5 Questions to Consider Before Making a Brand Video

by Alonso Mayo

Are you considering making a video or a series of videos for your B2B or B2C business or nonprofit organization? This guide will outline the five essential questions you should ask yourself before selecting a video production partner and starting the production process.

Video can be a great tool to create awareness for your organization, increase sales and build an engaged audience. But video production can also be expensive, time-consuming, and fail to meet your objectives if it's not approached correctly. A lot of work goes into effective video production, and if you want to make sure you start on the right foot, you need to ask yourself some questions.

These are the five essential questions that we will outline:

1. What is your brand identity?

2. What is the story you want to tell?

3. Who is the target audience?

4. What is the call to action?

5. What is your budget range and timeline?

For this guide, we assume you've already decided what type of video you need (for example, a brand introduction video, a case study, a branded series, etc.). You can also read our guide: How to Use Video in Your Marketing Strategy.

We will mainly focus on our experience with documentary-style brand content, although these questions are equally important for fiction-style video ads.

On to the questions!

1. What is your brand identity?

You know your business inside and out. You can pitch your products or services in your sleep and have a killer logo. But can you answer, "what is your brand's personality?" If you hesitate, this section is for you.

First, why is it important to know your brand identity before making a video? By making a video, you're selling a product, a service, or an idea to a particular audience. But you're also selling yourself as a company. But who are you? What is your story, your mission, your values, your voice, and what is your style? The answers to these questions make up your brand identity.

You might already know the answers to many of these questions. But if you don't, and you set out to make a video, your video production partner will have to make some of these decisions for you. Why? Because in making the video, they are acting as your surrogate. After all, the video must appear as if it came directly from you. It should be told in your voice and style. It should reflect your mission and values. And many times, it tells your story.

What is your story?

Why was your company founded? What problem did it seek to solve? What obstacles did you face? How did you overcome those obstacles? What sets you apart from your competition? In short, what makes your company unique?

What is your mission?

You may already have a company mission statement; if you don't, you should. Even if you sell a niche product for a niche market, you are playing your part in trying to achieve something bigger. What is that something? What is your worldview? What do you want the future to look like?

What are your values?

Values are directly related to your mission, but while a mission is a big goal, values are specific characteristics that you cherish and help you achieve that goal. Do they include quality? Sustainability? Compassion? Integrity? Diversity? You may have many values, but you can only effectively communicate a few. 

What is your voice?

Imagine if your company suddenly appeared in front of you as a person. What are they like? Are they kind and helpful? Are they professional and trustworthy? Are they fun and creative? This "personality" is your brand voice and should dictate how you communicate with your audience.

What is your style?

Style is directly related to your brand voice but represents specific choices. For example, what is your brand color palette? What are your fonts? How can your brand name and logo be used in graphics? What words do you prefer to use? What words do you prefer not to use? Many companies work with branding professionals or build their own "brand style guide" that outlines all these choices for anyone who needs to represent their brand, like when, for example, they make a video.

All these branding elements should coalesce and "make sense" as a unified brand identity. And ideally, this brand identity should be reflected in every interaction with your audience, including your videos. 

Of course, many companies change or refine their branding over time. And many times, that may be the very reason you need a video. If you're unsure about some aspects of your branding, especially your voice and style, bring it up with your video production partner when you start your project. As storytellers and marketers, they can offer a fresh perspective. 

Now, let's talk about your video project.

2. What is the story you want to tell? 

Many business-savvy folks will instantly start thinking about their key message or their project objectives. This is a great place to start, but video, apart from being an effective marketing tool, is, at its core, a storytelling medium. You might have different storytelling needs depending on the type of video you want to make, but unless you only want to make collages of cool images, no matter your main objective, you need to tell a story to achieve it.

If you're working on a fiction-style project, like a video ad or commercial, video production partners will pitch story ideas. But for most documentary-style brand projects, where your company, employees, partners, or clients will take center stage, you should be ready to dive deeper into the storytelling process. Of course, your video production partner will offer guidance, but it's good to know the basics.

