No matter what your budget is or what kind of technology and talent you have at your disposal, if you are not spending time on pre-production for your marketing videos, you are planning to fail. 

Ignoring the pre-production phase of your video can mean busted deadlines, busted budgets, and a video that flops. 

Here are a few elements of pre-production and why they are invaluable to the video production process. 

Determine your objective

This may seem obvious, but determining why you are making the video and what you want to accomplish through the video is a huge deal. But it’s important that everyone involved also knows and understands what the objective is.

Your goal for the video should be clearly stated in writing for everyone involved to see and understand. You should also at this stage determine how you will measure the effectiveness of your video so that you know if it is a success or not. 

Set a budget and choose a production company

Set a budget as early on as possible to make the most out of your pre-production planning. Knowing what resources you have to work with will make your conversations more productive.

This is also a great time to gather quotes from video production companies and determine who to hire. Having a video production company work with you through the rest of the pre-production and creative process will make your video more effective and give you more ideas for what is possible. 

Write a script and put together a storyboard

This is one of the most important parts of pre-production that can really save you time and money. Creating a storyboard of what will happen during the video at what times, and what will be said will help the shoot run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. 

Choose locations and subjects, and create a shooting schedule

Determining where you will shoot the video and making sure you have the appropriate permits and details in place will make sure shooting isn’t interrupted or postponed. You should also create a schedule of the shoot and distribute it to everyone involved to make sure everyone is where they need to be. 

The pre-production process should not be overlooked. When done correctly, it will ensure that your video achieves your objective on time and on budget.