Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Consistent video presence provides benefits such as establishing authority and trust, improving SEO and online visibility, staying top of mind, and educating customers.
- Buying video production in bulk through a retainer or monthly payment plan can save costs and secure discounted rates, making it a smarter long-term video strategy.
- Investing in marketing videos should be viewed through a long-term lens, as the cumulative effect of videos can continue to generate value and ROI over time.
- To get the most value from video investments, it is important to have a video distribution and promotion strategy, track performance metrics, and repurpose video content into different formats.
- When evaluating video production companies, consider factors such as the quality of past work, types of videos produced, reviews and testimonials, and industry experience.
- Planning an effective video content strategy involves aligning video topics and themes with marketing objectives, mapping out topics in advance, and optimizing videos for maximum impact.
Benefits of Having a Consistent Video Presence
Producing and publishing multiple new marketing videos each month provides many benefits that can significantly impact business growth and success over time. Having an ongoing presence on video platforms like YouTube establishes authority and trust, which is critical for convincing prospective customers to choose your brand.
Videos also play an important role in SEO and online visibility. Regularly posting fresh content signals to Google that your practice is active and should rank higher in local search results. This increased visibility makes it easier for nearby people to find and learn about your services.
Staying top of mind is another advantage of consistent videos. People tend to have poor memories, so if you want them to remember your brand when they need a solution, you must continually nurture that relationship through valuable content. Videos are ideal for this, humanizing your brand while providing helpful information.
Education is the primary purpose behind most marketing videos. By creating a library of videos, you empower visitors to make informed decisions. Videos bring your expertise to the people when they need it most.
Consistent professional video content brings immense value through trust-building, better SEO, brand awareness, and helpful education for customers – all of which can fuel substantial growth over time. The key is having a long-term vision and commitment to regular video production.
Cutting Costs or Cutting Corners?
Producing two new marketing videos every month, on a project-by-project basis, can become very expensive for a business. Let’s break down the costs:
– Hiring a professional videographer to shoot high-quality video can cost $2,000 – $3,000 per production day. For a 3-5 minute edited video, you’re looking at $3,000 – $5,000+ per video when including editing time.
– The videographer will likely bill for their own 4K professional camera and lighting equipment rental and transportation, which could be $1,000 or more per shoot. But this is usually included in the estimate.
– As the owner, you’ll need to invest your own time to plan out each video concept, reviewing quotes from multiple vendors, assessing video companies, etc. This can amount to 4-6 hours per week minimum when you add it all up. Your time is extremely valuable as the practice owner, so this is a major hidden cost.
When you produce a new marketing video every week, on a per-project basis, costs can easily total $3,000 – $5,000+ per video. That’s $72,000 – $120,000 spent over the course of a year! Clearly this is not a very cost effective or efficient approach.
The Smarter Approach: Buying Video Production in Bulk
Most video production companies offer monthly payment plans and bulk purchase discounts to lock in lower rates over time. Instead of paying a la carte pricing for each new video, you can purchase a package of 10, 25, or 50+ videos upfront. This enables you to get deeply discounted pricing, often 40-60% off the single video rate.
For example, if producing two 3-minute educational or branding video each month costing $2,000 per video, that’s $48,000 for a full year of weekly videos. But if you purchase a 24-video package upfront for $30,000, your cost per video is only $1,250 instead of $2,000. You save $18,000 overall and still have the same consistent video presence. That’s a cost saving of almost 37.5%.
Monthly payment plans allow you to spread out the package price over 6, 12, or 24 months. So that $30,000 package could be split into 12 monthly payments of $2,500. This makes the large upfront investment in video production more affordable for your practice.
The key takeaway is that buying videos in bulk secures discounted rates and locks in those savings long-term. You reduce expenses while still sticking to your monthly video content schedule for an entire year. It’s a smarter financial move than paying full price each time.
Budgeting Wisely for Long-Term Success
Many businesses make the mistake of trying to penny pinch when it comes to investing in marketing such as videos. They may try to cut costs by only producing one video per quarter rather than consistently each month. This short-sighted approach often ends up costing more in the long run.
Videos and other marketing tools function as business assets that accumulate value over time. A consistent library of video content builds authority, trust, and engagement with both current and prospective clients. The more videos you have, the more opportunities there are for current and future clients to discover your brand online.