One way to think of a story is as a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But that's just story structure. A story usually has three main components:

• A protagonist or "hero."

• The problem that the protagonist faces.

• And the solution that the protagonist must find to solve the problem.

The story is the narrative of how the protagonist will solve the problem. Storytelling encompasses all the tools used to tell the story and make it engaging, like tone and style. And it must be engaging. It must have ups and downs and show emotions. We, as humans, love to hear stories and love to tell stories. We know stories. And we know when something is not a story.

The term "corporate video" carries quite a bit of baggage. Traditional corporate videos try to cram as much information and key messages as possible and usually fail to engage their audience. But giving out information is not the same as telling a story, especially if it's one-sided information that primarily serves a company's needs. It's just talking. And maybe even rambling.

Having a story-first approach means placing your audience's needs in front of your objectives. It might sound counterintuitive, but it's usually more effective. How? By engaging your audience, you earn the trust that lets you transmit your message. This is the unwritten contract that audiences expect. And if you break that contract, you will lose your audience's attention and possibly their trust. 

Okay, maybe now we are rambling :) Back to the story you want to tell.

A protagonist, or "hero"

A protagonist could be any person, group, or even a whole population. It could be your employees if it's a company culture video. It could be your client if it's a case study or testimonial. It could even be an inanimate object like "data," a field like "accounting," a concept like "freedom," or the world itself as in "the environment." 

Identifying your protagonist is crucial because whoever or whatever they are, they will be the "star" of your video, and the story will be built around them. Who will your audience root for if they can't identify a clear protagonist? And why would they care about your video?

A problem

"The problem" is the villain of your story. The villain should make your protagonist's life miserable in a particular way. Good villains are formidable opponents. You probably already know your villain well since it's usually the problem your product or service solves or the issue your nonprofit seeks to tackle in society.

A problem creates challenges for the protagonist, which, in story terms, is known as conflict, and conflict is what engages an audience with a story. Nobody watches a movie about someone living a perfect life. Something has to happen. That something is conflict. And if your video doesn't have it, it won't engage audiences.

A solution

Here is where you come in. You offer the solution through your products or services that solve the problem. You help the protagonist defeat the villain. And thus, you also help the audience find the solution and defeat their villain. You may never be the hero in your stories, but you'll always be the solution.

In some types of videos, like branded series or documentaries, your company might take a back seat and act as a "sponsor" to help tell a story in which you may not directly participate. But even in these types of videos, by sponsoring the story, you are acting as a guide for the audience and helping them find a solution.

Now you have all the essential elements for a story. Of course, there will always be key messaging that you need to include; that's the name of the game. Just remember that you first need to capture your audience's attention by telling a story.

3. Who is your target audience? 

It's important to note that while your organization's current audience and your video's target audience may be one and the same, many times, they are not. For example, if you're looking to expand your audience or have multiple audience segments and only wish to reach one of them.

Because video can be an important investment for a company, sometimes there's a push to make the video appealing to as large a group as possible. Sometimes this can work out fine, but it can often result in an "overcrowded" video with too much messaging that could turn off all the groups it was targeted to.

You may have already created an "ideal customer profile" for your business. You could do the same with the target audience for your video. How old are they? What's their education level? What do they do? What are their goals? What are their challenges? What social media platforms do they prefer? Asking these questions can help create an "audience persona," which would be your ideal viewer and the one person your video must please.

Once you've defined the target audience for your video, you are ready to consider the last big choices related to "how" you tell your story:

Tone

Tone relates to the "mood" you want to create with your story. Of course, the story itself may dictate the fundamental tone, but you can always turn it up or down through storytelling. Identifying the tone also helps to keep the storytelling consistent. For example, should the story be fun? Should it be thought-provoking? Should it be serious? Should it be lighthearted? Should it be inspiring? But most importantly, what would appeal to your target audience?

Style

Style encompasses all the creative choices made to complement the story and the tone through filmmaking techniques. For example, will you use live-action or animation? Will you use voice-over or interviews? Will you use a static or a moving camera? Will the editing be slow or fast-paced? What about the genre of music? Again, most of these choices should reflect what would appeal to your target audience.

