How to Write a Video Brief in 7 Easy Steps [Free Briefing Template]

If you're looking to create video content for your business or brand, you need to start your video project with a well-written video brief.

With decades of video production experience the team at Skeleton know what a great video brief looks like - so we've uploaded a video briefing template for you to download, free of charge. 

Whether you are looking to create an explainer video, a promotional film or a corporate video, it'll make the process of writing your brief much easier, and save you a lot of time!

Our video brief template gives you all the questions you need to be asking yourself to map out a powerful strategy to create your next video production.

Combine all of your thoughts into one place to ensure no important planning is missed. Whether you're creating video internally or working with a video agency, your brief is vital to make sure everybody involved is working towards the same goal.

Below are 7 simple questions you should ask yourself to create a video production brief that will lead to a smooth production process (and the awesome, results-driven video you're dreaming of).

7 Simple Questions to Ask Yourself When COMPLETING YOUR VIDEO BRIEFing TEMPLATE

1. Why Do You Want Video?

It might sound obvious, but you need to be clear about the purpose of your video content. What goal are you aiming to achieve? What's your business situation, and what problem do you want to solve using video?

Don't be afraid to be specific. Note down if you want your video to increase traffic to your website, create a change in employee behaviour, or encourage lead conversion (and use specific figures). Ideally you'll have measures of success by which you'll track how close your video is to reaching your objectives, so write those down too.

The entire production and planning process of your video content depends on your ultimate goals, so make sure you're confident about what you want to achieve.

2. Who Are You Speaking To?

Next up, you should consider your target audience. Who will watch your video? Will it be leads, customers, employees, or other stakeholders?

Unless you're certain of your audience, you won't be able to tailor your video content to appeal directly to them. Aim to write down as much as you can about an average viewer, from their demographics to their occupation to their personality. Our video production brief template will also help you use insights to hook your target audience.

Then note what you'd like your audience to feel, think, and do after watching your video content. The better you know your target audience and what response you want to create in them, the better your video will be.

3. What Do You Want to Say?

Taking all that you've written so far, it's time to work out the core message you want your video to be about.

Try to stick to just one core message if possible, or two at a stretch. Cramming too much information into your video just means viewers won't be able to take it all in. It's best to stick to just a few messages and get them across well.

Once you've got your core message, we recommend using supporting sub-messages to explain it. This method is called a message map, as popularised by Carmine Gallo. By constructing a message map before video production begins you'll solidify exactly what you want to express and how you'll back it up.

4. Where Will it Be Watched?

How you're distributing your video content is important, so don't miss it out in your brief. The production of your video will change dramatically depending on whether it's to be viewed on your website, on TV or during training.

Your video needs to be perfectly matched to the places where it will be distributed. For example, if you're uploading it to YouTube you'll probably want to think about a Call to Action at the end of the video to redirect viewers back to your site.

Always remember that where you put your video should depend upon who your audience are, and how you can best reach them.

5. What INSPIRES YOU?

There are lots of different kinds of video that a creative agency can make for you — 2D animated videos, 3D animation, live-action to name a few. And then there are the different purposes that videos serve: corporate videos, explainer videos, promotional videos, training videos etc. 

Your video production agency will need to think about your message and target audience to come up with the creative approach for you (which you will have provided above!). And they'll also need your brand guidelines so they can include your colours, fonts, tone of voice to align with your other marketing assets.

But it'd be helpful to also provide them links to existing videos you do like, adding notes on what you like about them and why.

6. How will success be measured?

What does success look like for your video project? Do you have any specific KPIs in mind that you'll me measuring?

Understanding how and why your video content is performing across multiple platforms and channels is vital for taking your marketing to the next level.

Regular analysis and reporting across a range of metrics and KPIs mean you can chart how close you are to reaching your objectives. And that means you can fine-tune your strategy and create even more powerful, compelling content.

If you're not sure what to measure, here are some common KPIs for video content:

Content itself:

• Play rate
• Views
• Average viewer engagement
• Likes, shares and comments

Content on a specific website/landing page:

• Bounce rate
• Time on site
• Conversion rate

Sales KPIs:

• Number of Marketing Qualified Leads from a played video
• Number of Sales Qualified Leads from a played video
  
  

7. What's Your Deadline and Budget?

Last but not least, it's very useful to have some idea of how much you can spend and when you'll need your video.

The more guidance you can give in terms of your budget and deadline, the more smooth the production process will be (particularly if you're working with an external video agency like us!). Even if your situation changes, update your brief if necessary and keep communication going.

TAKE THE NEXT STEP - SEND SKELETON YOUR COMPLETED VIDEO PRODUCTION BRIEF TEMPLATE

So now you know how to write an effective video production brief, what's the next step?

It's simple! You now need to find a video production agency that can help you realise your needs and vision. And the team at Skeleton would like to help! 

We pride ourselves on delivering remarkable content and results - so it would be interesting to have a chat to see if we're a good fit for each other.

AGENCY SHOWREEL | SKELETON

Interested to find out more about Skeleton and how we can help?

We would be more than happy to talk through your brief in more depth, work up some initial ideas and provide you with an outline of costings for your project.

All you have to do is submit your details here

We look forward to hearing from you!

FINAL THOUGHTS: VIDEO PRODUCTION BRIEF TEMPLATE

Remember that the more detail you can include in your brief before production begins, the more likely your video is to be a success that engages your audience and meets your goals.

Our simple video brief template asks you all of these questions in even more depth, with preview examples. So now you know how to write a video production brief (and why), download our template and get started today!