Before you press record, start with a conversation about your video’s purpose. Nearly every decision during the video making process will point back to what action you’d like your audience to complete after watching the video. And of course, without a clear purpose agreed upon by the team, you’ll find yourself in a whirlwind of re-shooting, editing, and frankly, wasting a lot of time.
Start by creating a questionnaire to answer the most crucial unknowns. Build it in a survey tool such as Google Forms or SurveyMonkey and pass it along to the stakeholders of the project. No need for it to be long, but definitely don’t overlook these key questions:
Who is your target audience?
What buyer persona are you targeting? This may be a segment of your company’s typical buyer persona.
What is the goal?
Increase brand awareness? Sell more event tickets? Launch a new product? Ultimately, what do you want your audience to do after watching the video?
Where is the video going to live?
Facebook? Behind a landing page form? Repurposing videos for other channels is great, but you should begin with one target location in mind where you know your audience will discover the video.
When is the due date?
Always start with a timeline. A video you have a few months to work on will have very a different budget and creative scope than a video someone needed yesterday.
What is the budget?
Simply put, video can be expensive. Do your research and set realistic parameters, especially before you dream too big on the next question.
What are the creative requirements?
With your budget, skills, and resources in mind, think about the creative roadblocks that might arise. Do you need a designer to create lower third graphics? Are you going to create an animated video or a live-action video?