Defining your message

Many companies focus their stories on the what - the products and services they supply, rather than focus on the benefits for the viewer and the "why I should be watching?"

I understand that your company message, especially for internal comms, may be complex, or your product is so good it does lots of things for lots of people, but you need to work on defining what the core messages are. Three is the magic number - but I go in more detail below to explain, I can hear the "but I've got more things to say than that!" So where do you start, how can you break this down into a story? Well, I would start at the end and decide on what result or action you want your viewer to take from watching the video. I find using the 5W's and H questions approach useful (the who, what, why, when, where and how). Journalists use these when they are working on a story. It provides a clear structure and how to build your story and messages. 

Brainstorm time: Have a go yourself. I have given some examples to start you off and the type of questions to ask. Don't think about the answers to much, just write them down. 

• Who is the key audience? 
• What are the key messages which needed to be conveyed?
• Why is this message important?
• Why should the audience watch?
• What are the benefits for the viewer?
• What does to be achieved?
• When does the viewer need to do an action? (sign up for a report, buy a product before the discount end). Call to actions are essential. 
• When and where is this happening? (For example event).
• How can the viewer buy your product?

The harder questions can be the who and the why. I would encourage you to concentrate on these two questions. It will help make your video far more effective by targeting the audience on why they need to be watching this video. 

The magic number is 3

After completing this exercise, you may find the list is long, which is fine. It would be best if you now looked to pare it down to a few key messages. And here's why; cognitive psychologists have conducted many studies. George A Miller from Princeton University in 1956 published a paper called 'The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information'. Now although he's still being quoted today, the digital information age we live in now, we are constantly being bombarded with data. I suspect our capacity to remember messages has been diminished in our connected world. Too many messages in a short video won't work. And it's not because I think the audience is stupid, far from it, it's just that we have so many distractions (iPhone, email, internet, social media, Netflix). Remember your viewers have to understand your message and then recall it. I would aim for no more than 3 messages in your video. 

Too many messages confuse the audience - less is most definitely more. 

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Extract from my book 'How to Get Video Right'. You can get the book for free (only pay for shipping & handling).

https://www.getvideoright.com/get-video-book