We know crowdsourcing in general is still unfamiliar territory for many out there, and we want to change that. We’re devoting a blog series over the next few weeks, each one focusing on a phase of the video campaign planning process. If you want the Strategic Guide to Crowdsourcing a Video Campaign in its entirety, visit www.geniusrocket.com/whitepaper to access the online and pdf version.

Whether you choose us or another agency, these pointers should help you execute your campaign with confidence. Ultimately, we want you to maximize the power of the crowd and nail your business objectives with an outstanding video campaign.

Our blog coverage today: Concept Generation

3. Concept Generation

In our previous blog post, we provided tips on how to evaluate the best creative agency to fit your business goals. Once you’ve determined what agency you’ll be working with, the next stage will be to set up the creative brief to be sent out to the agency’s community. A crowdsourcing agency will give you a creative brief with questions that are no different than ones you would expect from any smart traditional agency. Below is an exhaustive checklist of questions that may be asked. If you would like to download a worksheet where you can fill these answers out, visit www.geniusrocket.com/whitepaper.

How in depth you’ll want your answers to be will depend on how protective you are of your marketing strategy. As mentioned in the previous post, based on the agency there are variable levels of project privacy offered:

•Open or contest-based crowdsourcing models. In this model, the privacy level is low. Typically, crowdsourcing contest sites are open for anyone to participate, including students and non-professionals. On the plus side, you’ll receive a high quantity of creative concepts back. Also, if it enhances your marketing strategy, you can promote the contest to engage your customer base. However, since your brief is open for anyone to access, you may not feel secure divulging certain key marketing strategies. This may throw participants off-path from the creative concepts you are hoping for. In addition, if you do disclose key marketing strategies, you run the risk of exposing them to your competitors.
• Closed or curated crowdsourcing models. In this model, privacy level is high. Your project is protected by NDA’s, allowing you to safely disclose confidential information. Your brief will be sent to a select few vetted professionals only after they’re deemed qualified to execute your project, and have signed the NDA. The downside is that you won’t get as many creative concepts to evaluate as you would from an open model, since the creative brief is sent to a small subset of vetted community members.

Understand the privacy guidelines of your crowdsourcing agency, and make sure they fall in line with your video strategy before you pull the trigger and submit your brief.

In our next blog post, we’ll provide guidance on how to validate your campaign concepts, and how to minimize risks when it comes to video marketing. Stay tuned! (Or… just go to www.geniusrocket.com/whitepaper where you can access the entire guide at once)

Marketers, what are some best practices you execute when completing a creative brief? Share them with us in the comments below!

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Read previous posts:

Crowdsourcing a Video Campaign Stage 1: Defining Business Objectives

Crowdsourcing a Video Campaign Stage 2: Choosing Your Creative Partner