Module 5 - Filming and planning

Why does filming need planning at all?

Because filming is the easy part, and doing it without a plan is what makes the video ineffective. One of the great things with YouTube is that it is really easy to get video content on there. You can film on phones, most phones shoot great quality video now, and commercials are made on these kinds of things if you know what you are doing.

Sometimes it requires a bit more lighting, a bit more thinking, a bit more planning and a bit more prepping. Do not just look at your phone and go and bang it up, because that is not the way to do it. Equally, if you need to do something a bit more complicated, do not go and film straight away. A lot of prior planning prevents a poor outcome.

What should you decide before you press record?

Start with your video goals. What are you trying to achieve? What are your objectives? How do you want people to feel when they see your video, and what actions do you want them to take?

Go back to the soy milk example. If your objective is to reach a new younger audience about the benefits of soy milk, you need to be really clear about that in the video. I always suggest a little sheet: what are the goals of my video, I want to raise more awareness of the soy milk, my objective is to increase sales by this much, and I want people to think, oh, I did not know that product was available at that supermarket, or I did not know I could get this course for this.

Then write down what action you want. Probably visit your website and purchase the product is the most likely outcome. Write those things down. When you commit things to paper in an organised way it is amazing how much more clarity is brought to the project.

How do you define the target audience for a video?

Get the audience onto one sheet, because you can almost write it as a list. Who are they? Is it 14 to 17 year olds, is it young girls, is it young boys, is it women 65 plus, is it other business coaches, is it business owners and entrepreneurs who are struggling to grow the business? It could be all manner of things.

What age are they, where do they live, what do they like, what are their interesting habits? The documents we have gone through will help answer those questions, and having them in one place really helps you plan. That is what then allows you to figure out what story you want to tell on YouTube.

What does a good YouTube video story look like?

Like all good stories, it has a start, a middle and an end, and it has to be interesting and relevant enough to keep people engaged throughout.

Say you are a business coach who wants to encourage young entrepreneurs to grow their business and increase their sales, and you are running a course. Your hook could be, hey, are you a business owner who wants to grow your business tenfold this next year? Well, I have got the course for you. Equally, if it is soy milk, it could be talking about the advantages of soy milk for young people developing and growing up as a teenager.

You have to get that information over quickly on YouTube so people think, that is for me. The first part is the hook, what is the benefit to me as a consumer, tell me a little bit more, and probably a call to action before 30 seconds, because at that point you are encouraging them to take an action before you start paying. If they take an action or continue watching, you then pay, but it is really low cost.

Then keep them entertained. You can educate them, entertain them, tell them more about your product or the provenance or the content of the course, and that keeps them watching, which is great for the retention figures. At the end you need another good call to action to remind them of the key benefit.

Do not try and write scripts at this stage. Bullet point them first of all and just think about what the story might be.

How creative should you be?

Try to keep it creative and do not do content just for content's sake. Do not just do a video like everybody else does.

I have encouraged you to look at your competition, and the worst thing you can do is copy it, because then you are just a me too. Equally you might learn some good things from them, so you have to take a judgement call there. What I would say is embrace creativity in an interesting way. Try to make it more interesting, more engaging, a bit more quirky if that is relevant.

If it is a granny who is 85, she is not going to want something wild and wacky, but she is going to want to be entertained in a relevant way. So think about what floats their boat, what interests them, what makes them smile, what makes them emotional.

How do you plan the timeline of the video?

Plan each part of the video against the clock, because you have 30 seconds before you pay. Get a hook in your first three to six seconds, get across what it is that you do fairly quickly, and get a call to action in before 30 seconds.

After that you have any length you want, and the sweet spot at the moment is around three to four minutes for YouTube videos, though that can change. You might have a minute of education, a minute of testimonials, a minute of product demonstrations, a couple of calls to action in the middle and then a final call to action.

Loosely plan each part and practise getting the timing right. When people do write scripts, I often encourage them to time themselves recording it, even if it is being done professionally with voiceovers, just to make sure things are going right.

Do not make it too short, though, that is the big thing. On YouTube, after 30 seconds it can be any length you want. It is not like paying for a 60 or 90 second TV commercial or airtime that costs you hideous amounts of money. You are paying one or two pence, so you might as well make it longer and get your story over. Think of it like a conversation with a mate in the coffee bar. You are telling them about it and they are interested. Oh, I did not know that. Oh, that sounds interesting. You want that kind of reaction, almost imaginary, from somebody watching on YouTube.

How much should you spend on production?

Keep the production budget in proportion to what you are going to spend on media. Look at your objectives, your financials and the possible return.

It is okay saying I am going to invest in all this stuff and the filming is going to take three days, but if you are only going to spend a couple of hundred quid on YouTube you are probably not going to get the return. The production costs outweigh the media spend, and that should not happen.

You still want the video to be as good a quality as you can achieve within your time frame and budget constraints. Think carefully about the story, the creative, and how best to film it. You do not have to go to big sets. Sometimes the simple ones are the best. Other people within these modules will talk about equipment you can buy, how to set things up from a lighting perspective if you are filming it yourself, simple little props, doing a couple of different camera angles.

What is the one thing to take away?

It starts with your objectives and who your customers are, because that is the most important thing. Otherwise you are just going off making video willy nilly with the same stuff in it that you do not really need to be saying, and the communications are not as effective as they could be, so your YouTube campaigns will not be as effective either.

You can go to the nth degree. We often plan the models on the shoot, the props, the clothing we want them to wear, how we are setting up all the different angles, the running order of the shoot to make it flow more easily. But we have been doing this for many years and perhaps you are new to video, so it is about what is fit for purpose.

Even if you only take one or two of these things on board and organise a little bit more, you will get better and better with practice. Your videos will get better, your campaign audiences will get better, your YouTube campaigns will get better and your results will get better. This is not about being perfect from day one, please do not misunderstand me. It is just about anything here that helps you progress and improve. The document is available to download if you want it for notes, and you can add your own.