In 13 Seconds Your Viewers Will Leave

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I am your viewer. If you fail to intrigue me, I will leave. I have many options after all. Why is your video worth my time?

We can get into ideation, and thumbnail design with other experts in this newsletter but for right now let's focus on the editing.

The first 13 seconds of your video are the most important. It’s the first impressions of your character, video, and channel. In essence it’s sales. Yes, you heard me right.

How can we convince your viewer to stay for the entire length? Or in other words, how can we make a sale?

Cutting is the foundation of all video editing. Without it, it's like building a house on sand. Keep your first 13 seconds fast paced, hook them with expectations of an incredible delivery later in the video, give them this with as short time as possible but with greatest effect. Make it easy for them to decide to stay.

Your brain quickly decides that the video is worth it, deriving from 2 things:

Reward and Pain.

Reward - Pain = Net value.

Your video is the reward, and if your intro isn’t convincing, the moments they spent wasting their time is pain, then they will click off. 

This is a sales equation. While the pain = money, in sales. In our case pain = time. When everything on YouTube is free, the currency becomes time. One of, if not the MOST valuable luxuries on Earth.

There are many components to visually entice the viewers. Include graphics, text, clips, that hook what's to come. The more curiosity your intro builds up, the better.

As an example, if we are referring to a basketball game, we can show the moment right before the game winning match is shot, but WITHOUT showing the results. This creates a huge amount curiosity for the outcome. Did they score? Did they miss? If we include that if they score they would win $10,000, there a lot on the line.

Just like your eyes, your ears are a complex sensory organ which gives the world around you life. Imagine for a moment, every morning, you couldn’t hear the shing of a toaster, the steaming of the coffee, the sizzling of your fried eggs. Would you feel as engaged in day to day life in this mute world?

The same way colour gives the world around you meaning (we all know the colours of rot). It is important to give the first 13 seconds careful attention with music, and sound effects.

It’s the first hint of emotion in your entire video. Sad violins, give hues of hopelessness. Drumming electronic music puts tension in your chest. Hits and risers build suspense and glue the viewer to the screen. Don’t underestimate the power of audio.

/Your intro is the gateway into the world of your video. Let it be a short emphasis of the journey your about to take the viewer through. Give them enough information to be curious enough that they NEED to watch.

All you need to do, is reply to this email with your:

• Channel link

• Link of the video you want reviewed

And we’ll give your channel a review alongside that specific video an editing breakdown with thumbnail notes.