Writing a brief isn’t exactly the most exciting part of the day. It can be difficult to know what to put, the amount of detail to include, and even how long it should be. The importance of a good, detailed creative brief in your marketing strategy can’t be overstated – it’s the difference between average video and great video.
If you can nail your brief first time around, then you save time spent going back and forth with your creative agency. Multiple rounds of creative can burn through your budget fast, an issue that can be navigated easily if you get one thing right – the brief.
Here are our top tips on how to create the perfect video brief.
Don’t be too restrictive
It’s very easy to have an idea in your head of what you want, and then expect the output to look exactly the same. Equally, it’s easy to be restrictive on what platform you think you need video for, and the specific size, length, or formula that you believe will work. This kind of restrictive brief doesn’t just end in frustration – it can stifle creativity.
If you’re working with a creative content agency, then it’s likely that they’ve been there, done that when it comes to creating corporate video. Creativity is one of the biggest drivers of ROI, and if you want to get serious, actual results from your video marketing, then you need to be thinking outside the box. Your agency relationships are about exploring, and utilising, the talent that you have available to you – don’t ruin that by accounting for every second of footage in your brief.
Know your goals
Attribution is everything, and if you want to drive sales through your video marketing, then you need to know what you are measuring, and why, from the very beginning. Are you planning on a video series to drive engagement with a specific offer? To create greater brand awareness? To boost social media followers? Include this information in your brief. Your video production team should be working towards the same goals as you – tricky to do if you don’t communicate these at the start.
Avoid ‘for the sake of it’ video
We’ve all heard the story before – there’s extra money left in the budget! Let’s make a video!
You’re right to use video as part of your marketing strategy – there’s a good reason that 87% of marketing professionals use it as a vital tool. However, deciding that you want to brief a video just for the sake of it ultimately isn’t going to result in new leads for your business. Video should be included as part of your strategy from the very beginning, and without factoring it in as part of your ongoing marketing efforts, you’re unlikely to create something that is memorable, or profitable in the long run.
When you’re putting together a strategy, keep video at the forefront of your mind. Creating a brief for video that aligns with the rest of your marketing efforts doesn’t just result in a smarter output, but also ensures that you’re staying consistent with your brand. You could be creating hundreds of pieces of content on your site, but it’s the video content that people are most likely to engage with – you need it to be your strongest asset, not something you thought up at 3am.
Keep your audience in mind
Knowing your audience is a big part of succeeding in marketing – if you know exactly who you are trying to target, then you can effectively create content just for them. This is pretty common in the world of written content production, but it’s equally as important when it comes to video. In your brief, provide information on who the content is for, including demographics, attitudes, social media usage, etc. The more information you include, the more tailored your content will be.
It’s also a good idea to consider where your video content should sit in your audience’s user journey. What action do you want them to take once they’ve watched your video? And why should they bother engaging with your content over the competition? The more information you can provide in that initial video brief, the more likely you are to have a piece of content that appeals to your audience.
Create a formal brief
You’re reading this blog, which likely means you realise how important a brief is for your video content. However, we can’t stress enough how important it is to create a formal brief. This means it needs to be written down, signed off, and answering the important questions that your video production agency needs to know.
Providing an informal brief usually means you carry the assumption that your video production agency automatically knows what you need. You’re likely to leave out things that you believe are obvious, or that you assume you told them earlier, and this can lead to big misunderstandings down the line. The last thing that you want is to invest time, effort and money into a final output that then needs to be reworked at the expense of more time, effort and money.