Of course, you don't need to make any hard decisions at this stage, and crafting an effective tone and style strategy should be a collaboration with your video production partner, but identifying your target audience is the first step since it will inform these choices.

Finally, it's essential to identify your target audience because it will be crucial during the last stage of the video production process: distribution. Distribution encompasses all the marketing efforts that will let your target audience get to see your video, including paid promotion efforts like social media post boosting and targeted ad campaigns. And to run successful promotions, you'll need to know who your target audience is and on which platforms to find them.

4. What is the call to action? 

A call to action, or CTA, is what you want your viewer to do after they've watched the video. It's the "next step" that you want them to take. Some videos are built around a direct call to action, like pushing product sales or asking for donations for a nonprofit. Other videos have an indirect or organic approach, for example, creating general brand awareness or inspiring the viewer about a product or an idea without directly trying to sell it in the video. 

While the direct approach might be better suited to satisfy immediate needs, like increasing sales, the indirect approach might be better suited for long-term goals like positioning your brand or growing your social media presence.

Regardless of the CTA approach you choose for the video, the call to action also has distribution implications. Your video should always include short texts and links once posted on different channels, like social media platforms or your email marketing list. These texts should reflect your call to action and let you be more direct about the next step you want your audience to take, even if you took the indirect or organic approach. The link you include will finalize your CTA by taking your audience directly to where you want them to go.

Examples of CTA links include:

• Your website's homepage.

• The page of a particular product, service, or fundraising campaign on your website.

• A custom-built landing page for the project.

• A blog post on your website.

• A specific social media channel page.

Now that you've decided on your CTA approach, you have one final question to ask yourself:

5. What is your budget range and timeline?

Your budget range and project timeline will determine what kind of video production partner you choose and, consequently, what level of production value the video will have. 

First, let's start with your project timeline. Before you seek a video production partner, you should know any possible deadlines. Does the video need to be shot on a specific date? For example, if a particular activity only happens in a specific timeframe. Does the video need to be ready by a certain date? For example, if you already know your website, campaign, or product launch date. 

Some projects don't have a fixed timeline or can be more relaxed about timelines. Of course, you will always want the video finished as soon as possible, but knowing your actual timeline will help you and your video production partner make production choices that will be better suited to your project's needs. 

Your budget range for the video is equally important. Prices for video production vary significantly between types of projects and types of video production partners because there are so many variables involved. It's best to be realistic about what you are willing to spend and, ideally, set a low and high number that you want to stay between.

This brings us to what can be a tricky decision for many organizations when finding a video production partner: should you share your budget range or not?

Why should you consider sharing your budget range?

• Sharing your budget range will give video production providers a true sense of your project's scope and let them prepare a proposal that is better suited to your project's needs. Generally, this will save you and your video production partner valuable time.

• By not sharing your budget range, you might turn off some established video production providers or lead them to make creative and production choices in their proposals that are unrealistic for your budget.

Why should you not consider sharing your budget range?

• Sometimes you just don't know what video production costs. In this case, asking for a few quotes might help you better understand video production costs, especially if you get proposals that are way off what you expected to pay.

• Sometimes you are looking for the lowest bidder. This may work if you pre-select video providers you know can deliver the quality or creativity you are looking for. But if you don't pre-select providers, you may actually end up with the lowest bidder and the corresponding lowest production quality and creativity.

That's it! Answering these five essential questions should put you on a good footing to start your video production journey.

If you're interested in insights on choosing a video production partner, we recommend you read our guide: How To Choose a Video Production Partner.

If you're interested in insights into the production process, we recommend you read our guide: An In-Depth Guide to Brand Video Production. 

We hope this guide has been helpful and wish you the best of luck on your video production journey. If your organization ever needs a boutique video production company specializing in documentary-style brand content, please check out our work, view our services and process, and drop us a line.

Artwork credit: AI Art Generator by NightCafe.

View more insights: