Use Video Plan to decide which videos are worth making, who they should help, and what your team can reliably produce. The plan brings together recurring ideas, creative briefs, production standards, distribution, and learning from results.
This guide uses an illustrative bicycle-repair business. Adapt its examples to your actual customers, services, evidence, and resources.
Open the plan and define its purpose
Open Assistant → Strategy → Plans → Video Plan. This is the Video Content Plan. Choose Fill it in myself for an empty plan, or Add details, Edit, or Review suggestions on a section. Select Save after editing each section; you can save work in progress.
Your Customer Profiles and Marketing Strategy must be ready before this plan can show Ready to use. Use them to choose your audience, business purpose, and any approved offer a video should support.
The four essential decisions are What should video do for the business?, Series & recurring ideas, People, equipment & budget, and Production quality & review. Start with these, then add the details your team needs to carry out the plan.
In Purpose & Viewers, answer What should video do for the business? with a viewer need and a useful outcome. For the workshop, that could be helping cyclists understand what happens during a service assessment so they can prepare for a booking. “Make more videos” does not give a presenter or editor the same direction.
For shared editing and answer states, see Setting up your business strategy in Cedros. Saving this plan does not create footage or publish videos.
Choose goals, formats, and viewer stages
In Series, Formats & Creative Briefs, use Video content goals to select the jobs your videos should do. Choices appear under Recommended goals and Optional goals. Click a goal to select or deselect it; keep the goals that fit your audience and capacity.
For the workshop, useful choices might include:
- Show our product or service in action: explain the actual assessment process with a clear demonstration.
- Teach important concepts: help viewers understand a service term before choosing an appointment.
- Address risks and objections: answer a common concern using approved information.
- Help buyers compare options: explain the differences between available services and when someone should ask for advice.
Other choices support customer problems, use cases, evidence, behind-the-scenes trust, market changes, or step-by-step instruction. Selecting a proof or customer-story goal is not evidence that a suitable example exists. Gather and review the material before using it.
Review the suggested selections. If you choose Review suggested starting point, adjust the choices, select Accept reviewed answer, then Save.
Use the four additional groups to describe how you can deliver those goals:
- Length: choose the ranges your team can support, such as Short-form under 60s or Medium 2-5 min.
- Video formats: choose useful approaches, such as Talking-head, Screen recording, Product walkthrough, or Tutorial.
- Production style: choose an approach your team can sustain, such as Casual/founder-led or Product-led demo.
- Funnel stages: choose where the viewer is in their relationship with you, from Awareness to Advocacy, including consideration, decision, onboarding, and customer success.
These are separate choices: a goal explains why a video exists, while its length, format, and style describe how you will present it. You can select more than one option in each group. Record the combination for an individual video in its brief.
Use Formats & channel fit to explain which combinations suit each destination and audience. For example, a short answer may introduce the workshop's assessment process, while a longer walkthrough helps someone prepare for a visit. Avoid choosing a demanding format simply because it is available.
Choose at least one video content goal before using goal-based video content planning. The plan's overall readiness reflects its essential decisions; review these goal selections separately before planning individual videos.
Build recurring ideas and a clear brief
Use Series & recurring ideas to describe subjects you can return to with useful new examples. Include the series name, audience, viewer need, point of view, repeatable format, evidence sources, and business purpose.
For example, “Before your workshop visit” could answer one preparation question per video. Possible topics include what information to bring, how an assessment works, and how to ask a follow-up question. Check these against your actual service process before commissioning them.
A series should help you choose the next useful subject without repeating the same explanation. Keep ideas within the expertise and evidence available to your team.
Use What every video brief should include to set a shared brief format:
- Audience and purpose: identify the customer profile, viewer stage, series or goal, and question the video should answer.
- Opening and takeaway: describe an opening that makes the subject clear and one main point the viewer should remember.
- Evidence and demonstration: identify the real material, product behavior, or approved information supporting the explanation.
- Story beats: outline the order of the explanation and what viewers need to see or hear at each step.
- Next action and destination: name a suitable next step, where the video will appear, and the relevant approved offer when applicable.
