5 Tips on How to Avoid Expensive Video Production Costs

There are dozens of reasons why video promotion is needed to help anyone’s business. Maybe not always with a purpose of improving sales, but also to nurture customers, improving brand and connect with new potential customers. Today is crucial to have these few ingredients to promote own business; presence on the internet (website, social media, seo), video support (presentations, commercials, lectures) and marketing strategy. Whoever doesn’t work with these ingredients is probably in this business for decades or has inherited the company. It would take ages to spread own work and products to customers from mouth to mouth. This is also a marketing strategy, but it will only take a road to own doom. Such strategy is an extremely long term. Promoting own products via television was and still will be expensive. On the other hand, the internet has reached everyone’s homes and is very cost-effective for promotion. It is only video production process that can get very expensive if not done wisely. If doing a video on your own you have to put yourself in the viewer’s shoes – seeing a low-quality video promotion is the same as selling low-quality products. Such production was still effective in the past with “Top-Shop” commercials, where mostly old grannies fell for it. In the new age, you wouldn’t trick anyone else. Viewers today are very demanding about the video/movie quality. That is why choosing a professional video production is a must-do. But, how could you at least save some bucks if you have to outsource a video promotion?

It is only video production process that can get very expensive if not done wisely. If doing a video on your own you have to put yourself in the viewer’s shoes – seeing a low-quality video promotion is the same as selling low-quality products. Such garage video productions were effective in the past with “Top-Shop” products promotions, where mostly old grannies fell for it. In the new age, you wouldn’t trick anyone else. Viewers today are very demanding about the video/movie quality. That is why choosing a professional video production is a must-do. But, how could you at least save some bucks if you have to outsource a video promotion?

Creative idea

Great video needs a well-planned creative idea, which is in most cases very expensive and time-consuming work. If an agency does the research, the costs of video production are less than half of the whole budget. Some video production themselves might do idea research too, but it depends on how they value this work. If you came up with a good strategy and creative idea that would work for your business/product, you’ve already lowered a lot of their time and costs. A creative idea is something that attracts viewers with a story and message. But it depends on what you are doing – commercial, company presentation or event shooting.

Location scouting

Before production starts, there is a lot of time used for location scouting. Somebody from production team has to search around, visit, analyze and report about possible locations to shoot your video. Even price ranges for renting. Not every location is suitable if the quality is involved. Because you can’t exactly know what the team is looking for, it’s best to hear from them what kinda locations they are looking and you take initiative to look around and take photos of locations from all possible corners. Sometimes also the room is needed for equipment. That is why photos must be done as wide as possible and from all directions for perspective. If production chooses the locations you found, it is best to secure permits to shoot there and take over any renting expenses.

Actors scouting

This might be a bit tricky because professional actors are in most cases very expensive. If doing on a budget, you can look with your friends or family if the project isn’t very complicated. Otherwise search on a wider range, because you don’t want any family conflicts on shooting sets. Professional actors are there for a reason – a whole day of shooting is very tiresome and psychically exhausting. If the actor isn’t used to such work they’ll have to repeat the scenes more often and become very annoyed. You can see different person expressions before even saying a word. Even if you do find suitable actors, present them to video production for further examination. It depends on the theme of project what kinda actors are needed. Taking care of the catering (food) on sets will save some bucks too.

Search for stock footage

Many filmmakers, video productions, and marketing agencies use stock footage as part of their projects. Why not use a wide variety of footage for your project? Instead of making many establishing shots, details or motivational scenes from scratch, using already available stock video in projects cuts down costs. Just one simple time lapse of cityscape can cost you a thousand bucks if done by a video production. While it is available for less than hundred bucks on many stock agencies. Stock footage can also be used for commercials, documentary or for social media posts. It is important that you also take over the search for suitable stock footage. It might sound funny, but it takes some time to find suitable footage that is needed for the project. And charge for the time of searching for it too.

Social media strategy

Last but not least, making a video with no future strategy won’t make anyone rich. We’ve seen many customers not even using own videos in an appropriate way. Just publishing and waiting for customers isn’t the right way of business. In the beginning, we mentioned marketing strategy. Social media is just part of it. What is the point of making a video if you don’t have anywhere to share it? Connect with people, find suitable pages to share and make a strategy how will your video get the most of the views, likes, and shares.  It is important how you promote your video. If you don’t receive any likes or shares, something isn’t right. Agencies can make you a strategy, but as mentioned before, it won’t be cheap. Don’t forget that they are offering such services so that you don’t need to waste time on it. If you use more time on marketing, you can’t make your products.

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