Rather than focusing on the upfront costs, it’s important to view marketing investments through a long-term lens. Consistently producing videos may require a larger upfront investment, but this enables substantially discounted bulk pricing. And the cumulative effect of those videos will continue paying dividends for months and years after production.
In today’s world, having an owned media presence through valuable content assets like videos is essential. By taking a strategic approach and budgeting wisely for long-term success, brands can maximize their return on investment from video marketing.
Getting the Most from Your Video Investment
Just producing high-quality marketing videos isn’t enough. You need to have a video strategy to distribute and promote your video content across multiple platforms to get the most value from your investment.
Begin by sharing new videos on your website, blog, and social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Highlight the videos in email and newsletter campaigns as well. Beyond your own channels, look for opportunities to guest post relevant videos on industry blogs and partner websites.
Closely track performance metrics and ROI across all video platforms. See which topics, lengths, and formats resonate most with your target audiences. Use these insights to refine your ongoing video strategy.
Repurposing video content into other formats extends its reach and shelf life. For example, convert videos into blog posts, infographics, presentation decks, or audio podcast episodes. Upload key sections as short social clips. Turn transcripts into Q&A articles. Using AI, owners can now leverage this revolutionary new technology to their advantage.
Getting the full mileage from high-quality videos requires a multi-channel distribution, promotion, and repurposing plan. With the right video strategy, your investment will continue generating ROI for your business over time.
Key Factors When Evaluating Video Production Companies
When comparing video production companies, there are several key factors to consider beyond just the cost per video. These include:
Quality of Past Work
Review examples of videos they have produced for other dental practices. Look for high quality camera work, lighting, audio, editing, motion graphics, and overall production value. Also keep an eye on editing skills, pace and rhythm. Videos should have a polished, professional look and feel.
Types of Videos Produced
See if they have experience producing the types of marketing videos you need – testimonials, FAQ videos, introductions, tour videos, procedures, etc. Samples of relevant video genres is a plus. If they do great commercials, this does not mean they’ll produce a brand video the way you want.
Reviews and Testimonials
Reputable companies should have great reviews and client testimonials speaking to their professionalism, quality results, and overall experience. These provide social proof that they can deliver. Beware of fake reviews, and always cross-check their social channels to confirm popularity.
Experience in Your Industry
While not 100% necessary, it’s ideal if a video company has specific experience working in your industry. They will understand your goals, challenges, terminology, and how to best connect with your consumers.
Focusing solely on price could mean compromising on production quality, expertise, and results. Carefully evaluating these key factors will help you find the right long-term video partner.
Planning an Effective Video Content Strategy
Having a smart content strategy for your videos ensures you get the most value from your investment. When planning out your video content calendar, first look at your overall marketing objectives and how video content can help achieve them. Do you want to boost brand awareness? Generate more leads? Increase customer retention? Align your video topics and themes to support those goals.
You should also map out topics and themes in advance so your videos work together to tell a cohesive story over time. Think about creating different video series around common customer questions, product explanations, staff introductions, business updates, and so on.
When planning individual videos, optimization best practices are key. Include a strong call-to-action, strategic keywords, effective meta descriptions, and compelling custom thumbnails. Most video production companies can help with professional tags, titles and descriptions as well. Working hand-in-hand with your video partner to plan an intelligent video strategy will maximize your investment and results.
Wrapping Up
Recapping the key points in this article, producing marketing videos on a weekly basis can get very expensive very quickly when paying fully-loaded rates. While initially cheaper, this approach lacks consistency and a long term vision.
The smarter solution for businesses is to instead invest in bulk video production upfront. By purchasing a package of videos at once, businesses can secure heavily discounted pricing and pay over an extended period of time. This enables having fresh video content ready to go each week, with more budget flexibility.
Ultimately consistency and having a long term vision are vital. Brands that only focus on short term savings may regret it later. Investment into regular informative marketing videos pays dividends over time by establishing a visual presence, nurturing leads, educating customers, and boosting brand awareness. Rather than evaluating cost alone, weigh the bigger picture benefits that a video strategy can provide to your business.
Owner of Memory Mill Media and seasoned video producer Zach Nassif has produced videos in Houston and Dubai for more than 20 years. Zach now helps companies attract and convert customers, tell their stories, and increase brand awareness using the power of video.