Ali Abdaal's Scriptwriter's 5 Easy Retention Fixes

so we're back at the list of uh common retention graphs that we see and what we can learn from them and improvements we can make on to number two the gradual realization you want to talk to Sue this graph yeah the common thing that I've found in the videos that I reviewed and again I up until very recently reviewing three videos every single week in my newsletter writing videos every single week for different clients across different niches um is that it comes down again to to pay off and so the three things um that we

can usually boil it down to um so the first thing is potentially the audience realizes gradually that they've already experienced the the grand payoff the biggest kind of aha moment they're going to get in this whole video maybe it's come early on um okay so an example I think it's like a sort of quicker drop at the start I thought not not necessarily so I what what tends to happen and the reason I call this the gradual realization is that nothing distinctly happens that makes you think oh I'm not really I'm not enjoying this anymore

oh that was a bad joke like let's skip away or whatever it is it's it's more a case that you're kind of instinctively waiting for that next payoff moment that next little little injection of oh yes cool I've learned something let's keep watching let's keep watching um this is a particularly prevalent when videos are edited really well um they might look they always trick you into thinking they're being very engaging but the substance underneath you gradually start to realize oh when did I actually last learn something in this at all and you won't necessarily say

it like that right this is a split second thing that happens in your head um but it's the case where at various points across the video people start to think um perhaps this video has kind of done all it's going to do for me I'm going to skip away but it's not a distinct moment where the video just crashes and burns or does something really really bad which makes everyone leave it's like a gradual realization so what one example I can think of for that first realization that the big payoff has already happened was I

reviewed uh a video for uh it was a a review of a horror video game being done by a non-horror fan um and I think that was basically the title it was like a non-horror fan reviews X horror game um and it was really really cool it was really well edited they were super engaging it was like all all good signals um but they basically after about a minute were like yeah so even though I'm not a horror fan this game didn't scare me too much and then the video is just a review of the

game and a very good review of the game for sure because of the expectations you set up at the start and the types of people who might be watching it to think oh I kind of like the look of this game but I'm not really into horror should I bother buying it they've got their answer and then the first minute yeah exactly um and so again it's like you you might think well I'll carry on watching just to see if there's anything else for me in here but again it's a gradual realization ah I've had

my big payoff I'm good to go um so that's the first yeah so the gradual realization is throughout the video the viewer is gradually realizing that there's not really going to be much more to this video and and they gradually decide to come off that makes sense exactly um so that's the first potential reason for it the second one is yeah playing off of that really and kind of to what you just said even if you don't realize oh maybe I've had the biggest payoff and therefore there's nothing much for me it might just be

the fact that generally you're not sure what the next payoff is and this is something we spoke about right at the start is just knowing what it is that I'm looking forward to in the next next few minutes um and the the third and final reason potentially is just a case of overwhelm um where depending it could be on your presentational style it could be based on the editing style cut cut cut something like that it could be that you haven't broken up the information you're going to give into a particularly digestible format so coming

up with a framework for something you're explaining is often a good one or at the very start highlighting the number of tips or bits of information or whatever it just gives people the the confidence that okay this is all I'm going to have to digest that's uh that's a manageable amount of information um so if the video becomes overwhelming for any number of reasons that's often again the point where you're not seeing a specific bit of the video that's really bad and therefore people leave but it is just a gradual sense of like okay love

I'm I'm done and once you lose the thread of a video particularly if it's uh something educational if you miss one thing and you spend a second having to compute what's just been said they've already moved on to the next thing you don't have a second to think about it it's just easier to think I'm I'm gone again um so it's just putting yourself in the view issues at all times basically interesting yeah that makes sense like I've seen videos before where they seem really clean and Polished and the editing is great but maybe I'm

being thrown too much stuff at once and I'm finding it hard to process everything that's happening uh every second so it gets a certain point I'm just thinking I'm a little bit lost here and yeah it'd be easier to season this just to leave the video than to go back and re-watch it again and and try and keep up um so that makes complete sense that editing problems or pacing issues causing people viewers to feel like that really interesting um and I want to go back you said about um payoff hasn't been clarified I'm just

