Distribution:  What is your plan on getting the video out to the intended audience? How fast and how far your video is distributed is based on your planning.   I have seen many times that people underestimated their video and then they have angry customers calling them, wanting to know where their video is because they did not plan on an onslaught of sales.  Don’t be the person who didn’t plan ahead and lose sales and repeat business because of it. Ensure whomever it is you choose to do your distribution and duplication can handle the volume that you might generate.  Ensure you understand “turn-around times & cost” well enough that you do not get caught in dire straights and at the mercy of your distributor.

Post production:  Who will do the final editing of the video, if you film it yourself are you capable and have the time to dedicate to doing it on your own?  Do you have the equipment and the know-how to finish it and get it into the proper format needed? Using special effects, green screen and other “post production magic” will it raise the cost and by how much, will it be worth it?  These are things you must take into consideration when moving forward with the video, some of the above mentioned items must be set-up and filmed a particular way to achieve the desired effect. Are you trading quality of the information for a flashing, frilly video? Be sure that you are not!

Pre-production:  Who will help you in generating the idea for the video, who will help you storyboard the video? How will you find a director, actors, talents, voice over, equipment and location?  These are all questions that fit in the strategy section of planning your video.  It is one thing to have a great idea for a video but if you are unable to create it due to lack of resources then that is all it is, an idea.

Production:  Where will you film the video?  How long will it take?  How much will it cost?  Do you anticipate any difficulties? If you plan for an outdoors shoot, what is “Plan B” if the weather is bad?  Have others that you know created a video and if so who did they use and how did it go?  Find others that have done what you are thinking of doing and ask them some questions, normally they do not mind helping out, in fact many of them will go above and beyond to ensure that you do not go thru any headaches that they might have when they filmed their video.

Strategies & Tactics:

Now to reach your goals you must explain to yourself, using your notepad and pencil on how you will reach your goals. Tell yourself how you will answer the problems that have been placed before you, your video being the solution.

Achieving goals:  for each goal put down how you will reach that goal, what sort of video or audio message will you use to attempt to meet the goal. For example, a young man can walk into the gym and begin foam rolling; this would be the psychomotor goal of “warming up”. The next scene would be of the man finishing his workout and smiling because he has no pulled muscles because he warmed up properly.  These would meet an affective goal of feeling good about himself and his workout.

Now your video may not address all of these items but it still doesn’t hurt to skim over them to see if they are pertinent to your video.  You will find that your video may have several goals so do not feel if you have multiple answers for this.

Psychomotor goals: Are there specific acts that you want the audience to be able to do at the conclusion of the video.  Do you want them to react a particular way?  Many of you should be saying yes, I want them to pick up the phone and call me, set an appointment, buy more products, visit my website.  These are all things that your video must include within it to get the desired result.

Cognitive Goals: What do you want people to know when this video is complete? Do you want them to understand that they can get up off the couch and do some exercising and loose weight?  Do you want them to get on your website and sign up for a monthly membership club and purchase more products? Whatever it is you want them to do once they finish your video you have got to plan for that within the video, at the end of the video and all the time while marketing your video.

Affective Goals: How do you want people to feel about the subject of your video?  Do you want them to build their self-esteem?  Do you want them to feel like getting out and losing weight?  Do you want them to push themselves harder and become a better athlete?  These are all good questions if you are doing a fitness video, so these are only a few of the questions you must ask yourself and see if your video will answer them. If your video is not fitness related then you must build questions to surround your video and its contents.