Add the chosen length, format, and production style to each brief. Follow your Brand Guidelines for voice and visual presentation, and preserve the terms of any offer from Marketing Strategy.
Separate a creative idea from a factual claim. “Open with a customer's common question” is an idea; a quotation, result, or claim about a real customer needs a verified source and appropriate permission to use it. Label illustrative scenarios clearly.
Plan production and review
In Production & Quality, use Production cadence to record a realistic rhythm, responsible people, and time for review. Include preparation, recording, editing, corrections, and final approval.
For a small workshop, one recording session a month might produce a few concise answers. That is an example, not a required schedule. Base your plan on the team's available time and the work each video needs.
Use People, equipment & budget to record who can present, record, edit, and review; what equipment and locations are available; and what spending is approved. Include restrictions that affect the format, such as limited quiet recording time or no customer filming.
Use Production quality & review to define a standard your team can consistently meet:
- Clear audio and readable visuals that support the explanation.
- Captions or transcripts, with a review for accuracy and useful wording.
- Current facts, accurate demonstrations, and consistent claims and offer terms.
- Appropriate permissions for footage, music, images, and people appearing in the video.
- Named reviewers for the script and final edit, with time to correct problems before release.
For the workshop, a service lead might check the explanation while another person checks sound, captions, links, and presentation. If the planned production exceeds your resources, simplify the format or scope before recording.
A written cadence records your intentions. It does not book filming sessions, assign people, or start an automatic publishing schedule.
Plan distribution and useful reuse
In Distribution & Reuse, use Distribution plan to name the intended destinations, audience, owner, and timing. Explain what each destination needs, such as a suitable title, description, thumbnail, link, or adapted version.
For example, a full assessment walkthrough might appear on a service page, while a shorter introduction points viewers to that page. Choose channels your business actually uses and can maintain. Check the final destination and any required account access before publication.
Use How we'll reuse each video to identify useful additional versions: short clips, a transcript, a written explanation, a newsletter item, or a follow-up answer. Each version should make sense for its audience and preserve the original evidence and meaning.
Coordinate social versions with your Social Media Plan, including the publishing voice, destination, reply rules, and next action. Give each adaptation an owner and a review step. A short clip should not remove a qualification that makes the original explanation accurate.
Saving these decisions does not upload, distribute, or connect accounts. Carry the approved brief and versions into the publishing workflow you use, then record what was actually released.
Learn from results and improve the next video
In Measurement & Improvement, use Results & next experiments to define how you will judge each series or goal. Choose measures that reflect its purpose, such as useful watch time, viewer questions, relevant clicks, suitable inquiries, purchases, or fewer repeated support questions.
Record the source, reporting period, and baseline when known. Keep targets separate from observed results. Views alone do not establish that a video helped customers or produced a business outcome.
Name a review owner and cadence, then describe what a finding would change. For example, repeated questions may reveal a missing explanation. Viewers leaving early may justify testing a clearer opening. Interest without a useful next action may call for reviewing the destination or offer.
Change one meaningful part of the next brief where practical, and record what you learned. Do not present an untested idea as a proven trend or invent performance figures to fill gaps.
Review the saved plan before making a video
Before commissioning the next video:
- Confirm the intended viewer, purpose, recurring idea, and useful next action.
- Review the enabled content goals and choose a suitable length, format, style, and viewer stage for the brief.
- Check the evidence, demonstration, claims, offer terms, and required permissions.
- Confirm the people, resources, cadence, quality checks, destinations, reuse, and review owner.
- Save each edited section and check readiness. Ready to use means the essential decisions and prerequisite plans are addressed; it does not verify footage, account access, or final editorial approval.
Use Not known yet for unresolved decisions, or Not applicable with a reason where appropriate. If someone else has changed the shared plan, keep a copy of your unsaved wording before choosing Reload latest plan, then compare the latest decisions before editing again.
Optional assistant drafting can use your configured AI service; see Understanding AI usage and costs. Review any proposed script or idea against the actual plan, evidence, resources, and destination before putting it into production.