conscious do you think there's scenarios where the YouTubers established like the overall payoff for the video at the very start um do you think there's ever a need to have like more micro payoffs like numerous mini payoffs throughout the video before you get to the Grand payoff yeah for sure um this is yeah something that I've spoken about on Twitter in the past and I am putting into uh this comprehensive script writing course essentially um yeah very much so uh again it depends what the what the video is so there's something on a you know

the most recognizable level Mr BEAST's most recent video the grand payoff is what happens when you drive a train into a big pit but the mini payoffs on the way are well what happens when you drive a van into a big pit and what about a button to a big pit and all of that so it's like it's building up to the big thing at the end but it's exactly the same for a piece of educational content um where it might be that you need to understand certain building blocks in order to understand whatever the

ultimate point of the tutorial is um so another video I wrote was uh about um how Thomas Frank the the notion and productivity YouTuber makes uh so much money with his uh notion uh kind of side of his business and the ultimate payoff there like the grand payoff is how does he do that like what is it why does he make so much money but the first building block of understanding that is well he stopped posting on his main Channel and so already that's like an interesting thing we tee that right at the start it's

like he in order to achieve X he had to do why but why in itself is intrinsically interesting like he's got a three million 12 or 2 million whatever it's two and a half million sub uh Channel that's actually yeah main Channel yes yeah um so why why is it that he's abandoned that first of all and second of all why is it that that has created the scenario in which this much smaller channel is now making him more money um so again that's the first payoff we build up to is the the abandonment of

the main Channel and so in any situation and this is where good storytelling comes in to either education or entertainment it's giving people the the necessary building blocks to understand the grand payoff that are themselves intrinsically interesting makes complete sense yeah so useful um I just want to summarize this quickly then so pacing to avoid the gradual realization issue that we're seeing in this graph we YouTubers need to make sure their pacing is on point and isn't too overwhelming or fast um clarify that clearly clarify their payoffs and if they have to have multiple pairs

throughout the video to keep people interested for the entirety of the video um and also don't give away the payoff at the very start of the video and give people a reason yeah that's it that's pretty good okay all right let's move on to is it the final one the final retention graph that you typically see that gives Clues as to why YouTubers are losing viewers the late drop off what is a late drop off George uh plain and simple right at the end of the video people start to disappear in droves in a way

that they haven't been throughout the rest of the video um along with obviously like a little dip at the start a little dip at the end is is always going to happen um but your main task is to stop people realizing the video is about to end um and again this comes down to a bit of a choice about what you want from your YouTube channel and what your aim is at the end uh I always say that the most effective call to action in a video is to try and make people watch another one

uh because that's going to get more watch time on your channel generally it's going to boost the next video that they watch it's all round good it's gonna get people familiarized with you and your content more um and start to see you as more of an authority in whatever space it is that you're creating content in um and so the idea that at the end of the video you need to suggest you need to implore that they should like the video and subscribe and maybe comment and whatever else uh whatever it is you're trying to

do at the end just pick one thing uh for me that is trying to make people watch another video and this is an example of a video where uh somebody basically they kind of spend about a minute summarizing what's happened in the video don't need to do it we've just seen it sure people don't care people are too attention deficient um and then they they give every call to action Under the Sun um it was a more extreme example this one because most people don't it will usually just be oh if you like this video

you'll like this one as well and don't forget to subscribe which is which is fine um but ultimately what we want to avoid is giving people decision fatigue and if you can only make them do one thing try and make them watch another video and I have a little a little system for that if you wanted to talk about that so yeah that makes sense a common problem that YouTubers make that cause everyone to leave is they just drag the end of the VR too long with too many call to actions or an unnecessary outro

and we see a graph like you've just talked us through here George um yeah really interesting to hear that you've got a system to that YouTubers commitment to stop viewers leaving their video at the end um do you want to talk us through our system yeah um so this is something that I started implementing uh I guess two or three months ago or whenever that tweet came out actually um it essentially it seems to have this kind of magical effect and I said on Twitter more recently this is the closest thing to a hack that

