So, you’ve been tasked with commissioning videos as part of your marketing plan. These might include interviews with internal employees and managers, quick and cheap social media adverts, informative animated explainers or Thought Leadership topics, or even your first ever TV advert; let’s be honest, we probably haven’t even scratched the surface of everything you’re trying to do right now!
This is why having a detailed video brief is so important; save time (which ultimately costs money) by writing an effective video brief for your video production agency to get you on the fastest route to your goal. Here are Fable Financial Films top 6 tips on how to write an effective video brief, which will help you with your financial services video marketing strategy.
1. Where will the video be used?
It is really important to let your production agency know where your audience will see your video.
Will it be on TV? In a cinema? On social media? Your home page? Your video will need to be made in a way that is suitable to each platform; we figure out the practicalities of that, all you have to do is tell us where you want to show it.
2. What’s the purpose of your video?
What’s your video for? To educate your audience? Are you selling a product? Creating brand awareness? Asking for donations?
The purpose of your video will have a huge impact on the style and tone of your script, and the look and feel of your final video.
Your legal team might also need to slip some terms and conditions on the bottom of the screen for compliance; we are very used to working with compliance departments so let us know if we need to pop any additional text in to help your video get over the line with all your internal stakeholders.
3. What type of video are you looking for?
Are you looking for 2D animation, pieces to camera or a live action brand film?
If this is your first foray into video marketing, then let us know and we can present you with a number of options. We work with a number of clients across many different industries and our in-house experts can collaborate and strategise with you to decide on what kind of video would be best for what you’re trying to do.
4. Do you have a script or any existing campaign messaging?
You may already have a compliance agreed script that you want adapted, existing campaign messaging or you might be starting completely from scratch.
If you don’t already have a script, our script writers have written for all different purposes, so if you need us to, we’ll write one for you. This is something we do day in and day out, so let us take that off your to-do list, you’ve probably got enough on your plate as it is!
5. References
When creating a brief it can be really helpful to include any other videos or references you like that you think would work for you.
Think of it like putting together a mood board. Your references can be anywhere from videos from your competitors, pages from magazines, stills from films, social media content – whatever has caught your eye.
You may not know what would suit your project at the start, or you might already have brand guidelines – whatever option is always totally fine. If you do already have a preference, let us know up front so we can design creatives to suit your expectations.
Whatever you like, send it over our way and it’ll be like a little insight into your mind. It doesn’t have to be cohesive and it doesn’t have to make sense. You do you!
6. Budget
Budget. One of the most important elements of a brief. If we know from the beginning that you have a tight budget we can present the best possible creatives within your means, instead of suggesting unrealistic creatives.
We can present tiered options for you if you’d like to get a sense of the sliding scale of budget vs creative.
We will also be able to suggest alternatives that may reduce the price and still work towards your campaign goal. We know everyone says this, but we do actually want you to get the best value for your money. Better results = a happy client = good for us. So if you win, we win!
If you’re still not sure where to start with your brief, you can always contact us directly and we can have a no obligations chat about your project and how to start your brief – the Fable Financial Films team is always happy to chat (no seriously, we chat…a lot).
