Failure to plan is planning to fail. An obvious cliché at this point, yes, right up there with “Working hard or hardly working?” and “Do you want fries with that?” Of course, I want fries with that! The answer to all of life’s challenges great and small is always, ALWAYS, more fries. Unless of course, you’re practicing the Tao of Ron Swanson and think the answer is “All the bacon and all the eggs” because frankly, I can not legitimately mount an effective argument against that position.
Nevertheless, you’ve booked your video production, the script is written, the actors in place, all the lighting, recording, camera equipment are in position and just as the director yells “Action”, it’s already too late for you… the fortunes of your video have already been sealed. Whether your video is doomed to fail or destined to succeed was decided in the planning stage.
Before you start your video project, you need to consider the following, handily bullet pointed steps, to insure the ultimate outcome meets your expectations. It’s not enough to have a video presence, the content of your video and the production values must be first rate. If your video is unwatchable, it does you absolutely no good. At McElroy Films, we’re not just professional writers, professional filmmakers and professional editors, we are– first and foremost– professional planners.
- What Do You Hope to Accomplish?
Whether your goal is to increase sales, to raise awareness for your cause, to educate clients or to entertain, you need to clearly define and prioritize your objectives first. Then comes the campaign creation. If you start with the great idea and work backwards to make video project goals to fit the original inspiration, it can come off ham-handed, tacked-on and may send the wrong message. Maybe you have a funny and entertaining bit and that bit was your inspiration. Perhaps a lot of people will watch it. But your goal is not just to get people to watch. You need them to take specific action. Liking the video, sharing the video, buying your product, subscribing to your channel or service, every frame of the video has to be geared toward provoking the specific reaction from the viewer that will help your business achieve its goals.
- Plan Your Positive and Clear Message
Film is unlike any other medium, communicating on so many levels and engaging so many senses at once: visual, audio, emotional, movement… it’s a powerful tool in the right hands. In the wrong hands, it can go powerfully wrong. Think about all the times you see a cheap commercial or product ad. You have an instant flash, an instant recognition of “poor quality” and that immediate opinion that you form of the company or product with the cheap Ad is hard to undo. But while the quality of the video is so important, the quality of the message is even more so. McElroy Films will help you set a clear, positive, unambiguous tone that stays on point and effectively communicates your position. Its not done in the filming or editing stage. Its done in preproduction. We work with you to get the precise language, the precise visuals, and capture the exact feelings you want to convey to your viewers.
- Ask for All the Bacon
If you did not click the Ron Swanson link which demonstrates that absolute clarity can be hilarious as well as effective, here’s the quote: “Wait, wait. I worry that what you just heard was give me a lot of bacon and eggs, but what I said was: Give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Do you understand?”
The mere hint of ambiguity is addressed beforehand. The clear goal is stated and then one step further, he asks to make sure he’s understood clearly. Your video should ask for all the bacon, it should then once more clarify it wants all the bacon and then ask the viewer, do you understand? Obviously this is accomplished in an artful way within the video narrative and not so overt, but in planning your video we make certain that the sights, sounds, tones and emotion are working in concert to effortlessly state the goal of your video and provoke the viewer to the particular action you want them to take. These things need to be in the script. On the page. Made clear to everyone person involved with the video so that before filming commences, everyone involved understands your video production’s goals.
- What are You Going to Show / Film?
Still in the planning stage, we need to find powerful images, personalities, words and audio that will showcase your business’ best assets. Is it a product, a message, or the people? To find that answer we again have to begin at the beginning.
Why does your business require a video?
It is our job to find the most compelling aspects and frame them in positive and interesting ways to deliver your message. We don’t wing it and see what comes out. We get to the heart of the matter and determine what will work and then seek out corroborating evidence, marketing campaigns that are similar that have proven effective, or marketing campaigns that were absolute disasters, because like the X-Files taught us, the truth is out there. You just have to dig for it.
- Time and Money
Not everyone is the New York Yankees, you can’t keep shoveling copious amounts of money at the problem until it resolves itself. However, I did once fend off an amorous sewer rate by throwing a roll of pennies at it, which tells you that if you throw some money at the right target, you can in fact achieve the desired result.
Ok, that was a moderately disgusting comparative analogy but the point I’m trying to hammer home is: there’s a finite amount of capital and that capital needs to achieve a certain amount of return on investment in a finite period of time. McElroy Films won’t merely create a video that “takes 2 weeks and $2,000 dollars” because that’s only half the equation. What you really want to know, and the whole point of the video is:
“When will I see a return on my investment?”
To find that out, we need to know ‘Who is your intended audience?’ and ‘How do you plan to reach them?’
We will gear the video to your target market. Distribution to that target market… that answers the all-important “when” and “how much” return on investment questions. How many people can you reach? What will it cost to reach them? How will you get enough eyes in a short amount of time to make the video project worthwhile? We are going to go in depth on these things so that when your video is ready, you are ready to get it out there and reap the rewards.Best of all, if you don;t know these things, our marketing experts can find them out for you.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this riveting column. In the meantime, let’s start your video journey, contact a producer at McElroy Films and learn how we can help your business today.