I have discovered since doing all of this and obviously there are no hacks etc etc but it just uh when you use this formula on your calls of action at the end it the end screen click rate just outperforms the channel average uh nearly every time I've had other people dming me their end screen uh yeah screenshots like the ones you can see there where it's it just it just seems to work so um yeah that's amazing but we can maybe talk through uh how I rewrote somebody's call to action uh to implement the the

technique okay yeah here's your original tweet uh my name is Sir George yeah okay um so when I was first kind of figuring this out uh I wrote down a call to action on somebody's video that they'd sent me and essentially rewrote it so the first thing that I did here and something that I do across script writing that is one of the most effective things that I have found for um being able to see clearly what it is that your script is doing and what the purpose of certain parts of your script um is

is to essentially label or highlight what certain sentences are for um so this is the call to action that we have at the moment um I won't read it out if you want to read it you can pause it uh but what I did first of all was to label as I say what each of these five sentences are so if we scroll onto the next tweet you'll see how I labeled them essentially um so we've got the link first of all and that is not the URL that is the link back to what is

in the current video right so I mentioned earlier that sorting your food in advance can be extremely powerful so that familiarizes the audience with the idea that we're talking about something that's just happened um like I said earlier what we want to do is not let people know that this video is about to end so that's all good mentioning something that's happened in the video already kind of seems like well we're just continuing to talk about this topic yeah it doesn't necessarily suggest that the video is ending that you're just referring that's something that came

earlier yeah exactly um the next sentence uh it sort of forms a promise so and in my deep dive video about brining I explained exactly how that works and how you can apply it so again by itself all good um interesting enough then the call to action so I'd recommend checking that video out right here then it comes goes back and Carries On talking um it's probably the one thing I started doing that's had the biggest impact on my cook again interesting like that's something that I that I would want to know if I want

to improve my cooking but it's kind of taken a step back we've already been told to click and now we're being told another reason why we should uh and then it ends with some pleasantries which are obviously very nice and there's a balance to be struck when writing your YouTube video you don't want to seem like a cold dead robot person yeah you don't want to say watch this now go away like leave yeah you don't but also you do uh you're gonna find a pleasant way to do it yeah exactly exactly um so those

are the the labels that I added to them um that's really interesting can I just ask you why why did you step back after the call to action and have another sort of curiosity Gap sentence there so I I haven't this is how the original video looked and this is I mean before I can recreate it is figuring out what the the current purpose of all the sentences are because it makes it easier to see what needs to go basically or one is to rearrange sure so have we gone to the next one that's when

I start rearranging uh the stuff that's there okay um so we want to open the Curiosity Gap earlier so essentially I move that straight after the link um and then change some of the language to try and deepen the Curiosity so I think before it said something about oh but uh this brining technique that I have has whatever it said uh has been good for my cooking uh oh and in my deep dive about brining I explain exactly how it works yeah so the choice here is basically to remove the reference uh oh actually maybe

that's the next sentence um so we're on something else now are we yeah something else so essentially we're trying to just make the the language more impactful uh and again something else we're not being too specific with it we're keeping it vague we're keeping that Curiosity Gap wide um and again something that's had an even bigger impact on my cook um so again we're just we're trying to get people excited about whatever it is that that is going to come up if they watch the next bit okay so you've you've injected something else and even

bigger impacts for these reasons something else because there's curiosity around that what is it an even bigger impacts um yeah because it's even bigger than the amazing video they've just watched on that YouTube in the first place exactly and then we got made of the pleasantries I'm afraid to say um okay all right so yeah you can just end the video and you don't need a nice sign ups you can but we're not done there is there is another phase uh after this as well um just to basically make the promise more effective um okay

