How do you optimize your video production budget for maximum ROI?

Maximize the long-term value of your videos by focusing on themes that will help support your business: Testimonials from clients; videos that enhance the sales process by answering FAQ’s and educate customers; employees for recruiting efforts; your company’s story & mission. Feature them not only on your site, but on YouTube and in your newsletters and email signatures.

In my experience, everything is about getting the script right. You get that nailed and everything else falls into place. It's so important for whoever writes the script to have a good understanding of the extent of what's possible in the production - when they don't, that's when things start to go wrong...

A script doesn’t have to mean preparing something to read from a teleprompter - it can help, but it depends on your speaker. It may be easier for some more than others, or it may come off as uncomfortable or unnatural. Give your speaker the option to practice and have multiple takes, but if time is limited, try an interview style, to capture more authentic commentary.

Choosing to pay for a video professional is usually the best option, either freelancer or agency depending on your budget. Videoing yourself should be part of your video strategy but for specific kinds of video. Invest in the videos that will have a longer shelf life, like your website video, a funnel, ads etc keeping in mind to keep in line with your brand personality.

Outsourcing to a professional is best, if you don’t have one in-house. If hiring a pro isn’t a consistent option, consider bringing someone in to train one of your team members, who can then do smaller projects. Reserve your budget for the long-term value assets (like website videos or promotional ads) done by a professional service.

If your brand is new hold back investing too much since it’s likely in the early days your brand will develop and potentially your video/s could become obsolete.

An effective form of video content is documentary-style (docustyle) videos that focus on interviews, B-Roll and testimonials. They connect with viewers more directly through relatable and authentic stories that build an emotional relationship with viewers. Logistically, filming docustyle content for just a few days can create enough video content for a whole year. Since an average interview is 30+ minutes, you can craft many narratives from the same content. A full length video between 2-3 minutes that crafts a compelling overview of your business can be cut down into 10-60 second bites that highlight specific services or products. This content can be continually re-shared and sublimated with new footage to provide great value per video.

Animation can be a great alternative to video production as it can be much more more cost-effective and time-efficient. With good planning you can also create multiple assets for one campaign without having to blow the budget. Animation also offers a unique and imaginative approach that can be used to tell stories in ways that live-action videos cannot.