8 low budget video marketing tips for your business

Low budget video marketing sounds like the promise of utopia for every marketer.

Good marketers know the importance of creating good content. But what type of content is more effective? Is it written content? Auditory content? Video content? Or any other type of content?

Recent studies have shown that videos win in terms of getting reach and engagement across all important social media. What’s more, video marketing is not reserved just for the big players…

Why do video’s do so well? Is a discussion for another article. Let’s just say, our brains like to be spoon-fed with content, instead of having to strain themselves to read textual content, or listen to only audio content. This is the reason most platforms are now being designed to push quality video content.

Read our post on 19 shocking statistics about video marketing and why you should start making videos right now, to know why videos are such a big deal. You’ll understand why shouting out low budget video marketing in a room full of marketers will turn everyone’s head to you.

On the surface, it may seem that making an effective video marketing campaign can be expensive and almost out of reach for new businesses with smaller marketing budgets. This blog will give you a few pointers on how to do low-cost video marketing.

Build the story yourself

Hiring a good writer is always recommended but it can get costly. However, there are chances that you have a decent writer among your employees. Regardless, if you have a great idea, you should pen it down rudimentarily!

Get your marketing team (or your entire team if you’re a small sized firm) together and start building an outline of your story.

Some important points to think about while preparing your story are:

• What problem or need are you trying to solve?
• What is the USP of your product?
• Who is your target audience?
• What are the topics they care about?
• Can you run any promotions?
• Can you sell emotionally?

Highlight the points you want to cover and assign someone to make the required script.

Usually, videos for social media are to the point and about a minute long so it’s not very difficult to build a script.

Ideally, the script should go into every detail of every scene so that there is no scope for misinterpretation and misunderstanding.

If you are unable to prepare a solid script, you can hire freelance editors or writers by the hour.

Use your phone as your camera

Today, all smartphones come with great cameras – even phones with 12 megapixels cameras compare to the picture quality of a basic DSLR! These phones are very cheap and cost around 10,000 rupees only, so if you don’t have one now, consider buying one just to make videos for your business.

Start shooting videos with your phone and purchase a cheap tripod to get stability a more professional look.

You can also borrow a colleague’s phone to aid the low budget video marketing process. Having two phones makes the video quality better as you can put one phone near the speaker to pick up audio better and the other one for shooting the video. Then, you can sync the audio and the video.

Make use of student actors

If you’re making a video with people, you can hire university students, student actors, or even your friends to act in it! Hiring professional actors is not possible for low budget video marketing, so, hiring students can be a great alternative.

If you’re lucky, these students will work for free as their primary aim is to build their resume and get experience!

Use free locations

Using public locations for shooting videos is cost-effective and can be equally attractive if executed well. Depending on your video idea, you can decide to shoot in a busy space or a quiet space.

Sometimes, you might run into issues with the local authorities so you might have to find ways to work through the problem.

Animated videos 

A great way to save time and resources making videos is to go the animation route.

Animated videos allow you to explain ideas in a more simpler fashion and enable viewers to make logical conclusions quite easily. Plus, there’s no limit to creativity when it comes to making digital videos.

Such videos spark the conversation and engage your audience when done well.

You can animate your entire video or just a part of it and it would likely cost lesser (and turn out better) than a full-fledged video production. That is why a lot of marketers prefer taking this route to make low budget marketing videos.

You can use software such as Sparkol or Vyond. These softwares are not free but are quite pocket-friendly! You can also make free videos using software such as – Powtoon or Animaker. Another option is to use your computer’s inbuilt video editing software if there is one – such as Apple Inc’s iMovies.

Rent equipment

In the excitement of shooting a new (and probably your first) video, it’s easy to go overboard and purchase a bunch of fancy equipment only to be forgotten months later when you don’t have the time or the talent required to pursue making more videos.

That is why, to start off, you can try renting production equipment for the first few videos. You can buy proper equipment after ensuring that you have the bandwidth and the capacity to make more professional videos on a regular basis.

Some services from where you can rent equipment are Accord Equips, Primes and Zooms, Rento Buzz, Brag Packer, etc.

Hire freelancers

If you don’t do video marketing on a regular basis, employing a dedicated video team is futile. That is when you can rely on freelance professionals who can give you the best results for your budget.

You can find freelancers through your Facebook contact list, or by posting in relevant Facebook Groups. There are also sites such as Freelancer, Truelancer, Flexing It, and Work n Hire to get freelancers on a per campaign basis.

Do smart work

Sometimes, videos don’t need to have a story-line or a ‘professional touch’. Conveying the message is more important.

A good low budget video marketing strategy is using the live video feature on Facebook, Instagram, etc. You can also ask your clients if they are open to giving you video testimonials for online promotion! These strategies do not require HD quality videos as long as the message is coming across nicely.

Last words on low budget video marketing…

Hopefully, this blog has given you some ideas on how to perform low budget video marketing for your business. If you like this blog, make sure to share it with your friends, colleagues, and business partners! And, if you are still planning to procrastinate, I urge you to read why you need to start video marketing RIGHT NOW!