Planning Your Video Project – Part 1: Know Your Audience

Question 1: Who is your audience?

This is perhaps the most important question you can ask when planning a video project. It can help you to begin developing a strategy for your video’s approach, creative concept, budget, timeline, and distribution. It can help you produce a video that is relevant to your audience’s interests, and ensure you’re spending your time, energy and budget as effectively as possible.

When we meet with clients to discuss a video project, we first learn everything they know about their audience, and then do our own research before developing a storytelling strategy or video proposal.

Here are some questions that can help define your audience further:

• What are your audience’s values?
• What do they care about?
• How do they spend their time?
• Which social media and communication methods do they use and engage with?
• What are their demographics – think age, gender, ethnicity, income level, etc
• What do they do for work, for fun?
• Do they already follow/subscribe/like your organization?

All of these characteristics of your potential audience can help you define a storytelling strategy, approach, and distribution plan for your video. The more you can understand your audience and craft a story specifically for them, the more likely you’ll be to define, develop, and tell a story that will resonate with them, and convert them into a new customer, supporter or ambassador for your business or nonprofit organization.