We talk a lot about how you should make your business video, what’s important to include in it, how to walk it through your company so it gets everyone on board and even how to fill out a creative brief, but before you get to any of that, there is a crucial step to perform; the brainstorming.

Here is how to have an effective brainstorming session about your company’s business videos.

1. Refrain from Starting with the Story

There is a lot of emphasis placed on storytelling when you’re making a video and many people will start with trying to decide what story they want to tell. Save this for later, though. You have more important things to consider than the story when you’re starting out.

To keep people focused while brainstorming, you may want to split your brainstorming sessions into the following segments:

• Buyer’s Journey
• Platform
• CTA
• Buyer Persona
• Video Type
• Story

2. Choose a Stage in Your Buyer’s Journey

To keep your video focused, you need to know what stage of the buyer’s journey it is meant for. A video meant for someone who is just discovering your brand will be different than one meant for someone who is already a lead and is looking for more in-depth information, which will be different than one meant for someone who is ready to make a purchasing decision.

Knowing what stage the people will be at in the buyer’s journey will help you identify the purpose of your video and how much detail you need to include in it. If the video is being used to introduce people to your brand, one that gives an overview of it would be ideal.  

And if the video is going to be seen by people who are already familiar with your brand, like ones who have made their way to your website, a video that assumes the viewer knows the basics and goes into more detail about your offering would be a better option.

For people who are already familiar with your brand, more intimate content like testimonials or behind-the-scenes content would be in order to help solidify a connection with them.

3. Choose Your Platform

Once you know what stage of the buyer’s journey your video is meant for, picking a platform for it will be much easier.

Introductory videos are best for posting on social media and hosting on specific landing pages that you can advertise and try to draw visitors to. It’s likely people will get to these videos from seeing them pop up on their social media feeds or via a Google search for a keyword you are targeting.

More detailed videos about your products and services should be hosted on the corresponding pages on your website. These are for people who know your brand exists and who want a more thorough explanation of something you are selling.

For the more intimate content, you can place them deeper in your website for people to find when they click around, but you can also put these on your social media profiles like Instagram or Tumblr.  

4. Pick your Call to Action 

These will also depend on what stage of the buyer’s journey your video is meant for. If people are just getting familiar with your brand and have found your video somewhere other than your website, try to get them onto your website with your CTA.

If your video is already on your website, try to get them to sign up for your newsletter or get them to download something so you will have their email address for future relationship building.

And if they’re watching videos specific to your inventory or services, take advantage while you have their attention and have your CTA take them directly to the page where they can purchase the product or service. You can also make your videos shoppable.

5. Have a Buyer Persona in Mind

It’s not just enough to have a general idea of who you’re talking to. Get specific. Are they male or female? Young or old? What do they do for a living? What are their hobbies, etc? The reason you want such a specific buyer persona is because once you figure out who you’re talking to, it will be much easier to decide on a story for your video to tell. You can tailor it to your specific buyer persona.

6. Decide What Type of Video You’re Making

A good way of deciding what type of video to make is to look at what is trending at the moment. Remember that you’re not making an ad. Rather, you are trying to make a video that will stand alone as an entertaining piece of content.

How-to and animated explainer videos are hot right now and so are mini-documentaries that your brand sponsors (think Red Bull being all over the world’s highest skydive).

Conduct some research and see what your competitors are doing for video content. Is it something you can emulate while improving on or should you try something completely different to set your brand apart?

7. Decide on the Story

Yes, finally. This is the truly fun part of brainstorming, deciding on what story you want to tell with your video. No matter what type of video you make, there should be some kind of narrative to it. That doesn’t necessarily mean a traditional story arc, but there should be people trying to achieve something and having to overcome conflict and doing so with your products and/or services.

By segmenting your brainstorming session and thinking about each part in order, you will be able to come up with a focused idea that directly talks to people, telling them exactly what they need to hear at that specific spot in the buyer’s journey. Once you have your idea, WizMotions can help you with the rest. Click here to get started on planning and pricing your very own 2D animation video.