Planning Next Year's Video Content Programme

How to turn a year of results into next year's plan, what to decide in advance, and the questions worth answering before committing budget.

Annual content planning usually begins with a budget and a list of ideas, and it works considerably better beginning with an honest account of what happened this year. The programme that gets built from evidence is smaller, more focused and more likely to be sustained than the one built from ambition.

The first exercise is an audit rather than a plan. List everything produced this year, what it cost, where it was used, how it performed and whether anyone still uses it. Most companies find that a small number of assets did most of the work, several were never used, and at least one format quietly stopped being maintained. That distribution is the most useful input available.

The second is to separate what worked from what was merely completed. Kim et al. (2025), studying playback interactions and engagement in mobile video viewing, found that behaviour during playback carries information that aggregate counts obscure, which means the retention curves from this year's assets contain specific guidance: where audiences left, which formats held, which openings failed. That evidence should shape next year's formats rather than being reported and filed.

The third is to ask the sales team what they needed and did not have. This conversation reliably produces a better content plan than a marketing workshop, because it is grounded in what actually happens in the pipeline. Sarasvuo et al. (2023) found that buyer perceptions of fit and attractiveness shape how corporate offerings are evaluated in B2B services, and the sales team knows precisely where the fit case is failing to be made.

The plan itself should commit to fewer things than feels comfortable. One or two anchor productions, one recurring format, a reserve for the unplanned, and an explicit decision not to do the rest. Programmes fail from overcommitment far more often than from underinvestment, and a calendar that assumes capacity the organisation does not have will collapse in month three regardless of the budget behind it.

The capacity question should be answered honestly before the volume is set. Can this organisation brief, supply assets, make a subject available and approve output at the planned rate every month. Marzi et al. (2023), examining digital platform adoption pathways across firms of different sizes, describe how organisational maturity determines what can actually be operated, and the answer here determines the volume more than the budget does.

The calendar should be built around the fixed points first: product launches, events, the festive periods, and any regulatory or reporting dates. In the Malaysian market the festive calendar removes several working weeks from availability for crew, talent and approvals simultaneously, and a plan that ignores this will discover it twice a year.

Reuse should be planned rather than hoped for. Decide now which of this year's assets will be refreshed, recut or retired, and budget for the refreshes, which are cheap. A regrade and a new endframe on a strong two year old film costs a fraction of a new production and frequently serves the same purpose, and it is the item most likely to be omitted from a plan built around new work.

The measurement standard should be set at planning time rather than at reporting time. For each anchor production and each format, write down what should be different afterwards and how it will be known. This is the single discipline that separates programmes that improve from programmes that repeat, and it takes an hour for the whole year.

Finally, the plan should name what would cause it to change. A format that shows no engagement after three months. A launch that moves. A budget reduction. Deciding the response in advance means a mid year problem produces an adjustment rather than a period of paralysis, which is usually what happens when a plan is treated as a commitment rather than as a working document.

References

Kim, E., Oh, S., & Park, S. (2025). An empirical study of user playback interactions and engagement in mobile video viewing. IEEE Access, 13, 78272–78289. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3566402

Sarasvuo, S., Liljander, V., & Haahtela, K. (2023). Buyer perceptions of corporate brand extension attractiveness and fit in B2B services. Industrial Marketing Management, 115, 69–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2023.09.006

Marzi, G., Marrucci, A., Vianelli, D., & Ciappei, C. (2023). B2B digital platform adoption by SMEs and large firms: Pathways and pitfalls. Industrial Marketing Management, 114, 80–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2023.08.002