3 WAYS TO SAVE MONEY ON VIDEO PRODUCTION AS A SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
I’m sure you’ve been there - you need video production for your small business, social account, or something else. You google local video producers near you, find a few, inquire, and get back an estimate that wildly exceeds your budget.
It’s true - as a video production agency, I know that it’s expensive on our end to produce high quality videos for clients. Day rates, editing, equipment rentals and other things add up quickly! So what can be done?
1. DETERMINE YOUR NEED
If you’re a smaller, growing organization that might not have the capital, space or equipment to have the luxury of options, you need to figure out exactly what you need. By that we mean that you must determine exactly what you need a video for, what you want to accomplish with it, and then what you need to make that video come into existence.
Determine what your video is for (social media, web, tele)
What does your video need to accomplish? (more followers, sell a product, etc.)
What do I need for this video to be made?
2. DETERMINE WHAT IT TAKES TO MEET YOUR NEED
Lets say you determined your needs and they came out as:
Video is for social media
Video needs to gain followers
I need a way to capture video and audio, and a basic set like my office.
Alright, you know what your video is for, what it needs to do, and what you need to make it. Now you need to ask yourself if you can do it yourself, or if you need to pay someone else.
For a simple social media video, many people are surprised to find out that an iPhone or similar smartphone is more than enough to produce a good looking video. With the right lighting, a decent microphone and good composition, you can create phenomenal looking videos with a smartphone.
Your best course of action to spend $0 on your video would probably be to shoot it yourself. Will there be a lack in quality? Most likely. But as a small business owner, you need to determine when it’s time to save money and spend money.
3. SET UP DEALS WITH A LOCAL VIDEO BUSINESS
One last way to save money if you are going the professional video production company route is to work a deal with a local production house. This might be an exchange of goods, a longer contract with prorated video rates if you know you need to make several videos, or simply offering what your budget is and asking if they can meet it.
You’ll never know if you don’t ask, and as a video production business, we’ve done several deals with local businesses where we exchange a video for something besides cash.
CONCLUSION
Videos are not cheap to produce. A fully crewed team can cost upwards of $10,000 in expenses for a video production company, but with some creativity and work, you can still get the videos you need produced at a very acceptable rate, or even learn how to shoot them yourself!
If you’re in the market for a video production agency, we would love to talk to you about producing your videos. Click the button below to fill out a general inquiry form and receive a free consultation phone call!
