Set a Realistic Budget
Once you’ve defined your audience and your message, you need to set your budget. Failing to work out the financial costs during pre-production is a good way to inadvertently go over budget. Plus, vagueness means that it’s impossible to manage expectations.
There are some elements of video creation which are going to be more costly than others. If you don't have a plan and don't know what you want for the outcome, you may end up hiring a video production team that either under delivers or ends up costing you more.
Finding the Right Video Production Team
If you are going to shoot your own video with your own equipment, look for a video production team that offers a monthly video production service. If you want explainer videos created, work with a team who can help you storyboard.
If you're thinking of cutting costs by whipping up a quick video on your smartphone with your employees as cast and crew, keep in mind that when it comes to brand perception, a poor-quality video may be worse than no video at all. There are things to consider like lighting, editing, music, thumb-nails, call to actions and more that can really make a difference. Don’t get me wrong. An educational video on your smart phone is not a bad thing. You just want to make sure you have some guidance through the process and spend the money to have it professionally edited ad produced if you don’t have the know how.
Create a Video Marketing Budget
If you don’t already have a video marketing line item in your budget, you should add it. Seriously, cut something else. Video is really that important. Especially long term. I have seen loan originators get leads from videos they posted on YouTube five years ago. Video’s last and if you are posting on YouTube, they get seen by people who are looking for answers to their questions.
The benefit of working with a good video production team is that they value their work and will produce good videos for you. Or they should anyway. If you can find a video production team that has a background in the mortgage industry, even better. (Yes, that was a shameless plug, but we’ve created everything we do out of a need in the industry, and we LOVE helping our loan originator clients create educational content videos!)
