ADVICE NEEDED: Re-edit and reupload underperforming YouTube video?

Hey everyone - would appreciate some advice on an underperforming video.

I recently uploaded a Star Wars-related video that I expected to do much better but its performance has been underwhelming. Looking at the audience retention stats, there is a HUGE drop-off at the beginning of the video where there is a wordy intro sequence in the format of the Star Wars scroll. Following this intro, the main portion of the video gets much better retention.

My question: Should I remove this video and re-edit with a much more punchy intro and then re-upload? Has anyone done this previously and seen improved results? Any advice gratefully received.

Absolutely, optimization and practice is the way to increasing revenue and subscribers my friend.

My worry is that it will annoy existing subscribers seeing the same content uploaded again but I do feel the intro is really hurting the audience retention and thus YouTube is not suggesting it as much as it might have otherwise.

Final Frontier said:

My worry is that it will annoy existing subscribers seeing the same content uploaded again but I do feel the intro is really hurting the audience retention and thus YouTube is not suggesting it as much as it might have otherwise.

Click to expand...

Is it possible you could breakdown and improve the entire video as a whole, keep the old video and brand it as "version 2.0"? And make it kind of like a what did YOU My audience like better leave a comment below type of thing.

Ultimately every experiment should have feedback right?

Hmmm; I might look into a more extensive re-edit that would further justify a re-release...

One thing that has helped me to increase audience retention is to add a poll card about 5-10 seconds before the big drop off. Just have the card say something to the effect of: best part coming up / watch to the end to get the best results etc... For the poll questions put something like I subscribed, I commented, I shared.

That's an idea - I was thinking of annotations but they don't work on mobile and I would need to remove endscreens. That's certainly an option I'll implement right now!

Good luck. It should help You will be able to check the results after a few days in analytics.

I'd definitely do it if it's so significant. Keep in mind that some of the subscribers might find it kind of odd at the same time that the "same video" is being uploaded again