Just like any other aspect of an effective content marketing strategy, video content production requires a whole host of creative professionals. From cameramen to video editors, video production has lots of different stages and logistics you need to consider. If you have an in-house production team, you’re all set for realising your video content marketing strategy. But what if you don’t? What if you’ve never dabbled with video marketing before? Where do you start?
This is where outsourcing your video to an agency comes in. Why agonise over the production when you can hire professionals to bring your project to life? Throughout each stage of the video production process, your chosen video agency will ensure that your final video will be something that represents your brand in the most effective way possible. You will be more confident in incorporating video into your marketing strategy and know what to expect throughout the video production process.
Below, we’ve gone into more detail about these advantages and why Kartoffel is the perfect fit for your business.
In-House Video Production
If you already have an in-house video production team, you might not need to consider working with a video agency. However, there may be the added benefit of outsourcing your video of creating more flexibility in your marketing schedule and giving your team more time to prioritise other projects and campaigns.
With an in-house video production team, you already have all of the equipment, which can save you time, money and energy in locating the right people and technical expertise. Your team will also know the culture, branding and tone of your company inside and out, meaning that you save time from cultivating a new partnership with an external agency and teaching them everything about your branding. You will also have more flexibility and adaptability regarding your video marketing schedule and keep up with constantly changing social media trends. You can require as many high-quality videos as and when you need and change plans easily without making drastic alterations to your schedule.
However, the hiring process for a high-quality in-house video production team is time-consuming and expensive. If your brand is green to video production, it might not be wise to employ a whole host of people when you are still in the early days of incorporating video into your marketing strategy.
Benefits of Outsourcing
Expertise
Everyone involved in producing your video content will be experts in their field. They will have the filmmaking, directorial and technical skills to bring your video to life. As these are professionals, you won’t have to worry if their capabilities fit the skills and knowledge required for your project. You will know that you can trust a video agency with producing your video because they will create a high-quality video that is in line with your brand. You can put every aspect of your video in their hands, especially as they will know and have all the equipment your video requires.
Marketing
Expert knowledge isn’t the only important part of a video agency’s job. You will have discussions with professional marketers about your business, your marketing strategy and how you hope your video to achieve your marketing goals. These marketers will get to know the ins and outs of your business aims and give you information about the social media metrics and analytics you need to assess the performance of your video content. For a successful video content marketing strategy, you need professional marketers with a strong understanding of your marketing goals and trends to enhance the success of your video content marketing strategy.
Quality
Outsourcing your video to a video agency will result in a higher quality of production. This means that every aspect of your video’s performance will be heightened, such as a higher engagement rate, more views and more shares on social media. Working with professionals reduces the risk of poor video quality, which could deter important customers from investing in your brand. You won’t have shaky hands and grainy footage if you outsource your video to a video production agency.
Saves Money
Once you have discussed everything about your video with your chosen video production agency, from the execution to the expected end result, it’s down to the video agency to work within your budget. Hiring your cast and crew individually will take its toll on your purse strings, whereas a video production agency will know the right people for your project. You will agree on a total sum of costs, which will include every aspect of your video, from cast and crew to equipment and location hire, as well as the pre-production and post-production stages of video production. It’s worth remembering that the bigger your budget, the higher the ROI, meaning a better quality video that achieves all of your marketing goals and doesn’t cut corners throughout production.
Saves Time
Drawing on the previous point, a video production agency will already have a long list of relevant people to contact. This means you will save precious resource time in planning and creating your video, as you won’t have to worry about spending lots of time searching for the right people. They will know who to approach and how many cast and crew members your video will need, depending on the scope of your project.
Creativity
A video production agency is comprised of people who are creative by profession. They will discuss your project in great detail and enhance your video by coming up with niche and novel ideas. Various creative approaches will help your video stand out from the crowd and promote your brand to a bigger audience. A video that is based on a creative and unique concept and executed well will achieve a wider reach and generate more leads.
How Outsourcing Works
But how does it all work? What should you expect from your chosen video production agency? How should you best prepare for your meetings so that your agency will know exactly how to execute your video? We’ve listed below the process all video production agencies will follow to produce your video.
Brief
The brief is a document you create with specifics detailing your video’s message, aim and branding. This will give the agency a strong idea of the end result of your video, what you hope this video will achieve for your business, and how this will enhance your overall content marketing strategy. It’s important to remember that you should also highlight your budget and deadline so that the agency can work within these constraints and create a video that fulfills your expectations.
