Finding The Best Video Marketing Partner
Video marketing has never been more important than it is now, and the companies that embrace it wholeheartedly will reach their customers long before their competitors do. Once you’ve decided to integrate video marketing into all areas of your marketing strategy, you’re suddenly hit with the realization that now you have to figure out the how.
Stepping into the world of video marketing can be overwhelming, especially if you have little or no experience of working with a video production company in the past. Finding the right video marketing partner is crucial to your success, but if you’ve never worked with one before, what should you be looking for?
Why work with a video production company?
The biggest value of working with a video production company is the value of their project management skills. The quality triangle dictates that every project will have a trade-off on one of the three: the time it takes to bring to fruition, the cost of the project, and the quality of the results. You need the guidance of a video production company like ours so you know what is fixed and what can be scaled up or down to deliver the results you’re looking for and ensure the scope of the project does not creep, thus requiring more resources.
What are the benefits of working directly with a video production company?
If you’re new to video marketing it can be tempting to work with an agency, but in most cases it’s best to cut out the middleman and work directly with a video production company. Here are the benefits of working with a video production company directly:
You’ll save 20-30% in fees. The agency won’t simply charge you what they’re paying the video production company; they’ll add on fees for any work they need to do facilitating the relationship between you and the video production company. Working with a video production company instead of an agency will save you a significant amount of money.
No miscommunication. The problem with having an agency as the middleman is you’ll have a greater potential for miscommunication. This does depend somewhat on how an agency likes to manage the relationship (whether they want everything to go through them or they allow some level of direct contact) but with all those voices, there’s an increased risk of misunderstandings or wrong interpretations.
You’ll know if they share your values and culture. Working with a video production company should be a partnership and not a one-off. This type of direct relationship allows you to see if you’re really a good fit for one another early on in the process. If you don’t share the same values or culture, there will be friction. If your company values work-life balance but your vendor operates by burning the midnight oil over the weekend, you may not be the best fit. With an agency, these kinds of value and culture-fit issues are rarely considered.
You’ll be able to assess their body of work, not just the agency’s. When you work with an agency you’ll be assessing their body of work, and that may include work from a number of different video production companies they outsource to. You may view an agency’s work to get a feel for what results you get, but if the work you like is produced by a different video production company you may get very different results. When you work directly with a video production company, you’ll be able to look at their portfolio and know that your results will be similar in the ways that matter.
Collaboration is easy. The video production process can be an extremely collaborative one, but agencies usually manage this relationship or remove the collaborative process all together by telling the video production company what you want. When you work directly with a video production company, you’ll be able to bounce ideas off one another, you’ll be able to ask them what is possible, and they can offer ideas with their expertise that will elevate your final results.
How to Find the Right Video Marketing Partner
Working directly with a video production company is almost always the best choice - you save money, save time, and get better results because the relationship is a close and collaborative one. When looking for a video marketing partner, you should consider:
Do they have similar values to you?
Does their work ethic match (or work well with) yours?
What is the collaborative process like?
Do they provide the support and guidance level you need?
Do you want something similar to the work they’ve already done?
Do they have experience with your industry? Do you need them to?
Can they work with your budget and timeline?
Finding the right video production company will pay dividends - you’ll have a partner you can turn to for years to produce video for your marketing needs. Better yet, the more you work you do together, the more streamlined and easy the process will be. If you’re looking for a video marketing partner who can guide you through the process while working with you collaboratively to bring your vision to life, we’d love to help.
