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HIRING PROFESSIONAL VIDEO? FOUR QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
When hiring professional video prices range from zero to millions. The question is not the cost; but rather how much should you pay to achieve your goal.
This article focuses on business videos only, and it’s based on my experience selling and producing commercial videos these last 5 years. Not only do I make videos for my clients, I also produce content for my own company. I am a customer of my own services, and practice what I preach; so hopefully this provides a valuable perspective to you.
To determine how much you should pay for professional video, I would suggest answering the following questions:
1. What is purpose of this video?
2. How will you define success?
3. What are your available resources?
4. Given who your company is, how likely is this to work?
#1. What is the purpose of this video(s)?
I define business videos as as audio-visual media with the short or long-term goal of generating revenue, which boils down to the categories below:
A. Promoting a Product or Service; think of traditional commercials, product launches or ads in a sales funnel. This also includes videos that are the product themselves; be it workout videos, online courses, news, training, etc. This category can also include videos for your recruiting funnel to help your company gain more and higher quality talent.
B. Internal Company Videos; which are generally for large organizations to describe employment programs, routine announcements, upcoming or past events, company changes, etc.
C. Training and Development; which can include onboarding videos, technical training, case studies, internal testimonials, or certifications. This could also include how-to videos for consumers on complex deliverables like software, sales processes, or items requiring extensive assembly.
D. Education to the Public/Social Media; which are designed to build a brand and generate a compounding lead and goodwill machine for your business.
Another way to clarify your purpose to use the Quad Marketing Calendar. Which establishes four ways on which companies can advertise:
Both of these frames are helpful when determining the purpose of your video; which should always be aimed at a specific goal.
#2. How will you define success; how will you know if the video worked?
The metrics or criteria for success might vary by purpose and organization, but I’ve seen them generally go like this:
For sales ads it’s pretty straight forward. Did the videos convert or not? Are you getting more ad clicks, email signups, sales? Are they as good or better than other proven media in your funnel? Did it bring more money than it cost across the expected timeline? How about three, six and twelve months out?
If it didn’t make money, did it teach you something new about your customers that could improve future marketing?
These are all things to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of a sales or funnel video. However, keep in mind that this assumes you have some product market fit (a.k.a sales) and trackable metrics to go by. If you have no consistent sales, engagement data, previous industry experience or audience to serve as your point of reference of what works and what doesn’t; the world’s best production will probably not bring in more revenue, and you might not see that money come back to you.
For recruiting videos, use your existing metrics which might include number of ad-clicks on a post, applications submitted, number of interviews, etc.
Since the remainder of the video types are not directly connected to sales; evaluating their effectiveness/impact will boil down to viewer feedback. Whether it’s your employees understanding and following the directions as you intended, or online viewership and comments from social media platforms. Like the sales ads, these could be compared to previous videos/media aimed towards a similar goal.
#3. What are your available resources?
This refers to time (how much of your or employees time can you allocate for this project), money (what is your max budget) and company assets (like facilities, equipment, existing media, etc).
#4. Finally, given who your company is and past experience, how likely is this to work?
If Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson posted a cellphone video selling his autograph on used napkins for $100, he would probably make a TON of money. Probably much more than if (hypothetical) John Smith, who just started his marketing agency with zero experience, put $100,000 in an ad for his company based on a script he thought looked cool.
The video itself is not the only factor in its effectiveness. Who your company is, your infrastructure, customer base, social media following, reputation, marketing engine and operational machine has more impact on the end result than the video itself.
So, to recap…
To determine how much you should pay for video you can answer the four questions.
#1. What is the purpose of the video? Which could be sales/recruiting, internal marketing, training or education/social media.
#2. What will you define success? Which will be based on your internal metrics, past experience and customer/employee feedback.
#3. What are your available resources? Which will consist of time, money and company assets.
#4. Given who your company is, how likely is this to work? Will you be throwing this video into the void of irrelevance, or do you have an actual business with proven customers and a solid idea of what you are offering the public?
Hope this was a helpful framework. Enjoy your weekend and if you have any questions feel free to call/text me at 7864196344 or email me at business@carloscortesi.com.
Later!