Why It Is Vital To Plan Your Videos
By: Izak Jackson
Tags: Video Creation, Digital Marketing, Video Production, Content Marketing, Video Marketing

Why It Is Vital To Plan Your Videos

It’s vital to plan your videos if you want to create high quality, engaging content that gets you results. Here’s why. Izak Jackson Nov 24, 2021·4 min read

If you want to create high quality, engaging video content that gets you results while saving you time and money in the long run, you must plan your videos. Here’s why.

Helps You Identify Key Messages

Every video you create should have a purpose or goal, whether to educate your customers, drive traffic to your website, raise your brand awareness etc.

Planning your video will help you identify what that purpose is and what your key message will be within your video.

It’s tempting to touch upon multiple topics within one video, but if you do, you risk rambling on about everything instead of focusing on one crucial key message.

Think carefully about what that key message will be and build your script and content ideas around that. Doing this will ensure your video gets you results.

Ensures You Stay on Topic

Talking of scripts, one of the most significant advantages of planning your videos before shooting is ensuring you stay on topic.

The best way to do this is by writing a script.

When I say a script, I don’t necessarily mean writing out what you plan on saying, word for word, but you do need to outline key points.

A little tip, don’t be affraid to keep these notes to hand when filming.

Helps You Identify the What, Where and When

Many people think creating videos is easy. You grab your phone, hit record and job done!

If you’re looking to create engaging videos with that professional edge, it’s not that simple.

With most videos, you’ll want to include a variety of shots that help to tell your story better, overlaying these shots onto your ‘talking head’.

This type of footage is known as B-Roll.

Before you start filming, you need to plan what shots need to be captured, where your shoot locations will be and figure out a timeline or shooting schedule to know exactly what to do.

Saves You Time and Money

Shooting a video can take longer than you realise. Don’t be fooled into thinking it will take 30-seconds to shoot a 30-second video. This is never the case, especially if you don’t have a plan in place.

A lot of time is wasted, usually due to having to reshoot footage because of things like fumbling the words or the location not being right.

Time wasted is also money wasted.

Every minute you spend reshooting and editing your video is time you’re not spending on other areas of your business, like delivering your products or services to your clients.

Planning every detail of your video will help you streamline the filming and editing process, saving you a lot of time and money in the long run.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Enables You to Successfully Market Your Video

A common mistake people make is creating video content first and then thinking about how they will market it once it’s edited. It should be the other way round.

Planning how you will market your video before you start shooting will help you better understand the type of video you should be creating, the length of the video, whether you shoot your video portrait or landscape, etc.

Every social media platform has its own specifications for video. If you know what they are before you start filming, your video is more likely to suit that specific platform, helping to increase watch time and engagement.