Struggling To BOOST Your Retention Rate? Fix This!

Did you know that the most critical part of your video is the first 30 seconds? Suppose you can keep your audience watching and invested for your video's entire first 30 seconds. In that case, you will likely increase your retention rate overall. And the better your retention rate, the more likely your video will be recommended to others on the homepage with suggested or browse.

One of the best ways to keep people watching for those first 30 seconds is to provide value that matches why the viewer clicked. Then you can promise them that the video is worth their time. For example, you clicked this video because I said it would help with your retention rate, and I've already given you a tip to do just that. Still, another compelling way to increase retention rate is to tell people what the video is about.

Mr beast will often explain his entire video premise and then promise that it is worth the viewers time in under 10 seconds on almost every single video, that said there is a lot more to boosting retention rate than the first 30 seconds and that is what this video is all about.

I'm going to be covering incredibly simple tips to instantly boost your retention rate and at the end of this video i will also reveal the perfect length a video should be and what percentage of retention rate you should be aiming for on your videos if you want to break the algorithm and start getting thousands of views

First though it is really important for any youtuber to understand how to read their retention rate graphs so before we keep going and cover how to increase it lets show you how to diagnose any issues your videos might have almost everyone knows about the retention rate graphs for individual videos.

If you go to the analytics and check out a video you can see the retention rate on average for that video and how it performed but what you probably don’t know about is the relative retention rate  graph, this shows the video and how it compared to others of a similar type, these are fantastic tools and every youtuber should use them but i want to show you something else that you should  be reviewing every single video.

If we go to our channel analytics and look at our content tab and then scroll down you'll see the key moments analytics this tool will rank and then show you the videos that hold your viewers attention the best, when it comes to the first 30 seconds it’ll also show you the worst ones though the ones that lose viewers before the first 30 seconds

if we look at my graph you can see 76 of viewers watch the entire 30 seconds of one of my latest videos this video also is one of my best performing  videos in terms of views in the first 24 hours  which is not a coincidence it is directly related  to my introduction and the retention rate i want  to quickly give you the reason why this is the  case with the video in question my thumbnail and  my title ask a question about twitch's new  update did twitch just solve small streamer  growth when someone clicks the video my first 30  seconds heavily echoes the title and thumbnail  the viewers expect a video about twitch's  new update and i deliver on that expectation  instantly if they clicked and i opened ranting about something completely unrelated like my love of anime body pillows they'd leave instantly i know you're thinking that this sounds obvious  but i promise you i look at most of your guys's youtube channels and it seems like you're not  clicking.

With this idea the second reason they stay engaged on this video is because of some very simple editing that i used i subtitled the entire first 30 seconds with energetic animated subtitles this grabs the viewer's attention and makes them read or pay more attention to the video than they normally would keeping them engaged means longer retention.

Obviously i also back this up by going straight into overlay footage with dynamic zooms and interesting cuts this means the viewers aren't just staring at my ugly face and some subtitles and instead they get something more interesting to look at.

The third reason they keep watching is something that you can add right now and that is actually confidence, i start with solid energy which exudes confidence in what i'm saying as an education youtuber, this is crucial, so viewers trust me and my content.

Before we move on to the rest of the tips let's summarize all the points so far one the most important part is your first 30 seconds, to increase your first 30 seconds all you need to do is add subtitles interesting cuts and make sure you provide value almost instantly, so your viewers know what the video is about and why it's important to watch now.

That said it isn't  just your intro that is so important one of the  most powerful tips to boosting retention rate  across the board is to remove as much fluff as possible, you'll notice in this video that i didn't spend a whole minute introducing myself i haven't  asked you to subscribe even though you should  otally consider it and i didn't open on a big branded animated intro slide with hyped up music,  i'm doing everything i can to remove the fluff and provide value to you the viewer and to keep  you engaged.

The two major tricks to removing fluff  happen unsurprisingly in the editing stages but  also sort of surprisingly in the planning stage as well when planning a video you should think of  your topic sentence the opening line of your video  to keep people hooked, the value you are providing  should fit that sentence and then anything in  the planning stage that doesn't fit that sentence, get rid of it don't film it you don't need it.

I find most new youtubers when they script a video or plan a content idea out they lose focus on  their topic sentence and then when you get to  the editing stage if you're watching your video  back and you find a segment that doesn't add value  cut it out don't be precious about your footage  in filmmaking they have a saying called kill your darlings and this means that just because you love something doesn't mean it needs to be in the  film or in this case your five nights at freddy's  dating sim video.

But what is value well it comes back again to what i said your topic sentence or  the goal of your video for this video, the value  is information but for other videos the value might be entertainment, jokes, opinions on a game  music, tech or whatever else your topic sentence is the most powerful actionable tip i can give you is consider your audience's intent aka why are they clicking this video and then edit or create content towards that intent another.

Really powerful tip for the editing process is to ask yourself whether something is needed for the story you're telling, imagine you have a video and it starts at point a goes to point b point c and then ends on point d, i often find myself in these videos looking at segments and asking myself  does the viewer need to hear this and specifically  does the viewer need to know this for the next  segment if a viewer can go from point b to point  d and the video still provides all the information  it still makes sense then i should probably cut  point c.

