What do you think a reasonable video tour length is?
Comment added Sept 7th by Robert:
Thank you for your responses. They have been helpful in determining the functionality of a new product that we will launch early October 2007.
This new product will allow viewers of homes to select "detail or quick" versions of video Tours.
Please keep the feedback coming as it really helps us develop products.
I noticed that in the Realtor Magazine as well. I personally have an attention span of about 2 minutes online. I have seen some 5 minute video tours of cities, which is nice for relocating buyers, but I know I would never last that long.
I get online because I want information fast and in my time frame. 20 minutes is way too long unless you have a computer in your kitchen. Then you can watch the video while you cook. I think the biggest issue with the videos I have seen is that they are not professional. They are jerky and not edited, and the narrator does not have a good video voice.
we think it depends on whether the person watching the video is looking to be entertained or is a serious prospective buyer.
We collect a lot of user behavior data on our site and have discussed elsewhere how we identify "prospective buyers". We have found a reasonable correlation between prospective buyers and the behavior of watching videos all the way through (regardless of length). We also find a difference in prospective buyers watching *multiple* videos all of the way through.
As for being entertained by watching a property video, well, no wonder the minutes are not high...who watches property videos for entertainment?!? :)
Tony
Sam: The point is that it is too easy to apply our own value system to online user behavior. "I like X so my visitors must like X too". To some extent that may be true - sometimes it matches in practice, sometimes it doesn't...users (or in this case, the users that should matter) often do things that surprise or seem unexpected.
We prefer to try to focus on understanding the similarities and differences of user behavior around prospective buyers based on data. Identifying prospective buyers isnt so hard. If the visitor isnt a prospective buyer and are likely watching for some other reason (curiousity, competition, entertainment, etc.), then the reason would be difficult to discern.
Tony
I think that keeping it short and simple is the best way to go. Personally anything over 10 minutes turns me off for a couple of reasons... first, I'm the type likes to get to the point (keep it under three minutes for me), and second, dowloading (depending on the bandwidth and other factors) can sometimes be lenghty process and some people just don't have the patience for that. In order for me to want to sit for 20 minutes it has to have an incredible amount of value.
I can't imagine most people sitting for 10-20 minutes watching a real estate video! I like to keep them at around 5 min max, 7 minutes on a very large home, but no more than that!
Our tours are always shown in conjunction with photos. I think people will always look at the photos first - it's quick and they can determine if they are interested. If they're not interested, they don't bother with the video. If they ARE interested, I think they actually will sit through a 5-7 min video - at that point they are seriously interested.
10-20 minutes??? Who would wait to download something of that length? On DSL or cable, that would take forever!
20 minutes is way too long. The point of marketing is to get people to call (or in this case visit), not to actually sell the product... If you can't get the entire house into 5 minutes or less, just go for the strongest features. Of course regardless of the length of the video, if the quality isn't there it won't matter how long it is...
If you actually need 20 minutes to tell the whole story, then at least break it up into smaller segments. A 20 minute long video would not only be time consuming (read: expensive to agent) but my guess is no one would make it through the download.
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