Meredith
6
min read
Dec 8, 2024
As anyone who works in video marketing knows, it’s about so much more than the shoot. Sure, it’s exciting when the cameras roll, but what about all the planning it takes to get there? Think brief development, vendor selection, storyboarding, casting, and coordinating with your other marketing assets…not to mention the post-production whirlwind of edits, marketing approvals, and distribution.
Every video marketing project is different, of course, but we’ve laid out 14 phases below that most have in common. Run through them with your stakeholders to boost video collaboration, enhance video productivity, and pave the way to smoother campaign project management.
Before kicking off your video marketing project, you’ll need to get your ducks in a row. Are you making how-to videos, brand videos, or explainer videos? What social media platforms are you distributing these videos across? Who is your target audience for this video marketing campaign? These are just a few of the questions you should be asking and answering in the pre-planning stage. If you want a successful video marketing strategy, it means understanding your audience, setting goals and objectives, defining success metrics, and more. This is also when you should identify roles and responsibilities for stakeholders across various teams. (For instance, when will you need approval from legal and senior leadership?) It seems there’s an endless number of things to consider before your video strategy and campaign even begins, but a little pre-planning will get everyone on the same page and working toward marketing approvals.
Now it’s time to formalize what you came up with in pre-planning. A detailed creative brief helps to streamline video project management by aligning your team. It also serves as a document that everyone can refer back to should things start to go off the rails (because this is creative project management, after all!). Extrapolate on everything from your key messages and tone to timeline and budgets. Plus, think through how video will fit in with other assets in your campaign or project.
Unless you’re working for a large, self-sufficient organization, you’ll probably want to hire some help. Send out RFPs to the agencies you have your eye on, and begin the bidding process. Once you’ve selected the cream of the crop, you can get your vendors approved in your systems.
Choosing the right partner is just the beginning. Next, you need to bring your agency up to speed on your brand, open a purchase order, and send over a statement of work. Finally, schedule a kick-off call to establish your video collaboration timeline and how often the agency should check in.
Once your agency gets to work, they’ll provide you with a few concepts for your video marketing. Review them, route them through stakeholder approvals, and make revisions before making your final selection.
Being clear on all the assets you’ll need and the various cuts you want to include is key. Make sure that you’ve mapped out all the ways your video will be used so that your final planning can take into account any versions or variations you’ll need to use down the line.
Depending on what type of video marketing you’re creating, your next step may be to hire actors or to choose customers to feature and get them the clearance they need to start work for your organization. Work closely with legal and, as relevant, with counterparts on teams like sales or customer success, to make sure you’re following the correct process and keeping the right collaborators in the mix.
You’re not ready to roll without a storyboard and script, so it’s time for your creative team to get to work. Also be sure to create a plan for the day of the shoot in order to make the best use of everyone’s time. Keep in mind any rules around your talents’ working hours. Don’t forget about makeup, wardrobe, craft services, and travel arrangements.
The day has finally arrived. You already know what this phase is all about, the video creation process! Action!
Piece all those cuts together and add music in post-production to get the perfect piece of video marketing. Save room for at least a couple rounds of drafts. Don’t forget to get marketing approvals from the stakeholders you identified in the pre-planning phase, as well as the correct licensing for things like music use.
To read more about online video collaboration and how StreamWork can streamline the video production and approval process and cater to the unique needs of marketing and creative business teams, agencies, and executives read our blog!
You’ve got a final cut, but will it meet the needs of everyone in your organization? Most likely, you will need to create a few versions of different lengths and formats for various channels.
Work with your PR or communication team to create an integrated plan for releasing your video marketing into the world. Get approval from everyone who needs to weigh in, including legal, and then ensure that all relevant teams have the video cued up to share.
Now it’s time to start getting your video out into the world. Collaborate with your media, social media, public relations, sales, or other colleagues as needed to get your work out into the world. Monitor throughout to optimize how your assets are used.
You can always learn for next time. Make sure you debrief after your campaign to gather learnings to inform future campaigns.
With so many moving pieces, video collaboration tools are key to keeping your team organized every step of the way. StreamWork is the first productivity platform purpose-built for video and creative assets to keep all your versions and to-dos in one place. Access campaigns from anywhere, collaborate with anyone, and route assets through approvals, keeping everyone on task and on time. Want to try it for yourself? Join the waitlist for one-stop video project management.
Author
Meredith
Meredith is the Founder and CEO of StreamWork, a creative workflow management platform built for teams who work on creative. Meredith has 12+ years experience working as a marketer at Apple, Google, YouTube and Warner Bros., and has worked on hundreds of creative assets with teams large and small. Her mission is to simplify the way teams work on creative.
