How To Make A Successful Documentary?

PERSONAL RESEARCH

As I have been thinking about my approach to documentary filming I wanted to do some research on what is considered a successful documentary and if there are guidelines you should follow to achieve this.
I simply googled what makes a successful documentary and decided to expand on some of the results I came across, and the points I thought were most important.

The Story
The key point that I saw on most of the websites I looked at, was the focus on having a good story that engages the audience. The idea of producing something emotional came up a lot, but at the same time as long as you are making something the audience can engage with, you are already on the path to success.
I do agree with this, I think that if you don't have a well thought out story, or how you want to present your ideas then you wouldn't really know where to start. Complimenting this would be knowing what sort of approach you want to take, which really depends on what you intend to feature in your documentary. For example, if you want to question someone about their beliefs or something they feel passionate about, you might want to feature more direct interviews and questionings, however if you're simply focusing on someones life you would want more focus on the things they do, and following them around in their day to day errands.
I also believe that the story is the glue that holds the whole thing together. You can film and edit it really well, but ultimately if your footage isn't engaging then you won't attract an audience.

Methods of Shooting
Personally, I think this can be personal to your own documentary based on the story you are telling. If you are interviewing one specific person throughout, you might want more footage of their personal life, where they live and what they do on a daily basis, to engage the viewer with them personally. However, the method of how you choose to film your documentary can come with personal flare, as everyone will have their own approach to how they want their work to be shot and displayed.

Editing
This is a very important part of making any film, as it's when all the footage really comes together and you have a final look at how your work is going to be presented. All documentaries feature a certain element of editing that makes them stand out as documentaries. For example, you don't tend to have background non diagetic music whilst you're displaying your footage. Also, it's more clean cut and hard hitting, the shots can also be more personal, some seeming to take an interview style. When looking at the documentaries made by Louis Theroux, I noticed that he has his own style of editing that makes his films flow, but also keeps a personal relationship with his audience.

These were the main elements I was interested in when doing some research. I want to make sure I am prepared for when I begin filming, so I can just begin to get on with filming and developing my story. I know that I won't have the perfect footage in the first filming process, so I intend to do a few rough edits first of all to make sure I improve before I submit a final edit.
I also want to develop my ideas further with my group so we can make sure we know exactly what we want to do before we even think about filming.

The websites I looked at:

http://www.documentarytube.com/articles/what-makes-a-good-documentary-film

http://www.desktop-documentaries.com/making-documentaries.html

https://www.videomaker.com/article/f16/14803-how-to-make-a-documentary-part-1-story-development

http://www.raindance.org/5-simple-mistakes-documentary-filmmakers-make/