Pre-Production is, for a lot of people, the most stressful part of video production and content marketing.
Knowing what to say, and how to say it, can prove challenging.
Luckily for you, we developed the BROAD Model for pre-production planning.
Originally developed as an exercise tool for our clients, we’re now sharing it with everyone.
Originally developed as an exercise tool for our clients, we’re now sharing it with everyone.
Over the years the model has been refined to effectively take video briefs, understand its purpose, and provide a solution that’s best suited for distribution to your audience.
The BROAD Model breaks down into 5 distinct sections:
- Brief
- Restrictions
- Objectives
- Audience
- Distribution
The BROAD model can’t tell you what to do, but it does help you find the answers you're looking for.
Brief:
The first section in the model is developing your brief.
What story are you wanting to tell?
This could be a number of things, but ideally you want to keep your brief concise with only a few key messages.
Examples include:
- Our excellent services
- New product launch
- How we work
- Showcase our event
- Share our start-up story
Expanding on the examples above, your brief can be as simple as wanting to film your event. Identifying that you want to produce a film, and what you want to film, is the first step.
Next you begin exploring plot points in the story.
In the case of an event these might be filming presentations, networking, or on the floor interviews.
Your brief needs to be specific, but you don’t need to worry about goals or objectives yet. For now, identifying the story is most important.
Restrictions:
Once you’ve developed your brief, you next need to identify your restrictions.
What’s currently stopping you?
Examples include:
- Shortage of time
- Lack of knowledge
- Insufficient skills
- Limited access
- Budget
We deliberately designed the model to develop the brief first, and restrictions after. We don't want to confine ourselves too early on.
Restrictions breed creativity, but if you fixate on your restrictions you’ll never find creative solutions to fulfil your brief.
Restrictions breed creativity, but if you fixate on your restrictions you’ll never find creative solutions to fulfil your brief.
A lot of people will reach restrictions and write off the project, convincing themselves it’s not worth the time and effort. If this is you, watch this fantastic TED Talk by Phil Hansen about embracing your limitations.
Objective:
Now we can begin thinking about what you want out of your video.
What do you want people to do?
Yes it’s nice to have videos, but if there isn’t a set objective you're unlikely to see results from your video production efforts.
Examples include:
- Convert customers
- Visit your website
- Get in touch
- Apply for your scheme
- Share with their network
Now it’s time to get specific. The best objectives are SMART objectives (another acronym, sorry I know).
SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.
SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timed.
Measuring your objectives can sometimes be difficult, but thankfully most platforms support rich analytics data allowing you to measure engagement and shares.
Some platforms, such as Vimeo, even support email capture from within the video player.
If your objective is to increase sales or convert customers, one option would be to provide discount codes within your videos and measure the number of times it’s used.
Whilst identifying your objectives, it’s also important to create your call to action. Call to actions drive people to complete your objective.
Audience:
So far we know what we’re saying, and why we’re saying it - now we need to know who we’re saying it to.
Who do you want to target?
Your target audience will play a big role in deciding the tone of your video.
Your target audience will play a big role in deciding the tone of your video.
Parameters include:
- Demographic
- Industry
- Location
- Needs / Wants
- Values
Unlike the name of this model, you don’t want your target audience to be broad. You want your target audience to be specific, similar to your objectives.
Try using, but not limited to, the parameters above to identify your target audience. It will often involve multiple parameters.
Good examples of a specific target audience would be frequent gym-goers in the Woking area aged 20-29 or newly established boutique hotels in the Peak District.
You likely already have a target audience for your product or service, these work well as starting points.
Distribution
The last section in the BROAD model is distribution.
How are you going to share your story?
Now that you know your target audience, you need to identify where they are located and to distribute your content there.
Now that you know your target audience, you need to identify where they are located and to distribute your content there.
To actually find where your target audience is will require research.
One method is to conduct social media monitoring to gain a better understanding of who is on each platform and compare them against your target audience.
If you can find key hashtags that your target audience use be sure to use them when posting your content.
Another method would be to research other businesses in your industry and identify where they are most active in sharing their content.
If you’re already active on several platforms, you might already know where your target audience is.
Examples include:
- Website
- Social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.)
- Livestream
- Podcast
- Internal comms
You might find that your target audience is active on several platforms, in which case you’ll want to share your content on multiple platforms.
It’s important to make sure that when you do post content on several platforms that you optimise your videos for each individual platform.
If you want to learn more about optimising content for social media, read our recent blog post 5 Steps to Increase Engagement on your Social Media Videos.
Distribution is the final section in the BROAD Model. By this point you should have a good overview of your video production project.
Why use the BROAD Model?
The reason why the BROAD Model works so well is because each section builds on the last.
Without your brief you can’t identify your restrictions, without your objectives you can’t target the right audience, and without your target audience you don’t know where to distribute your content.
If you want to learn more about the BROAD Model and how we help businesses with video production and content strategy, head over to to contact page to get in touch.
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