11 reasons you need a scriptwriter for your video or voice-over

11 reasons you need a scriptwriter for your video or voice-over

11 reasons you need a scriptwriter for your video or voice-over

 

voice over photo

Photo by Fey Ilyas

1) The odds of you writing an effective script yourself are low. I’ve reviewed over 160 scripts this year alone and this is what I’ve found; only 10% would qualify as highly-effective scripts from a marketing standpoint, 25% as somewhat effective, 55% as non-effective and possibly damaging to the brand, and 10% as unreadable. And only 1% of the scripts I reviewed were actually written by a professional scriptwriter. Now, when you take into consideration the time, energy and money spent developing and distributing a marketing project, it’s baffling that marketers would skimp on the very core of its effectiveness… the script.

2) You lack the proper perspective. Marketers like to load down a script with sales points or use their sales letter as a script. This only confuses and disappoints the viewer and can actually damage the brand. It’s hard for marketers to change their perspective to that of the viewer, and scriptwriters do that for them. A professional scriptwriter will help you distil the “just right” sales points you need to convey based on where you will be distributing the end product and your target audience.

3) You’re a marketer, not a wordsmith. Words can not only hold different meanings, they can also provoke different emotions. An experienced scriptwriter is also a wordsmith who will choose the “just right words” and phasing that not only conveys the proper meaning but evokes the thoughts and emotions we want the viewer to come away with. Most marketers that write their own scripts use a passive “voice”, while scriptwriters create power.

4) You write run-on sentences. Even Academy Award-winning actors cannot make them understandable.

5) You list points rather than incorporating them into sentences. Not only will you bore your audience to death, they won’t remember any of it. Yep, a list is not a script.

6) You don’t know how to use a comma. Comma’s not only told the actor to pause, they are used to bring clarity and sometimes more power to a script.

7) You don’t know when is best to use bold or italics. Both can be used in script writing to instruct the actor to which words or phrases should be stressed. Use either one or the other, but never both in the same script.

8) You over-use exclamation points or don’t use them at all. Just like boldface and italics are used to stress specific words and phrases, the exclamation point stresses specific sentences.

9) You use punctuation that has no business being in a script. Quotation marks, slashes, underlining, brackets, or anything other than what I’ve mentioned in c,d, and e, should not appear in a script.

10) You aren’t Alfred Hitchcock. Only university trained scriptwriters know how to write directions so that they’re understood by trained actors. And if you try, you will only frustrate yourself and the talent. Accept that you’re getting a marketing video produced at a small fraction of what it would cost through an agency and be ready to accept the actor’s skill at determining how it should be performed.

11) You just don’t have the time or energy to write a script. Scriptwriters are affordable on Fiverr. Most scriptwriting gigs are offered by the actors here as an extra or a separate gig. We read so many scripts and we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, so it makes sense to get the most from your marketing budget by using us.

12) You don’t know anything about timing. Scriptwriters know how to write the text so that it can be performed and fit perfectly with the visuals. Trust me, without proper timing your project will be sub-par.

Best wishes for a successful marketing campaign!

Reposted from the Fiverr Forum