When the Cameras Roll, Make the Most of it

Dear Early Light:

“… I’m already sold on the idea of website video, but how can I pitch this idea to my clients so they’ll feel that their marketing money is well spent?

BB

Dear BB,

Website video production has its price tag; it can go up or down, depending on what you need and the quality you require. Typically, the priciest item in your budget is the day you start the cameras rolling. If you average the hourly costs of each part your project - pre-production, production and post – you’ll see a big spike on the days you schedule a crew, rent equipment, book sets or locations. And let’s not forget that mighty budget buster, feeding everyone. 

For this reason we pay a lot of attention to planning a shoot. One way to make those costlier days pay off is to plan to shoot more than one video.

You’ve noticed that short is good on the web. You don’t want a video running more that 10 minutes. One or two minutes is better. Think of your website as a garden: design it well and plant little gems to vary and attract interest. A selection of short videos with rich and distinctive content will enhance your copy and increase your user’s engagement

So on shooting days, if you can schedule your principle website video with time to spare, piggyback several more onto it and make the most of your paid crew, already comfortably parked, probably fed and primed to roll at your location. The idea is to create several videos, each with unique content and specific payoff. 

For example, let’s say you want to introduce your business and you plan to shoot on location. Here are a few add-ons you might consider: 

• A series of how-to’s, tips or advice pieces


• A series of product demonstrations or exercises


• A walk-through of your facility, introducing partners, employees


• Individual employee demonstrations of what they do, comments


• Time-lapse of a key, central space; a product being built


• Clients willing give on-camera testimonials


• Viral: Funny, toss-off comments; your CEO doing a tap dance.

Each of these items could be edited as a stand-alone video or a featured website series you can rotate and update often. In addition, edited together these items could become a longer video to use beyond the web. For example: a special event presentation, a DVD promotional giveaway or a video loop to play at your trade-show booth.

So if you’re ready to move beyond asking your intern to shoot video on the fly, make the most of what you spend. Plan. Diversify. Repurpose. You can stretch quality video far.

Have any ideas on ways to maximize the cost of a video shoot? We want to hear from you!

Related blogs: Video Pulls Traffic to Your Website and Tune Up Your Website to Play Far and Wide

Comments

[Kathleen Whiteside]

This is really informative! I really liked how you identified all the costly items, and how to prepare for a shoot. Thanks a lot. I am sending this to my client, so he can see what kinds of brains are at work at Avocado video. I also liked your thinking about the different ways to use video. Those of us who grew up in a print world (ahem!) forget the many options that are open. I'll keep checking!