Considering that 82% of professional marketers say that video has had a very positive effect on their marketing campaigns and strategies, why would people not want to use video to promote themselves? Part three of our blog series on video marketing trends in 2013 will be looking at why people are not using video, and why this may be a mistake.
According to the 2013 Online Video Marketing Survey and Business Video Trends Report published by the Web Video Marketing Council, ReelSEO and Flimp Media, there are a few factors that hold people back from investing in video for marketing purposes. These include the cost of video production, the difficulty of producing quality video content, and the challenge of integrating it into marketing programs. I hope to show by the end of this post that these issues can be dealt with easily by most businesses.
The Cost of Video Production
First of all, the cost of video production has dropped substantially in recent years due to technological advancement. It has never been more cost-effective to get high-quality video than it is right now. When DSLR cameras became popular with the public, and people realised that they could get high-quality video from cameras that were affordable, an entire generation of new filmmakers and videographers were inspired to change the industry.
Our company was born of that generation. Without the availability of low-cost camera equipment we would never have been able to get started in 2011 with the little money that we had to invest in our company. Coming from this background, we made a point of always keeping our pricing affordable and transparent. It’s one of the reasons we built a pricing estimator into our site, ensuring that potential customers would always have an idea of cost when approaching us.
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Another way to look at the cost of video production is in terms of cost-to-use. If you spend a lot of money on flyers and billboards, or other forms of more traditional advertising, you will have a limited return on that investment. Eventually the flyers run out, or the billboards are replaced. But not with video. Once you have it, you keep it. It can be shared and viewed a limitless number of times, and has a proven track record of success. This may be one of the reasons that video marketing budgets have increased every year since 2011.
The Difficulty of Producing High Quality Video
After cost of production, the second highest concern was the difficulty of producing quality video content. There is a mixed economy of video content generally being produced by businesses now. A lot of companies will create short videos without the use of an external supplier with expertise in this area, as sometimes a glossy, high-quality video isn’t needed. Examples of this are when introducing a new member of the team, or providing a quick update on the company. However, a short video made by a company with no experience in video production can actually be more damaging to a companies image, when used at the wrong time. Examples of when to bring in professionals include when showing off a new product or service, when you need to look your best. Anything that people are likely to watch to find out who you are and what you do should always be done to the highest standard.
When you are working with a team who understand how to produce high-quality video, the difficulty of doing so is removed. With the right team you can communicate your needs and let them come back to you with an idea and what they need to do the best job possible. To ensure that you find the right company for you, I recommend watching as many examples of a companies work as you can find. I recently wrote a short blog post on why you shouldn’t waste money on bad video production, that may give some further insight into the value of finding the company that is right for you.
The Challenge of Integrating Video into Marketing Programs
Finding the right company for you is the first step into integrating video effectively into your marketing programs. But also, it helps to be aware of what others are using video for. In our next blog post we’ll be talking about what people tended to use video for in 2013. Hopefully that may help give you a few ideas of your own!
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