As a video marketing company, prospective clients often ask us how long their videos should be. This is an important question as video length can impact audience retention, which can help or hinder your outreach. Given that, there are several factors that can impact the optimal length of your videos. There’s no “one-size-fits-all” answer to this question.
We find that most marketing videos fall into recurring categories and, therefore, suggest optimal lengths based on the categories of the videos that you want to make. Here are our categories and recommendation
s:
1.) Company Profiles: These videos are showcase pieces for your company, services, and brand. They give the viewer a clear, direct sense of who you are and what you stand for. Since you want to be sure that you communicate as much as it takes to get your point across clearly, we recommend that these videos run in the ballpark of 3:00-3:30 minutes.
Company profiles are usually a combination of employee interviews, customer testimonials, and footage of your business in action, so the longer length gives the interviewees enough time to say their piece while also creating an engaging narrative to hook new customers. Here is an example of a company profile that we put together!
2.) Products and Services: Product videos are showcases for the specific things that you can provide your customers and tells them why they should be buying from you. These are not as in-depth as the company profiles, focusing 
instead on one particular aspect of your services. We recommend that these videos be 2:00-3:00 minutes, just enough time to concretely showcase the exemplary benefits of your product. These videos should be interview-driven or scripted to give the viewer a direct, professional portrayal of what you offer and why they should use your services.
3.) Educational: This category contains the shortest form of videos and is targeted at people who are currently interested in your services and want to learn more about them. Typically, formats like testimonials, Q&As, and How-To content fall into this category. Educational videos are made for direct, immediate impact, so we recommend that they last right around 1:00 minute.
4.) Internal: Safety, Training, and On-Boarding videos all fall into this category. They are videos designed for specific use within your company, which gives you the advantage of a captive audience. This type of video typically runs longer, clocking in at roughly 4:00-5:00 minutes.
When creating videos of your own, keep these rules-of-thumb in mind and give yourself the best chance at widening your reach. If you’d like to learn more about how the length of our video content, give us a call or send us an email inquiry. Be sure to check out our other blogs and to subscribe to our YouTube series “The Fresh Take” for the latest updates on the world of video marketing!