Discussions
You will have discussions and meetings with the agency to go into further detail about your brief. This ensures that everyone is on the same page and knows exactly what your final video will look like. The agency will also have the chance to interest you in their creative approaches regarding the production and execution of your video and highlight various trends your marketing strategy could incorporate to gain a wider reach.
Pre-Production
This stage is all about the planning. The video agency will write up a script, devise the visuals, scout locations, and hire cast and crew. They will also draw up a call sheet and a timeline for the day of the shoot, so that everybody at all times during the day knows what they’re doing and where they should be. This stage is crucial, as the more thorough the planning, the more smoothly the shoot day runs. Preparing for every aspect of the shoot day will result in less stress, fewer concerns, and a better quality video.
Production
The production stage is where all of the elements of the pre-production stage come together. Depending on how many shoot days your video needs, everyone involved will follow the call sheet and ensure that everything happens on schedule. All of the raw footage for your video will be filmed, such as interviews with employees and clients. The agency will also take plenty of b-roll shots. These are extra clips of your premises and product, which will enrich your project by adding context so that your audience will better understand the purpose of your video. B-roll will also give the agency’s video editors more flexibility in creating your final video in the post-production stage.
Post-Production
The final stage of video production is all about bringing all of the raw footage and b-roll together and transforming them into a marketable and aesthetically pleasing video. Video editors will cut, chop and change various shots before adding motion graphics, sound design, music and a voiceover artist, should your video need any of these additional effects. Your video will then be formatted in the required size and layout for your chosen social media platform and delivered to you.
Animation
If you want to create animated video content, the process differs slightly. More detail is required in the pre-production stage, so that the animators know exactly what you want your video to look like. In tandem with the scriptwriting, moodboards will also be created. These encompass the colour palettes, the intended style, the characterisation and the backdrops. Once these have been finalised, a storyboard will be devised, showing a great grasp of teh structure, pacing and visual storytelling. Only then will the agency commence with creating your animation with a temporary voiceover, and finally delivered to you with the desired audio effects and music tracks.
Remote
Video production agencies will be flexible in how you want to produce your video. For example, we provide a 100% remote option for our clients, where they are able to produce content with just their laptop or phone. From our regular PPM (Pre-Production Meetings) over Zoom or Teams, with email summary follow ups that assign actions and detail progress. And clients being able to virtually log into the set and oversee the shoot. To clients being sent a Frame io link where they can review the edit and provide feedback.
Why You Should Choose Kartoffel
Content Audit
The first step of the onboarding process is to perform an audit of existing online content and other content assets. One main component of this is looking at metrics, such as page performance, views, shares, drop off rates, and backlinks. In order to complete this, we will need access to your video and site analytics.
Audience Research
We will then conduct extensive research into your target audience, including their demographics, interests, video consumption habits, likes and dislikes. This will help us build a persona to focus your content strategy and its purpose.
Competitor Analysis
We will analyse how your closest competitors are engaging with your target audience, as this is key to identifying the content gap. This provides clearer insight into the types of video content your audience is interested in.
Brand and Existing Strategy
Providing a brief overview of your brand, both in terms of visuals and key messaging, will help us understand your organization, key goals and perceived challenges.
Review and Learning
Monthly Performance Updates
At the end of each month, we will provide a data report on the performance of each film. This data will help in planning the next films and guide the future promotion of your video content.
Reported Measures
Some of the measures we will report on are:
- Engagement
- Total views – How many people are watching the content
- Repeat views – If people are watching the content again and/or how long they are watching for
- Page Performance
- Backlinks to the host page – This is a link from one website to another. Search engines use backlinking to rank websites considered important
- Traffic to the page – The extent your content drives traffic to your website
We recommend Wistia as a video hosting site. This video platform has excellent metrics to help analyse the performance of your video content and your promotion methods.
Final Thoughts
As there is so much to think about regarding video content production, outsourcing your video to an agency will relieve a huge burden off your shoulders, alleviate any concerns, and assure you that your video will be appealing, marketable and achieve your business goals.
We can make video work for you, not the other way around. With over 2000 videos, both animated and live-action, we can sort all of the logistics associated with your testimonial video, meaning no hassle or stress on your part. Still interested? Contact us to get our creative partnership started.
