Videos are expensive, right?
This is the common perception by businesses, who know they need to be using video, but are afraid to start because ‘video costs too much money’. Where does this idea come from? In my experience it stems from two main problems. First, the business has no understanding of production value, which I’ll go into shortly, and secondly they underestimate the benefit of video to their marketing activities.
Production Value
Let’s talk about production value. Any good creative video producer will aim to get a high quality project on screen using the budget that’s available. This is sort of like, ‘how fancy do you want your wedding to be?’ If you want helicopters, pyrotechnics, and a cake to feed 1,000 guests it’s obviously going to be more than a simple civil ceremony for you and a few close friends. Same with a video. Either way you can create a beautiful result, it just takes thought and ingenuity.
The best way to approach commissioning a video for your business is to talk to a video producer and be up front with your budget and your goals. He or she can discuss some ideas and what’s realistic with what you have to spend, thus letting you control video cost. Their job is to make you and your business look great on screen and tell a memorable story your customers will enjoy, like share and take action.
Your 24/7 Sales Team
Next is the issue of how video benefits your business. The big advantage of video is that it can introduce your company to new clients, explain a new product, drive more enquiries to your website. These are all sales and marketing efforts that operate 24 hours a day worldwide thanks to the internet. How much would you have to pay a staff member to be doing that? What you’re spending on a video (or videos) can turn out to a cheap investment for the return you get in sales.
Especially for small business, having a way to warm up your prospects who are looking online, videos communicate your values, your products and services and generate a sense of trust before the customer even fires off an email or picks up the phone.
What You Get For Your Money
There are video producers and video producers. The creativity of the person you hire is worth a LOT more than the fancy gear they bring to the shoot. What you’re buying is someone’s talent and time, as well as their equipment and skills. In the small business space, you should also look for someone with an understanding of how best to maximise your video across as many social media and marketing tactics as possible. This is best discussed at the outset of your project so the producer can design your video with these objectives in mind.
When you are able to re-purpose your video across lots of different platforms and it has an ‘evergreen’ quality to it, the cost-per-use makes your production spend a wise decision.
So How Much Should I Budget?
This isn’t easy to answer because what’s appropriate for your business may not be for someone else. If you’re keen to have video as part of your promotion and sales toolkit then I suggest talk to a few video producers that specialise in making corporate content. Outline a couple concepts and ask for a low, mid and high level budget so you can see the difference in the way the producer can tell the same story. It’s fair to offer something for their time and effort to do the creative work. After all this is really what you’re paying for, but this can be part of the development phase and if you go ahead with the project, it becomes part of the overall expense.
Get A Package Deal
Here’s a not-so-secret insight into video production. Hiring a crew for the day to shoot 5 quick videos is much cheaper than asking them to come back five times. If you and your producer can plan a package of content, some of the variable costs like labour and gear can be spread across each video, making the individual cost per video much less. Likewise, if you have a strategy to produce a number of videos through the year, most producers will gladly offer you a cheaper rate because they can plan resources and piggy-back projects together.
Talk To Us
If you’re planning on using video for your business, want another opinion, or training to be able to shoot quick but good quality stand-up content for your social channels, contact us. We can help you Australia-wide to make you stand out from the crowd with creative, affordable and effective video content. You can also check out our small business packages.