let's just take stock what you've done so far then so the first four sentences have stayed uh although you Rewritten the Curiosity Gap uh oh wait a second link curiosity okay so before it was link promise call to action curiosity app now it's link curiosity Gap for the promise then promise then call to action so you've rearranged some things as well as removing the pleasantries interesting yeah essentially um the Curiosity Gap basically needs to to come next in my opinion because again we're figuring out we're getting to the heart of why people would care essentially

um we need to hook them with that we we might want to make it clear that this next thing that I'm about to say uh is going to be something that you need to hear and so again that Curiosity needs to be kept nice and wide um early on essentially makes sense yeah yeah okay so the link is is you've rounded off the video with the link um I mentioned this beforehand and then you've raised curiosity um before making the promise yeah makes complete sense great that's that makes sense so far should we move on

sure sure um so the last step is essentially combining the call to action and the promise um because it just it feels a little more natural uh to speak and that way so if you skip onto the the next material screenshot I think um yeah you can say that so rather than saying but in my deep dive on whatever the topic is I'll show you what it is so make sure to click that video to check it out you're kind of repeating yourself if that's the case so the last step really is just combining those

two things um so what I yeah I started to talk about it just now I got slightly lost as to where we were but the the reference to brining specifically originally kind of gives away what the technique is that you're going to uh need um for the next one so I've consciously made that more vague um so you've taken brining out of the link uh uh or whatever it was but I think the promise originally okay so let's double check because just so people can follow um okay yes uh and in my deep dive video

about brining I explained okay but having that originally the viewer knows that you're probably going to be talking about brining in in the next uh video that you're setting them to so you've taken it out of the promise in the finished product to increase our curiosity exactly and that allows you to then say and as I have done in the combined call traction promise not only will I show you how you can use this technique but I'll show you what it is because you don't know what it is at this point uh so it's just

yeah like you say an additional kind of bit of curiosity for them um and then being super specific with the promise essentially the transformation that you're going to receive by clicking it um so you're really it's first of all making it relevant to what you've already spoken about uh which in turn makes it seem like you're not going to lead them to another video You're Just continuing to talk about whatever the topic is you've been discussing sure then you widen that Curiosity Gap getting them you know Keen to find out what it is you're going

to talk about next and then you hit them with and this is what I promise you will receive how you will be transformed if you then go ahead and click this video and then you get out amazing and it's more concise isn't it than original you've only got three sections you've combined two sessions into one and you've removed one so you've gone from five to three sentences there yeah exactly um so as you can see yeah in the the kind of last tweet uh about this I basically said the aim is setting up a point

that links to the current video widen the Curiosity Gap and then promise a specific transformation they will get and that's the system and that's if people follow this in the end of if they're not doing this already and they start implementing it in the end of their videos they should see much higher uh amount of people clicking to watch their next video that's that's the uh that's a theory and I would love if anyone does try this because I get people that DM me their kind of results from this um feel free to tweet your

end screen kind of uh percentages after trying this because I'm I'm so confident in it as a system at this point that uh I would yeah I would just love to see that stuff working for for other people as well yeah guys definitely do that talk tag George at George Blackman underscore uh would you give this a try and let me know how it goes I'm I'm definitely going to implement this in my next few videos because although I do put a call to action to the next video because I know I want to get

returning viewers watching my next video my next video um exactly how I script out and structure that call to action section I don't really need too much thought so yeah I have a system to follow like this um yeah I'm really excited to try implementing this into my videos and see how it goes it's really really interesting George cool cool and and thank you and the last I suppose thing is you've got to make sure the video you're picking is relevant that's the last thing um it's got to be like spend a minute just thinking

if somebody has watched the entirety of this video what is it that they're gonna really want to learn more about or what is it I can make them think uh they don't yet understand without watching this other one right A lot of the time your videos will have kind of crossover and it's just finding whatever what will cause the most curiosity and what will give the the best transformation to the viewer if they click on yeah 100 that makes sense at the end as well you outline the benefits that we get from having people watch

our videos for longer um watching one of your videos for longer means you're going to get longer viewer session times our videos are more likely to show up in the suggested feed when a new viewer first lands on our content and it deepens the connection uh with the audience love it so useful