The 1st Step to Ensure Video Success
I can’t tell you how frustrated I would get when after spending countless hours on a video it would get scrapped and I’d either have to start all over or at least reshoot a bunch of stuff.
It’d make my blood boil (although I tried to keep my cool.) But I HATE wasting my time, and this happened a lot when I worked for a church. It was was seen as the culture and “just the way it is..” but I know that’s not true. Why? Because now I have systems in place to make sure everyone involved has a very clear idea of what the target is for a project so that we hit the bullseye every time.
And it works!!!
It’s the very very first step I take when I’m working on a new project: I call it DEFINING THE PURPOSE
I cannot stress enough to you… TAKE. THE. TIME. to truly define the purpose very in depth so you don’t end up with a video that has to be redone.
I’ll show you the two main steps I take to do this! You can watch on youtube, or read on!
Oh, and before I forget, I have a worksheet that goes along with this and you can get that here:
STEP 1: ASK A TON OF QUESTIONS
Before you start thinking of the creative stuff, ask yourself and/or your team what is the main goal of this project? The more questions you ask, the clearer that target becomes.
Questions like:
What 's the goal of your video? Who's going to see i t? Where? Who do you WANT to see i t? What 's your target demographic?
What drove the initial idea? Why is this being done? What is to be accomplished? How will you know if it was successful?
Don’t forget those “why” questions. Why, why, why will get you to the core of it all- and whether the project really needs a video or if there’s a better way to reach the goal.
STEP 2: FIND YOUR KEYWORDS
You’ve asked tons of questions and hopefully wrote down some notes. Now you’re going to narrow that down into select keywords.
KEYWORDS ARE A WAY OF REPRESENTING THE PURPOSE OF YOUR STORY AND ACT AS A FILTER FOR THE REST OF YOUR CREATIVE DECISIONS.
So get ready to write down a BUNCH of words as you brainstorm about 3 different areas:
Audience
Think about the audience of your video. Who are they? What do they look like? What do you want them to do?
Mood/Tone
What’s the feel of the video? Moody or high-energy? Funny or dramatic? What will the visuals look like?
Uniqueness
What’s different about the story you’re going to tell? What makes it stand out? What’s inspiring about it?
As you think about each of these areas, write down every word that comes to mind. Try to get 10-20 words for each.
Now select 1 or 2 words from each section that best represents your project goal and those 3-6 keywords will now act as your target.
Every decision you make should be filtered through those keywords!
NOTE: It’s super important to make sure your leaders/clients/team members that are involved in the approval of the video comprehend and agree on the keywords. This ensures everyone’s eyes are looking at the same target.
Now that you have a very clear target and direction, you can proceed into the creative with confidence!
True story: Ever since I started applying this process in my projects, my shoots have been smooth and efficient and my edits have hardly any changes. Seriously! After many years working for places where there’s always been a ton of changes to every video, it’s SO refreshing to have minimal changes to videos TIME & TIME AGAIN!! It’s thrilling really.
Hope you start seeing some success in your videos, too! Don’t forget to grab the download. It’ll guide you through this process and even includes pages to fill in your keywords! Get it here.