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Marketing video script writing isn’t the same as other formats. It requires visual thinking and a thorough understanding of conversational dialogue. Once you have the process down, though, it’s a wildly successful tool in your marketing arsenal.
Video is a great marketing format, so honing your script-writing skills is a must if you’re going to have marketing success.
Today we’re going to take you through five easy steps to improve your marketing video script writing.
Starting with a clear brief will allow your team to map out the answers to the most pressing questions surrounding your video. This will ensure that everyone who will be involved in creating the video will be on the same page as your progress through the development stages.
Your brief should focus on five things:
● The goal of the video
● The intended audience of your video
● The topic of the video
● The key takeaways of the video
● The video’s call to action
The goal is pretty self-explanatory. Ask yourself why you’re making the video in the first place. What purpose will the video have?
You must also know who your intended audience is. This goes for any marketing campaign, obviously, but is just as important when it comes to video scripting and development.
Your video topic must be clear, concise, and specific. The broader your topic, the more likely your overall message will be muddled.
The key takeaways of your video are those things viewers should learn from watching it. For example, if you’re in the house painting industry, you might write a script for a video about choosing the right paintbrush to use when painting a wall. You obviously want your audience to then be able to tell what paintbrush is optimal for this activity by the end of your video.
All marketing endeavors, including video scripting, need to have a call to action. This is essentially the action you want your audience to take after they’ve consumed your content. This might be buying your product or signing up for an e-newsletter, for example.
Once you’ve locked down your brief, the scripting portion starts properly. You should start with an outline first – this will help you break your video into subtopics and aid in determining just how your dialogue will play out.
You ought to be careful if you’re repurposing existing content for the meat of your video script. You can’t just read out a blog post word for word and expect it to make for a compelling video script. This is because, while most blog posts are written relatively conversational, there are still verbal explanations and pauses that must be incorporated to bring your script to life.
That said, using a blog post’s subsections can be a great jumping-off point for outlining your script. Approaching your script outline the same way you would a blog post breakdown can be exceedingly helpful.
For example, if your video topic is something like How to Launch a Small Business, you might break down your script into the following sections:
● Do market research
● Set a budget for R&D
● Seek out potential investors
● Create a marketing strategy
● Create a sales strategy
People are notoriously fickle when it comes to their attention span online. Your video introduction has to hook your audience within the first few seconds. This means the first few lines of your script have to pull their weight.
Your introduction should introduce both the narrator and what the viewer is going to learn by the end of the video. You’re not M. Night. Shyamalan. You don’t want to pull a twist ending on your audience. Instead, you have to be forthright about the content and value of your video.
For example, if you’re scripting a video intended to teach your audience how to optimize their content for SEO, your introduction might go something like this:
“Hello! I’m [name] from [business], and I’m going to teach you how to improve your ranking on Google.”
Your script needn’t be particularly fancy. Your goal is to have your narrator get your message across in a way that sounds natural and compelling.
It’s important that you write your script in a manner that mimics human cadence and speech. Write conversationally and be mindful that how we write on paper doesn’t necessarily translate to speech.
For example, saying “I’m gonna teach you the ins and outs of SEO” will translate much better on camera than, “I’m going to teach you the ins and outs of SEO”.
You should also ensure your sentences are relatively short and concise. Try to avoid compound sentences where possible.
A video script isn’t just dialogue. If your creation involves multiple characters, shots, or scenes be sure to include those details. Stage or set actions should also be prioritized. Your script should also indicate any moments your main narrative transitions to B-roll material with proper cues to your audience.
The goal of your script is to be a roadmap that anyone could follow to end up with your final product. You should be able to hand it off to anyone to shoot and have them be able to fully understand the direction and vision.
Following on from this, your script should also be entirely comprehensive. You need to script every single word. This might seem like overkill, particularly if you know the subject matter well, but in scripting word for word you’ll make sure you’re communicating your message as concisely as possible.
Marketing video script writing is a skill like any other – you have to hone and practice to get good at it. With this guide, you’ll be able to exercise your script-writing muscles and ensure your next video marketing project is a successful one.
Now you have five easy steps to follow to help you improve your marketing video script writing.
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