6 Steps to Writing a Video Brief

 If you’re reading this, then you know that video is important for your business. You may know that it will help with SEO and get you seen by more potential customers. You may also know that video is the quickest, most effective way to communicate your message to your customers. But, you may not know how to go about getting the most effective type of video made.
 
As a producer for over fifteen years, I have repeatedly had the same conversation with new clients or marketing managers, guiding them towards the best solution to their problem. This is why I thought I’d get it down in writing to help prepare you for your first (or, perhaps, first successful) video production.
 
The key element to starting off on the right foot on your video production journey, whether you are producing your own video, or commissioning a production company or agency, is to write a good brief.   
A well thought-through brief will help you or your producer to make a coherent, engaging video that resonates with your audience or customers and achieves what you need it to achieve. You can start by answering a few questions…
  

1. Why?
Before you go any further, if you want to get the best value out of your video, you need to be really clear on what you want to achieve with it; Is it to increase traffic to your website? Boost sales? Promote a new product or service? Train employees?  When you have worked this out you’ll also need to think about how you can measure if the video has achieved that aim and if you have got a good return on your investment in video. Get all this down in your brief so that you are really confident that you know what you want to achieve and how you’ll prove that it worked.

2. Who?
To get the most value out of your video, you need to know who the specific audience is going to be. It’s not a great idea to make a general one-size-fits-all video as your message will be diluted and it will be hard to engage any specific audience. A good exercise is to construct a Persona for your ideal viewer; you need to be specific here; age, location, profession, personality. Then make a note of what you want them to think, feel and do after they’ve seen your video. The more you know your ideal viewer before you start production, the more effective your video will be in engaging them and achieving your goals.

3. What?
​Now you need to think about the core message of your video. Try to get it down to one or two core messages (‘Here’s the Thing We Make’, ‘This is Why It’s Better than Similar Things Made by Other People’); the more you try to cram in (and I understand that, when you’re spending money it’s really tempting to cram in as much as possible!) the more complicated and messy the video will end up and will overwhelm your audience and ultimately fail to engage anyone. So, focus on communicating those simple messages really well. A good exercise to try in order to focus in on what you want to say is something like Carmine Gallo’s ‘Message Map’. Start with your ‘Headline’; in the fewest words possible, write down ‘who you are and what you do’.  Try to get it down to a Twitter-friendly line. If you can’t get down to 140 characters, you’re not going to hook people quickly. An example used by Gallo is Lush, the soap and cosmetics company. Their headline would be: ‘Lush Makes Handmade Soaps and Cosmetics’. This can then be supported by three more sub-points: ‘Fresh’, ‘Environmentally Friendly’, ‘Ethical Campaigns’. These points can each be backed up by a couple of points of evidence or data. The map ends up looking like this:

So if you were to take this message map as a starting point for your video brief, you’ve got a clear message with some supporting points and evidence to back them up.

4. Where?
When you’ve made your video, all the time, effort and money that went into it will be completely wasted if you haven’t got a plan for how to get it in front of the right eyeballs in the right format.
 
For example; if you want to make a shareable video specifically for Facebook, you need to know that from the start as it’ll need to be square video (not landscape 16:9 aspect ratio). You’ll need to think about putting text or titling on it to allow for muted playback (apparently, some people spend a lot of time on Facebook at work and prefer to keep the sound down…). Or, if you want to make it specifically for YouTube it’ll need to be 16:9 and have a call-to-action at the end to get people back to your website. If you’ve thought all this through at this stage, you’ll end up with a highly-targeted video that works best for the platform it’s posted on.

5. How Much?
You need to have a good idea of your budget early on so that your producer or agency knows what they’ve got to work with. Or, if you're making it yourself, your boss is probably going to want to know the time it's going to take. This will influence the project from the very beginning and, again, help you to work towards an achievable efficient goal.

6. When?
​It’s also useful to have an idea of your deadline at this early stage as that will help your producer to put the project together smoothly and on time or, if you're making it yourself, you'll need to know you can get it finished on time, or if you'll need some extra help!
 
If you can get a brief together that has considered these points, you’re in a great position to work with a producer, production company or agency to produce your first (or best) video. It is worth remembering that this is just a starting point; a good production company or agency will help you to work through your brief and add creative and practical suggestions to improve and evolve all of these areas if necessary. As long as you maintain good communication throughout the process, you should end up with an effective piece of content that engages your audience and gives you a really great return on your investment.
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