The Ultimate Video FAQ

Should I hire a production agency?

So, you’re looking to create a video for your business, but you’re not sure where to start. Should you hire a production company, or try to DIY all of it? If your budget is tight, it might seem easier to DIY – but it’s likely that you’ll be able to find professionals in your price range who can deliver a great project to you, without all of the extra stress that comes with trying to do everything yourself. If you have a decently sized budget, you have more flexibility over what companies to choose from and between what services.

Should I hire a production company?

Hiring a production agency to make your videos for your business might seem like a big cost for your business – and we know that sometimes a price tag can be daunting. But something that you’ll really end up saving is time. A professional video production agency can handle all of the logistics of creating your video (with your thoughts and input, of course), leaving you more time to focus on the rest of your business and other responsibilities.

How to find the right video production company for your business?

You don’t just want to find a production company – you want to find the production company that will best fit you and your business’s needs. Here are some tips and tricks for finding the perfect fit for you and your business.

How do I find a production agency?

Two of the best ways to find a production company are through (1) Recommendations, (2) Researching online. While you can look at ‘Top Video Companies’ lists, you can also simply search for companies that create the type of video you want to make, or companies in the area you’re looking to create the video in on Google, and look at both the organic and paid results that show up. If you know of other companies who have created videos similar to what you’re looking to do, you can ask them (or your network in general) if they have any recommendations. It often makes sense to work backwards from work you like, find the work, then find out who made it.

How do I choose a production company?

Once you’ve compiled a general list of options, it’s time to narrow your choices down. You should write down a short criteria list of what you’re looking for in a video production company. Ideally, everyone you found is competent enough to do the work, which is where this criteria list will come in handy to differentiate between the companies when it comes time to make the final decision.


Figure out what it is that you want from the video itself. What are your goals? What type of video do you want to create? What ideas do you have for the video? Do you already have footage and just need a company to edit it together, or do you need a company that will help you with conception all the way to a finished project? Do you want to film in one location, or choose a company that has the ability to film in multiple cities, states, or countries? Do you want to do one video, or multiple videos? You can even go a step further and start to ask yourself if you want actors for your video, or will your video feature you or your employees.

Decide what your budget is for your video project. Now, you’re not expected to know the pricing of all of the intricacies of creating a video, and pricing will vary by company, but figuring out a rough outline of how much money you can afford to spend on your videos will help you once you start to gather quotes. Pricing will vary depending on a lot of different factors, such as the ones listed above. If your budget is flexible, have a range in mind – you might be able to create more video than you originally thought with your budget, too.

Gather quotes from the list of video production companies you compiled. Many companies are willing to talk with you and give you a quote (for free!) on your video project. You can use this as a baseline to compare against your budget, to see if what you’re budgeting for your project aligns with what most companies are charging. They will likely have follow up questions, and will only be able to provide a range, but it can be helpful to determine if your project is feasible within your budget. It can also help you spot pricing outliers, if most are saying your project costs $100,000.00 , but another says it costs $1,000.00 we would be skeptical of the outlier.

Choose people who you’re comfortable working with. Once you have the quotes, you can make the decision on money alone if you need to. However, you can also go a step further and choose a company that shares similar values or company culture to you. You can also determine a lot by how they respond to your initial inquiries. Be sure to hold a call with the client to make sure they have the right skills, and you can see yourselves working together. A lot of a good partnership is the relationship, not just the resulting work. In short, you’ll likely be working closely with the people at this video production company to bring your vision to life, so you want to work with a team who is easy to work with. While this may be a one off project, you could also be fostering a long term professional relationship that extends over future projects, so that’s something to keep in mind when making your choice.

Work with a video production company that fits your goals best. Ultimately, you want to look at all of your options and choose whatever company feels right to you. You may need to compromise on a few of these criteria (for example, if your budget is low, you might not be able to afford a full service creative agency, so you’ll have to adjust accordingly, one way or the other), but chances are you’ll be able to find a great video production company that aligns with your goals and meets all of your preferred criteria.


How do I hire a video production agency?

The hiring part is easy – once you choose who you want to work with, you let them know, and let the company tell you next steps and streamline the process from there! Follow the steps above to choose the best fit, and then get to work!

What is the difference between an agency and a production company?

An ad agency provides a wider range of advertising services from brand guidance, through production, through purchasing ads on behalf of a client. An agency may not provide all of the services in house and often relies on a number of partners to provide specialized services. For example, an ad agency may hire an outside video production company to carry out the ideas that they and their client have for a video or series of videos. The agency would approach the video production company with their idea, the script, part of a storyboard, etc., and partner with the company to bring it to life. A creative agency might also handle other aspects of marketing such as advertising, tracking ROI (return on investment), etc., whereas a video production company traditionally would focus solely on the production of the video, not the marketing or other additional aspects. Many production companies may provide additional marketing guidance and overlap with full ad agencies, but the focus will be more on production. You can think of an agency as a general contractor, who oversees an entire project (or brand strategy), vs. a production company as a carpenter, or someone hired to fulfill a smaller, more specialized area of expertise (like creating epic video).

It’s also important to note that ‘Ad agency’ and ‘video production company’ are often used interchangeably, so these differences are just a guide, not definitive rules, and will not apply to all of the video businesses that you research. All agencies provide a different suite of services at varying levels of expertise which is why it is always good to have calls with several to determine best fit.

What services should a production company provide?

