How to Outsource Creative Video Content
Whether you’re looking to boost sales, launch a new product or scale your business, video production can help you take your brand image to the next level.
Video is a flexible and creative way to establish yourself as a brand leader and grab your target viewer’s attention.
Producing great video can help you communicate your message at different stages in your customer journey and strengthen your content creation.
If you’re considering producing video for your business, we want to share a few helpful questions you should ask in the pre-production phase:
- What goals do you want to achieve with your video?
- What is your target audience and who do you want your video to reach?
- Do you have resources for in house video production?
It’s important to establish early on what you want the video to say and how you can get the most out of your investment to ensure your video answers your prospective client’s questions and gains the trust of your consumers.
For both B2B and B2C companies, prospective customers do the majority of their research online. Depending on the nature of your business, prospective customers may look at your website, white papers, reviews, blog posts and social media to see how your values align.
As a result there has never been a more vital time to prioritise online marketing and produce high quality video content that cuts through the clutter.
Should You Produce Video Production In-House?
If you have full-time professional content creators then you may not need to worry about outsourcing video production, but there may be benefits hiring an agency such as freeing up time to focus on other marketing and social media.
The advantage of an in-house team is full visibility on project costs as well as specialist knowledge of your given industry. What’s more, in-house teams know your business and its values and provide a strong culture fit.
If your team have the relevant skills and access to professional equipment, you’ll be able to create high quality videos as and when you need it. This means that you’ll be able to keep your marketing strategy agile and easy to adapt to changing trends. This can be the best way to create relevant videos for your business across all social media and website platforms.
However, finding the right in house team for video content creation can be expensive, both in terms of covering salaries, equipment and software needed for editing. It’s not always easy to find employees who are trained video production specialists and as a result projects the hire process can become time consuming.
What are the benefits of outsourcing?
There are lots of agency options on the market, so there can be a lot of different video production services to choose from. But what time you’ll spend looking for your perfect video content creator for your business, you’ll make up for in their expertise.
Their video production team will have all the tools and know everything you need to create killer video content that meets your marketing goals. We know that ‘time is money’, so finding a video partner who can work efficiently and deliver a high-quality service is a huge benefit for hiring a production company.
What’s also great about outsourced video is that the higher your production values, the higher your engagement rate. Have you ever watched a video but been put off because it’s blurry or the camera is too jolty or it sounds too hissy? Hiring professional filmmakers to produce your video mitigates any risk of poor video quality and losing important customers.
You’ll also save money on outsourcing video production whenever you need to use specialist equipment or software (such as using a drone or adding motion graphics in post production). Professionally outsourced editing and animations can help to elevate your film.
The video production team that you hire will be in charge of finding the best talent for your videos, meaning that you can relax in the knowledge that they will find you the best right actors for your shoot or voiceover.
Outsourcing will also bring fresh ideas to the table. Their creative approach to video production will help you to think outside the box and scale your ideas – making it possible for your video to achieve a wider reach, higher ROI and maybe even more leads.
It’s also worth remembering is that you’ll only pay for the content you create. Project-based expenses are far easier to budget, track and review making this a fairly turn-key solution.
The only risk outsourcing video production is that their professionals may be less knowledgeable about your company or industry, so you may need to keep an eye on messaging and write a clear brief.
Working Together
Ultimately, the best outcomes are when company leaders collaborate with video production teams. This ensures that all video marketing is completely on-message, whilst never compromising on quality or creativity.
We believe that clear communication is an essential part of a successful relationship with a video production company or freelancer. Sharing brand guidelines, tone of voice documents, company values and any other brand information will help your creator get up to speed with your company and the message you want to convey.
The video production process begins at the Brief. This document aims to outline the core aspects of your video and what you want it to communicate. The brief may include reference videos to help the creator understand what tone, style and format you’re looking for.
If you haven’t already written a brief, you may be asked what your objectives are with the video, what part of the sales cycle your video will be used, and who your target audience is. Understanding who your audience is and at what stage they are at in your sales cycle will help you to create specific content with a clear and effective call to action.
If you have a buyer persona, it’s worth sharing this now as this may help to inform some of the decisions regarding character, casting or voice over. The more information you share with your creator, the better they’ll be able to tailor the video to your needs.
Be clear about your timeline, budget and any deadlines – this will help ensure that everyone is on the same page. Your freelancer or video production company may share with you some key milestones such as approving the script, a first draft and how many rounds of amends there are on the edit. To ensure a smooth process, it’s worth paying attention to these milestones at the beginning of the project.
Finding the Right Video Content Creator
Hiring a video production company or agencies means that you’ll benefit from a multidisciplinary team of filmmakers, who can look after your project from pre-production to the final edit. Production teams will be well-equipped to handle projects of all scale and budget, and will be able to add valuable insights to your video marketing campaigns.
We suggest setting up scoping calls or meetings with prospective companies, to find out how they creatively respond to your brief.
For the company you think might work the best, ask them to pitch a few ideas and see what resonates the most with you. Most likely they’ll produce a detailed proposal and quote for your consideration.
As there are so many video production companies out there, narrow down by location. Do you want to be at the shoot? If so, perhaps pick a company in the same city as you. If it doesn’t matter, look for companies in major cities, such as London, as they’ll have access to a ton of great equipment, freelancers and spaces to hire.
Check Google reviews, read testimonials on their website and check them out on LinkedIn to see what they’re all about.
But most importantly, watch their content. Do you like the videos they’ve produced? Do they engage you and do you think their style would be a good fit for your brand? Do they understand your marketing goals and do you think they’ll be able to effectively communicate your message in a way that suits your company? Try to think critically but also instinctively about how your two brands might gel.