video content

In a previous step, you learned how to plan out your content by drafting the key ideas and takeaways you want to include, as well as other value-adding elements such as tips, mistakes and ideas. If you’re planning on creating a video content, then your next step is to finish planning out your content before you start shooting the video.

Read on…

Choose Your Points for Video Content

You’ve already planned your content and you have a good set of ideas in place. Now you’ll finalize these ideas and decide exactly what points you’d like to include in your content. This includes finalizing review points, content ideas and/or interview questions.

Let me take a moment and talk about interview questions, as this is a different format than reviews, tutorials or other content. Instead of writing down the best idea for your content yourself (as you would with review or tutorials), your job is to create questions that are designed to extract the best information from the person you’re interviewing.

You’ll want to start by thinking about what this person specializes in. What do they do different than others? What are they uniquely qualified to teach? What information does this person have that your audience has a hard time getting from other sources?

Once you think about those questions, then it will become clearer to you exactly what questions to ask to create a great interview.

For example, if your guest does some process in a unique way, you may use a question like this to extract that information: “Most [type of] experts [perform a task in some specific way]. However, you do things a little differently. Could you explain how your method is different and why you use this method?”

You might also ask your guest for tips, examples, case studies or other proof, mistakes they made and so on.

Take note: while you may send a DRAFT of these questions to your guest, be sure to let the guest know that these are potential questions and that you may or may not ask them. You simply provide a list of ideas so your guest knows what to expect, but you don’t want to get too specific.

The key here is that you do NOT want your video to end up sounding stilted and scripted. You want it to sound like two people naturally having a conversation.  And the best way to do that is to ensure your guest isn’t giving you scripted answers, and that you’re asking questions and follow ups that naturally flow out of the conversation.

Now the next step…

Plan Your Scripts and Storyboard

Now that you know what to include in your video, it’s time to plan out your scripts and/or storyboard.  This is where you start matching up what visual viewers will see as they listen to the narration.

Note: as mentioned, you don’t want to make an interview sound scripted. And likewise, when you’re drawing up the “scripts” for a review or other piece of content, you don’t want to necessarily write out every word.

Sure, if you are having a voice-over artist do the narration, then you can write out the script word for word.  The artist is a professional, and they’ll make sure the narration sounds great.

On the other hand, if you’re doing the narration yourself and you’re not a professional voice-over artist, then you may find it works better to simply create a VERY detailed outline… but NOT a word-for-word script. That way, you stay focused on the topics you need to cover without sounding robotic.

As you’re planning your videos, be sure to consider the four stages of the buyer experience. Namely:

  • Curious
  • Engaged
  • Decided
  • Committed

You’ll want to have four distinct videos which address these four stages of the journey.

Which brings us to the next point…

Create a Master Video

It’s a good idea to create a master video that includes the four videos for people at different stages of the journey (curiosity, engagement, decided, commitment). In addition, you want your master video to include information about:

  • Who you are.
  • What you do.
  • How you can help the viewer solve their problems.
  • Why the prospect should choose your product or your business as a whole. (In other words, showcase your unique selling point.)

Be sure everything ties together smoothly with nice transitions between the four different videos.

Now a few parting thoughts…

Conclusion

The actual video production and editing are beyond scope of this article, but I will say this: if you’re not experienced, you may outsource one or both of these tasks to someone else. And whether you do the video yourself or outsource it, the planning and detailing you do at this stage will ensure you end up with a high-quality, effective video!

For more information, be sure to check out this free spreadsheet, which lays out the steps you need to take to plan, create, polish and distribute highly effective content.