It’s easy to say that a video production company provides video services, but what does that really mean? At first glance, it seems simple enough, but there are actually various different types of video services that a production company can provide, and not all companies offer the same services.
Most companies should have a list of the services they have available on their website. Here’s a list that we provide on our website:

Pre-Production

• Creative conception
• Scheduling
• Talent Sourcing
• Location Scouting
• Scripting/Storyboarding

Production

• Video Crewing
• Photography
• Aerial Footage
• Hair and Makeup
• Lighting
• Audio Capture
• Studio management
  

Post-Production


• Video Editing
• Animation/Motion Graphics
• Repurposing Existing Content
• Voiceover Recording
• Audio Ads

It’s important to note that these lists simplify all of the details and hard work that go into creating an effective video. If you’re questioning whether or not the video idea you have falls under any of these categories, or whether what you’re looking to create is best suited for a creative agency, a video agency, or a production company, just ask! A quick clarifying email could be the start of a great project or partnership.

Should I make videos for my business?

Does my business really need video? Ask yourself these questions to find out.

Yes, your business needs video. Although photos are great too, video can accomplish goals and add to your business in ways that other media cannot. Now, technically, your business can survive without video, but it can also thrive with it. Whether the video is a product demonstration, a behind-the-scenes of your company, an advertisement, a customer testimonial (or a combination), video can help bring your business to the next level and reach your target customers in a new way.

Video can also serve to do more than just to reach new target customer, it can inform existing ones, encourage those considering your product to convert, preemptively answer questions, assure your customers your business has integrity, provide proof that you have happy customers, demonstrate your product or service’s use case, and even, if you’re lucky, go viral. The first part of deciding to produce video is to define your desired outcomes after creating the content.

What kinds of videos should I make for my business?

1. Once you decide that you want to make a video – or multiple videos – you need to decide exactly what videos you are going to make. Working backwards from your desired outcomes will help you determine what to make. We don’t shoot product demonstrations toThere are a variety of different videos that you can create – here are a few examples.
   
   
2. Customer Testimonial Videos. These videos showcase your happy customers, as they explain why they like your product, and more importantly, why they like working with you and your business. These are extra important for businesses where customer service is a core part of your offering. Customers buy a shovel because they know it works, they buy a service because they want a good experience with the company
   
   
3. Product Demonstration. Product demonstrations are important when your product is a new type of product customers may be unfamiliar with, when you want to show off features others may not know exists, and if you want to demonstrate the ways your product is superior to competitors’ products.
   
   
4. Behind-the-scenes video. Behind the scenes videos can be good to show the high quality process that goes into making your product or service. If you have processes you’re proud of and stand behind, pull back the curtain and show your customers the care that goes into it. They can also be good for showing your company’s culture. Today’s buyers will often choose to buy from a company whose values match their own. By showing customers those values in action, you can reassure them about who they are doing business with.
   
   
5. Meet the Team video. Showcase how awesome your team is (and humanize your company) by letting your followers get to know the team members that make up your business. This can work for recruitment, but showcasing the types of colleagues a prospective employee would have. They can also serve to share expertise, if you’re a rocket company, and one of the members of your “meet the team” series is a world renowned rocket scientist, it builds customer trust.
   
   
6. Company culture videos. As an extension of your Meet the team videos, you can do fun videos like ‘a day in the life’ or other videos that showcase how awesome your company culture is – whether that’s funny clips from a Zoom meeting or a work outing. Funny & light-hearted isn’t the only way to go either, your company culture video should send a clear message to viewers about the values your company operates by. Are you a group of hard hitting, truth seeking journalists? A socially focused company with their heart on their sleeve? Each of those deserve a different video.
   
   
7. FAQ Videos. What are some commonly asked questions about your product, business, or industry? Create videos answering those questions. These can save your sales reps time, show customers that you are thoughtful, and help your business’s SEO
   
   
8. Commercial. Create an advertisement for your company.
   
   

Do some research! You’re not expected to reinvent the wheel – find videos that you think are well done, and try to emulate that type of video. You don’t want to copy it word for word, but looking at videos that other businesses have made will help you figure out what you want for yours…and just as importantly, what you don’t want to do in yours.

How do I start making videos for my business?

Once you decide what type of video you want to make, you need to actually start creating it. While there are ways to make decent videos on your own, we recommend that you start with the desired outcomes first, and then spend some time thinking about your company’s “voice. You may already have branding guidelines and a voice established. Having this voice or tone in mind will be extremely helpful for an production team. It can be helpful to find several video pieces that you like, or even things you want to be sure to avoid and share that with your production partner. Don’t worry, everyone borrows from everyone else -these are just being looked at for tone and stylistic elements, not being completely copied. Once you’ve gotten that far you can consider hiring a video production company to do the heavy lifting of bringing that creative vision to life. Before writing a script or taking things to the next step, have a call with a few production companies. They can give you an idea of timeline and how the costs may vary depending on how much of the creative process you do internally versus rely on a production partner for.

How to determine video production goals

It’s easy to say that you want to create video, and less easy to define why that is, and what you want that video to look like. To determine your video production goals, you first want to think about why you wanted to create video in the first place. The questions below should help you narrow down your reasoning and goals behind creating videos for your business. At the core though we want to determine who we want to see the video, and what we want them to do after seeing it.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

1. Where do I want this video to be posted? (It’s okay if the answer is multiple places – it likely should be!)

   
2. Social media?

   
3. Website?

   
4. Paid advertisement?

   
5. TV?

   
6. Mailed out on VHS? (don’t do this)

   
7. How long does the video need to be?

   
8. How long is my customer willing to watch?

   
9. Should there be multiple versions (lengths) of the video?

   
10. Who is this video for ? (target demo)

    
11. What message do I want to get across to viewers?

    
12. What do I want viewers to do after watching the video?