This rule works for almost every sentence in your video if you the viewer don't need to hear this sentence to understand the next one, if it doesn’t provide value clarification, information, or entertainment then it can be cut.

This is all easier said than done though it's very hard to know what is actually fluff so once you're done and have uploaded the video maybe it's gotten a few views you can actually go to the video analytics go to those specific and relative retention rate graphs i told you about and this will show you the exact parts of the video that underperformed they were essentially less engaging and probably weren't needed.

Use these graphs to learn what could have been cut tightened up or needed extra polishing to keep viewers watching.

Now i still want to reveal the retention rate that you should be aiming for and how long you should make your videos but before i do that i want to talk about how powerful loops are, no not the multi-colored circle sugar we ate as a kid this is a different kind of loop.

Loops are moments in your videos where you tease what is coming up soon the start of your video where you hook your viewers in where you explain what a video is all about and provide value is, essentially a loop as well you say something is coming up and then later in the video you close that loop.

When it finally comes up for information channels like mine loops are much more literal and easy to understand i say that something is coming up but first i want to cover another topic quickly that's simple right  but for a gaming video or entertainment video  maybe you decide to show something hilarious that happens later in the video right at the start with the words coming up to keep people interested, that is also a type of loop when you watch almost any of my videos now you'll see that i use loops a lot i use them to remind viewers that a really important part is coming up and this helps to keep you engaged and now when you go and watch any content creator whethe it's  mr beast, Ludwig, spiffing brit literally any of  them you'll realize they are all adding hooks, promises and loops to every single video.

Speaking of every video one of the most important parts of a video is actually your audio i'd say 60 of your video is actually sound based with most people watching videos on a second monitor while they game scroll reddit or stalk their ex on twitter i often have to remind new creators to cut out dead air or to add music that matches the tone of the video.

These are two tips that wildly boost your retention rate if used right and by used right i don't mean using that cheap terrible stock music that everyone uses because you're too lazy to go find quality professional music for your videos.

Since we are on the topic of audio i want to quickly cover how important it is one more time before we go on to our goal retention rates and how long a video should be i cannot stress this enough but nothing will  destroy your retention rate as much as bad audio if someone can't hear you or if you're too loud if your audio hurts their ears in any way if it sounds like it was recorded using a megaphone and  a guitar hero microphone from the playstation 2 they will leave immediately.

It is proven that someone will watch a 480p video with good audio no problem, but they won't watch a 4k video that sounds terrible so please focus on and sort out your audio before anything else.

And now for the final question the answer you’ve all been waiting for how long a video should be and what retention rate should you aim for, one of my favorite things to do is to compare the last 18 months of videos i've released and then how they performed in the first 24 hours of their release.

While doing this i found there are two main analytics i need to hit to have a viral or well-performing video one of those is of course retention rate, i found that with shorter videos my retention rate needs to reach 50 or even  60 percent in order to just simply get browse or  suggested traffic but for a longer video 40 or 50  is fine sometimes even as low as 30 is enough for a longer video to get browse or suggested on my channel.

The reason for this well if we look at my 9 minute video i released the other week, a 52 retention rate gave us a 4 minute and 42 second average watch time but my 32 tips  video is roughly 30 minutes long so a 42 retention rate gives a 12 minute average watch time, youtube favors a longer watch time in my opinion because it means they keep you on the platform longer aka they can serve you more ads on your videos.

Granted if someone watched a hundred percent of my five-minute video and then clicked and watched 100 of another one that's also a long time on the platform so remember the goal is simply to keep people on platform.

Of course there is a second big  factor to whether it does well it isn't just your  retention rate but i'll explain that in a second, first though does this mean you should aim for a 50 retention rate every time, no this is just what  i see when i look at my content and my analytics  gaming videos or personality driven content often performs despite having much lower retention rates but also it's important to realize that while a video i release to my audience might  have an amazing retention rate once it starts  going out to new viewers who are less invested in  me my content well that retention rate will drop.

Your only goal for retention rate should be that every video tries to improve and be better than  the last just increasing it slightly with every single video using your graphs to find those  sections where you can improve your editing and finding new techniques to engage people better in those first 30 seconds and then second.

Does this mean we should all stretch our videos out to be longer after all my 30 minute video needed a lower  percentage to do, well and the answer absolutely  not, a video should be as long or as short as it needs to be to keep people watching and get the message goal value or entertainment across.

If you stretch a video out to be too long people will fall off and it hurts your retention rate but  at the same time if you cut a video so intensely  down to be short you might lose people because  the pacing is off the story might not make sense or it doesn't suit the style of content, imagine if i had this entire video edited like an mlg montage, it wouldn't make sense.

Think about your goal of the video does the video need slower edits to tell a story, provide information in a way that's understandable or does it need faster edits to show off montages highlights or just generally fit your style also think about the audience demographic that you are aiming for older viewers usually prefer less intense editing that's a slower pace and easier to absorb but younger viewers often want snappier faster edits to keep them engaged now just having a great retention rate doesn't mean your video will break the  algorithm it certainly helps but there is a second  massive factor to having a video perform well and that is your click-through rate if you  want to learn more about click-through rate click this video right here and it breaks  down everything you need just like this one did for retention rate, i'll see you  guys next week thanks for watching!