🔎 Retention Review #4 - SECOND Payoff, Context, Result
A detailed look at your retention graphs and how to improve them.
Hey everyone,
Happy belated-Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it! This year, I’m thankful for everyone who’s joined me on this little YouTube scripting journey 🙌
If you want me to review your retention graphs in a future issue, just DM me on Twitter!
I currently have graphs stored up for the next 3-4 weeks, so if you already messaged me then you’ll definitely be featured by the end of 2022 😅
Before we get into it…
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But if you’ve worked hard on a script, I want to help make it the best it can be BEFORE it goes live.
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For now, let’s look at some graphs…
1 - Too Much Context
Title: 2 Simple Tools to Unlock Your Magic Potential
Creator: Erudite Magic
Average % viewed: 42.0%
What worked:
CTA was fantastic - watch from 10:06.
Personality comes through in the editing itself.
What I would change:
1 - Too much context
The first two minutes boil down to this: “Anyone is capable of great ideas”.
So although we get some great bursts of personality in this segment, it doesn’t need to be this long.
Example at 0:52-1:02 - it’s fun seeing your personality in the editing, but it significantly slows down the information delivery.
It’s 3 minutes before we arrive at the first point of the video, by which point over 50% have clicked away.
2 - Points are easily understandable
If your retention graph has dips like this, it indicates two things:
People are skipping ahead to that moment (hence the sudden spike)
But, on arrival, realising they don’t need to keep watching that part (hence the sudden drop)
In this video, Jeff’s points are:
1: “Write down your ideas”
2: “Practise magic with trusted friends who’ll give you feedback”
People are evidently skipping ahead to the tip delivery, but finding they totally understand the points being made in an instant, so feel they can either skip ahead or leave.
3 - Video Recap
Summarising the video at the end is almost always a retention killer.
TL;DR - don’t do it 😅
However, as above, the CTA is done brilliantly once the recap is over.
Additionally, I would have loved to see a little more organic B-Roll that was more personal to Jeff. Nothing wrong with using stock footage to keep the visuals varied, but I would have enjoyed seeing Jeff in-situ discussing magic with friends, or actively doing more of the things that were being described, just to keep that personal touch going.
2 - The SECOND Payoff
Title: I Purchased Baby RONALDINHO!
Creator: LadToDad
Average % viewed: 51.7%
What worked:
Editing is brutal - he evidently cuts out a lot to keep the pace going.
Varied pace - switching from quick cuts to longer pauses (e.g. at 0:54) allow us time to share his emotion.
What I would change:
Your video should always be building towards a payoff. This video clearly foreshadows its FIRST payoff, which keeps us watching. But the SECOND payoff is never hinted at, which might explain the second half of the graph…
This video is ultimately about buying Ronaldinho (for non-football folk, he’s often considered the best player of all time)
The first 3:30 are building towards that payoff.
As that tension builds, retention is highly consistent.
The editing is pacey, the presenter is funny, and we’re looking forward to the moment we glimpsed in the hook, where he buys the player.
Once Ronaldinho is bought, my brain naturally wants to see him in action on the pitch, and this is where the first dip could be explained.
Because we then see 2+ mins of team admin. This isn’t inherently bad but…
We no longer have a promised payoff to look forward to - we hope we’ll see Ronaldinho play, but it’s no longer clear what we’re building towards.
Retention dips, and we see spikes as people click around looking for the next moment Ronaldinho will become the focus of the video.
This might explain the sudden spike around 8min.
This is the moment Ronaldinho is seen on the pitch, scoring a brilliant goal.
This is the second payoff we’ve been looking for, but weren’t told about.
This, in turn, explains the dropoff at the end.
We’ve now seen Ronaldinho bought and played, and we don’t really have anything we NEED to stick around for anymore.
Additionally, I think this video ends quite abruptly. This creator asked me about how to increase their overall views, and one suggestion is providing a clear CTA (call to action) where he tells his viewers which video to watch next.
The algorithm rewards creators who create longer viewer “session times” (i.e. time their audience spends on the platform watching videos), so if you can encourage people to watch even one more of your videos before they close YouTube, this will cause your content to be pushed out to more people.
3 - Sell The Result
Title: How to Play Salsa Montuno on Piano
Creator: Jazzmentl
Average % viewed: 36.6%
What worked:
Extremely personable opening
Great tutorial
What I would change:
It’s a similar story to the first video in many ways.
We see retention spike right at the moment Paul begins explaining the first steps of the tutorial.
Some people will consistently skip any sort of intro on a tutorial, regardless of how good it is.
But I think there are some ways we could alter this hook to keep a few more people watching.
Suggestion 1 - Show them the result
A video like this is selling a result. So maybe there’s a way to show a glimpse of that result up-front.
When “Latin Montuno” is mentioned, or any other keywords relating to the title, it might be nice to see some B-Roll of Paul playing it. The music that plays over the intro is great for setting the scene, but if we could actually cut away and see it being played, that’s a nice visual variation coupled with clearly showing the transformation the audience will go through.
Or how about setting the scene with some B-Roll of people actually Salsa dancing? Rather than just explaining why this type of music is so useful, show them the music in context and get them excited to learn.
Suggestion 2 - Be conscious of search vs browse
The title of this video seems quite search-focused. This means it’s more likely that people are going to be searching for a video like this, rather than YouTube pushing it through browse features.
Therefore, I don’t think we need as much explanation about why you might want to play this style of music - I assume most people watching already know why they want to play it!
By trimming down this sort of explanation, we can get into the meat a bit faster.
Additionally, the dip at the end occurs when Paul is playing the whole song as a demo, but I don’t think this is an issue.
Yes, it will have lost some people, but several people in the comments really enjoyed this bit. And, ultimately, the most important thing is getting people to watch the next video you release. If they truly enjoyed one video, you can bet they’ll be back for the next.
That’s all for this week.
Once again, feel free to DM me on Twitter with your retention curve if you’d like to feature in a future newsletter.
George 👋