5 Tips on Writing an Effective Video Brief

Amazing video content that not only exceeds your creative expectations but also generates the desired action from your viewers begins with writing a top notch video creative brief. To help you learn how to write a video brief we’ve outlined the following 5 tips on writing an effective video brief. Follow these tips to plan your next video project.

Your video production creative brief will essentially combine all of your thoughts and the intentions of the video into a single, organized place. Whether you’re creating a video with your team internally or you’re working with a video production agency, the creative brief is a vital first step towards achieving your production goals.

Below we’ve outlined the essential questions that you must answer in your video shoot brief in order for production to go as smoothly as possible. This also ensures that no planning is overlooked along the way.

1. Define Why the Video is Being Created.

Maybe it seems obvious to you, but the obvious may not be so clear to an outsider. Therefore, it’s important to define why you are creating the video. The purpose of your video content should clearly define the goal that you wish to achieve with your production. For example, if you’re creating a video so that you can share your services with visitors in hopes of increasing the upsell of a specific offering, include that goal and those details in your brief.

This is a good time to be specific with the intentions of your video. Whatever KPI you intend to use to measure the success of your video should be included here. Whether you will track lead conversion, traffic to your website, phone calls or some other element that you intend the video to improve, setting the purpose of your video straight from the start is a key piece of information for any corporate video production brief.

2. Define Your Ideal Audience

In order to ensure that the video is created in a way that it is attractive and engaging for the audience, you must first define the ideal audience. Who are you targeting? Whether it’s leads, key stakeholders, potential customers or existing employees, you must know your audience before you begin to create your video.

Write down as much information as you can about the ideal viewer. Including details such as age range, education, and other essential demographics in the video production brief will help you or your production agency to properly tailor the content to the audience. The more you know your target audience, and the more the video production agency knows your target audience, the greater the chances are of creating a video that will be interesting and engaging to them.

3. Decide on a Core Message

What is it that you want to say to your audience? When creating your video production brief, include the most important details of the core message that you want your audience to take away after they see the video. Try to stick to a single core message to keep things from becoming overwhelming or confusing.

Once you have defined a core message, you can consider adding smaller sub-messages that will support the original message and add depth to your video. A message map can be created to outline the supporting details that will be used to properly express your views to your audience.

4. Determine Where the Video will be Hosted and Watched

Will you host your video on  your website, on YouTube, somewhere else like Vimeo? How will your video be watched? TV, website, during a training seminar?

You need to determine where the video will be hosted and how it will be watched so that you can properly tailor the video to the type of audience that generally uses the platform. For instance, if the video will be shown on television, it will likely have several differences when compared to a video that is to be watched in a training seminar.

YouTube videos generally include some kind of call to action at the end of the video, whereas television productions may show credits at the end. Your video creative brief should show where and how your video will be consumed by the audience so that key details specific to the viewing platform are included when producing.

5. Define a Deadline and an Appropriate Budget

Whether you create the video in-house or you hire a video agency like Beverly Boy Productions to help out, it’s important to define a deadline for the production as well as a budget. You may not know how much the video will cost upfront, but you should at least have a number in mind that is acceptable for you to spend. Including these details in the video production brief will ensure that the agency that you work can decide upfront whether they can complete the task on schedule and within budget or if it may be better for you to work with someone else.

The more guidance you can provide in your creative brief the greater the chance that your video production process runs smoothly. Even if things change along the way, a well written video brief can eliminate a lot of questions during the production. Let us know what you think of these 5 tips on writing an effective video brief and feel free to share any other tips you have too!