From the course: Video Script Writing

Establishing goals and purposes for an informational video

From the course: Video Script Writing

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Establishing goals and purposes for an informational video

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Informational videos have goals, and I think you should limit those goals to three or four at most per video. The ideal video should probably have a single goal, but that's often not possible. In addition to goals, videos have purposes. Those purposes can be to motivate someone to do something, to train someone to do something, or to simply inform them of new information. When we motivate someone, what we're really doing is persuading them. And quite often we want to persuade them to change or adopt a behavior. We might also want their support with time or money for a worthy cause. And then we might also want to persuade them to buy a product or a service. Think of a long infomercial. Another common video purpose would be to train someone. It can be something as simple as how to do something. How to install RAM on a laptop computer. How to cook macaroni and cheese. How to install, whatever it is that this person has bought from the store. We can provide them with step-by-step instruction or we can give them overall guidance on the process that they need to be looking at. Yet another common video purpose is to inform someone, and this can actually be incorporated with the other video purposes. We want to educate them on some new material. We want to provide them with history or context, give them a sense of why they're learning this information now. These three purposes are not discreet. In fact, most informational videos will use a combination to solve the problem that necessitates the video. Imagine asking a viewer to support a worthy cause without providing historical context. Or just think how difficult it would be to train someone to do something a new way without persuading him or her on the value of the change.

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