Brief Check
The first step before you spend a cent on your first marketing video.
Part of the Catharsis Method, frameworks built from real projects, not theory.
Most people already know video matters for their business. So the first move is always the same: "let's make a video, hope for more traffic, more revenue." What gets missed is knowing exactly what you need before you start. You don't know what you don't know.
These are five questions you need to create a video brief. Answer these honestly and you'll know more about what you actually need before you spend your first dollar on a video.
A client runs an annual charity fundraiser. For years they've made the same stats driven video, the total raised, the impact on beneficiaries, hoping it could double as both the ballroom centerpiece and the online campaign. Sounds efficient, right? It's actually the exact mistake most brands make.
Running it through the five questions exposed the real problem. Half the ballroom crowd is networking, the other half is on their phones. And a video built for a big screen doesn't survive getting cropped vertical for Instagram or TikTok later.
So we picked one focus for the night itself, the format that actually holds a room's attention. Then we built a separate cut for online. One video trying to do both jobs would have done neither one well.
Most people skip this because they think they already know their audience. They don't need a personality, they need a target. Keep it at the level you'd use to set targeting in an ads platform, not a personality profile. If you can't describe your audience this simply, that's the actual problem, not a step to rush past.
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