If you have decided to go ahead and have some videos made to promote your products and services, your first job is to find a production company that will deliver the end results you need.
Nowadays the marketplace for video production companies is a crowded one, and as a buyer, you will benefit from having plenty of choice and competition to choose from. But all these options also mean that you need to invest a little time doing your homework and research in order to ensure you choose the right video production company.
With video becoming an increasingly vital part of effective online content strategies, engaging the best possible production company is an important recruitment decision for your firm. Spending a little time upfront to research this and making sure you make the right decision is worthwhile.
Getting your ideas from your head to the screen
Video production can seem like a daunting task. But a good agency will be able to take your knowledge of your business and your potential buyers and turn these into compelling short videos that are designed to captivate them into working with you and your firm. In short, the right video production agency can bring your business to life.
How much do you have to invest?
Be clear with your agency as to how much budget you have for the project. Hidden costs or sly additions to an invoice benefit nobody, so ensure that all wrinkles are ironed out before any contracts are signed.
Another key aspect is to ensure that your video production company has the skills that you need to bring your business to the screen. To get to grips with this, look over the company’s other content production and see what they have done for their other customers. This will give you a good feel for how able they are to work with a brief, and to turn this into a compelling video.
Look for companies that have some diversity in their previous work – some agencies can be quite typecast in a particular style. But you need your business to stand out on its own to have a chance to get the right viewers online.
Is the agency flexible to your requirements?
Your video production is about you, not about the agency. Is their work tailored to individual clients, or does every piece stand out as being different and produced according to their customers’ requirements?
Another key consideration is how active the agency’s communication is during the production of videos. Some agencies want to take a brief and then provide an end product. Worse still, some want to do this and then charge for any amendments to this.
The ideal is to look for an agency that is happy to work with you during the entire production process from the initial meeting and brief right through to the final amendments and finished product. Investing a little time upfront can save you a lot of time down the road, and ensure that your videos have the most possible impact.
What is your message?
The trick to promoting your company with video is to make it memorable and engaging and to promote a message that your target personas can associate with. Doing so increases the likelihood of them taking a positive next step such as reading more of your content or requesting a demo or trial of your service.
Your message will vary depending on whether you are looking to create brand awareness for your company, or whether the desired outcome is more tangible such as lead generation. If you have a high volume product that you sell online, the chances are you will want to convert people to the product page to buy online.
If you are selling a service that requires more consideration from more than one stakeholder, you will want to use your video to entice people to read further information or a validation document such as a datasheet or customer testimonial.
Before you make your decision of which agency to choose, sit down with the candidates and discuss these requirements with them. A video production agency worth its salt will have lots of ideas not only about making the video but on how to create it to drive as many conversions as possible.
