The Complete Video Brief Checklist – 6 ways to succeed

It can difficult to create perfect video content for your product or service. Communicating your marketing objectives is far from easy. That’s why we’ve put together a video brief checklist – to help you put together an informative brief that will help you achieve success.

A clear and concise video brief will help your entire team understand the goals for the video and what message you want to communicate. It will help your production team come up with creative ideas, as well as making sure that everyone is working towards one unified objective. A strong video brief will streamline the entire process. 

In this video brief checklist, we’ll discuss how translating your company’s needs through clear-cut transparency will smooth out the entire process – creating hassle-free logistics with a flawless end-product.

We’ll run through 6 easy checks for you to cross off your list when writing your video brief. To help you create brief that is ready to send off to your video production company. 

Let’s get started in turning your ideas for fresh video content into an engaging and impactful reality.

Written by Thom Choice

1. The Company Behind the Brief

Start at the beginning

Introduce your company, and your product or service. It sets the tone for the whole project. Start off the ideation process with accurate brand positioning for how you want your image to be presented. This is a simple start in making sure you and your video production company

 are setting off on the right foot.

You want them to understand not only your base initiative behind the video, but your vision as a company. Giving fantastic insight and understanding into how those two processes will eventually intertwine.

2. Creative Vision

So what’s the big idea! 

Start thinking about your message. What’s the one thing you want audiences to remember after watching your video? Trying to squeeze too much into your video will make it confusing and overcrowded.

Once your video production company understands your one key message it’s time to start thinking about tone.

Write in emotional language. Identify how you want to convey your message. Describe what feelings you want to elicit from your audience.  Storytelling is all about taking the audience on a journey, it’s never about selling an idea. Emotional language is a key way to communicate your creative plans. This gives room for creative freedom from your video production company.

Note your tone. Next steps, determine what kind of experience you want your video content to offer. A

 witty one that gets the laughs. A sincere one that makes viewers think over and question. Or a touching one that tugs on those emotional heartstrings. The options are endless!

Consider your style.  What ideas do you have for the style of the video content? There are many options to choose from to best bring out your message. Your production agency can help decide this. Some basic examples are video explainers, short films, or even documentary-styled content or animations. All depending on what your brand needs are. You can put some references into the brief to add some extra context. 

3. Who and Where!

Detail your target audience

Who’s your target audience and what social platforms will they watch your content on? Many of the key creative decisions around the production will all be centred around this.

Determine your primary and secondary target audience. Map out the personality and characteristics of your potential customers. Details like who they are, age, gender, income, location.

This will be a constant in the back of the mind of the video production crew, making it crucial to the brief and the video production process.

Optimising for Social media

Social media platforms will also play a huge role in how the content will be developed. The whole creative process will depend on where the videos aim to be viewed.

YouTube offers the most creative freedom for more traditional video content. However, every social media platform will have its own style and optimisations that need to be taken into account.

4. Your Goals

It’s time to start thinking about your objectives

What’s the purpose of the video?

Is it to share information on new products? Driving specific conversions or building leads through engagement? It could be something else entirely. What is the measurable outcome you want to see realised? Note the key messages you want to bring across.

What does success mean to you?

This might be more metric-based if it’s a practical result you want to achieve. Perhaps you want to boost traffic or increase views. Maybe you want to utilise a special offer and measure success rates.

Or maybe it’s more about brand awareness, retention and positioning – whatever your goals, think how you’ll measure the success of your campaign.

5. Budgets, deadlines and logistics

Time is money

The next step in your video brief checklist is budget, deadline and logistics. A brief is the place to outline a timeframe or any deadlines you might have. The sooner your video production company know about your time constraints, the better.

The budget will have to fit the ambition. Short length content for social media campaigns won’t break the bank. But, large story-driven live action video may end up costing a pretty penny. If you’re not sure what you can get for your budget, or are looking for some ballpark figures, talk to your video production company as they’ll be able to guide you.

For that reason, it’s good to decide a maximum budget with the brief in mind. Then negotiate with your production agency about the finer details from there. Most production companies will build a detailed quote, outlining every line item and expense. 

6. Stick to what’s necessary

Short, sweet and to the point

It sounds counter-intuitive, but don’t write a brief that’s too long. Writing an essay on what you need may sound productive. However, the brief may run the risk of becoming vague. You don’t want the writing to become lost in translation while the film is being developed.

Stick to what’s necessary. All the initial core facts you want to get across. Give your video production company as much context as possible without being too rigid. Otherwise, you could run the risk of limiting their creative input.

If you have any video references for tone/style, pop them in the bottom – this is a great way to help your video production company understand what you want the video to achieve.

There you have it! After applying this quick video brief checklist, your brief should be ready for optimal communication with your video production agency.

We hope you get exactly what you’re looking for out of the content you’ve been dreaming about!