aiming for… slightly animated 😁

Tip 2: The Script and Jump Cut Combo

Our second video tip is to write a script. Don’t just ‘wing it’ with your videos. If you’re winging it, you are probably not being as concise and thought-out as you could be, you’ll end up waffling and your retention rates are going to suffer.

Some people tell us they can wing it and create good video but we say, imagine the potential your videos have if you just thought it through some more!

A waffling video is going to kill your retention rate, and a baby rabbit somewhere… (just in case the retention rate thing wasn’t doing it for you 🐰)

We love scripting word for word, so we can craft the perfect video.

We know there are some anti-scripters out there and that’s cool, but at least bullet point your video so you know the order you want to relay your information in. Then, maybe expand on those bullet points a bit, then a bit more, until you’ve got a script!

Then this is what we do to make sure we are 25/10 on the energy… We learn what we’re going to say, we deliver it, recharge with coffee ☕️ and deliver the next line.

Then in the edit cut, the awkward bits where we are learning our next line doesn’t need to be in it!

Tip 3: Use On Screen Animations and Graphics

You may like your face, your mother may like your face, but after a while it can be boring looking at one person talk to the camera with no other visual stimulus!

So use things like titles and graphs, or have emojis popping up on your face. You can highlight really important points using text overlays, or even some dramatic music to tingle all the senses.

You can do all this with even with the most basic of editing software and with tools like Canva at our fingertips, it’s easier than ever.

Tip 4: Keep your Audience on Their Toes Right Till the End

We did a full retention audit of our channel recently and found our retention rates were taking a nose dive towards the end of our videos, because we kept signalling that the video was almost over.

Phrases like… “So that’s it for this week” or, “In Summary” or even, “Hope you enjoyed that”, are pretty much saying that the value is over and all that’s left is some crappy calls to action.

So, make sure you disperse your calls to action throughout the video.

If you’re asking for engagement, maybe to download something, or ask for an opinion, make sure you disperse these throughout your videos too!

Giving your viewers these questions or actions to take is will keep their interest and therefore increase retention.

Make sure the video doesn’t end until it ends, and even then, have something amazing in the closing few seconds 💥

Quick Interlude… ahem

We’re going to throw in one final bonus tip on how to increase your audience retention rates… but before we do we want to give a quick shout out to HubSpot who have just launched Hubspot Video this month!

Hubspot Video is going to allow Hubspot customers to:

Easily embed videos in their marketing emails
Add lead generation calls to action in the middle of videos
Create personalised videos replies via email easily for marketing OR support!

It looks awesome! Check it out here.

Bonus Tip: Tell people why they should stick around

Our final tip on how to increase your audience retention rates is, right at the start of your video, don’t waste precious time with introducing yourself or plugging your stuff, tell people exactly what they are going to get by watching your video till the very end, and wet their appetite for it.

Make them a promise and stick to it, throughout. See what we did there 😉

If you think we succeed in our mission to make marketing ‘unboring’ we’d love you to subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Let us know where you are with your video marketing yourself and if this has given you a better ideas of how to increase your audience retention rates. Do you plan to use any of these tips to send your retention rates through the roof?!

Posted in Blog

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