How to Make Sure You’re Hiring the Best Video Production Company
Most businesses are now aware that video is a great way to engage potential customers and clients. With excellent ROI across the media, one of the more significant challenges is finding the right production company that delivers the best.
Video marketing has many applications but it does require a relatively large outlay in time and money compared to other approaches such as social media and pay per click advertising.
Get it right and you’ll produce highly effective content that you can use for many different marketing and branding activities.
7 Tips on How to Hire a Video Production Company
So, how do you hire a video production company that meets not just your budget but also delivers an end-product that you can use and benefit from for some time to come?
As a leading video production team based in Dallas, we’ve provided our services to a wide range of businesses over the years in many different sectors. Our customers include both small and medium-size as well as large corporations and many come back to us time and again when they need new content creating.
Here we’ve put together a list of guidelines you should have in mind when you seek to hire any video production company.
1. Contract Workers vs In-house Specialists
Many modern companies of all sizes use contract workers for a reason. It means they don’t have to employ someone full-time, in-house and they can call on expertise as and when they need it paying a lower cost.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this but you need to make sure standards are being maintained across the board when hiring a company that does this.
You want your video production company to bring their A-game. If the standard drops because they’ve randomly picked a director or post-production team to handle the job, then you are not getting value for money or the quality you deserve.
Always ask any prospective video production company whether they use contracted workers, how they choose them and, more importantly, how they maintain their standards.
2. Understand Your Goals
Many businesses dive straight into video marketing without really considering what the result looks like.
It’s important to be as clear as possible about what you want to achieve, hopefully before you start reaching out to video production companies in the first place.
For example, do you want a video that is going to sit on your website or YouTube? How long do you want the content to be? If you’re planning to use social media, you may want a very short video that gets your marketing message across engagingly and succinctly.
You may want a mix of content that you can use on different media. It’s important to make sure that your video production company can deliver on these requirements and has a clear brief on what they are to achieve.
3. Checking Out the Demo Reel
Most video production companies will have a demo reel on their site. These give you an idea of the standard once your video comes out of post-production.
While it is important to ensure that the demo reel highlights the quality you expect, it’s also important not to view this in isolation. Experience also counts and it counts a great deal. You should check for the type and size of companies that the production team have worked with, how long they have been in business and what reviews and testimonials say.
4. Shopping Around
Any list on how to hire a video production company usually suggests shopping around. That doesn’t mean you should be approaching every business in your area and getting them to quote on the work you want completing, however.
Too much shopping around causes confusion and it may mean that the right video production crew who can take your marketing campaign or corporate video to the next level falls between the cracks.
Do a cursory search online first and then narrow down your shopping choice to about 3 like-for-like companies you want to approach and find out more about.
5. Get the Most Out of Your Shoot Day
There are three distinct parts to creating an outstanding video. There’s the pre-production planning where you put together a script and gather the team that is going to film the video. The last is post-production and this puts all the elements of your video together with sound and titles so that it is ready to upload online.
In between these two stages is the day of shooting. Ideally, you want to get as much value for money out of the shoot as possible. It’s important, for example, to realize that there will be a lot of footage that isn’t going to be used in the final video.
- What are you going to do with this?
- How can your video production company help you get an even better ROI with this additional content?
That’s why it’s important to choose a team that not only works with you to set up the big day but also wants you to get involved as much as possible. That way you can make sure not a moment of filming time is wasted.
6. Good Communication
This might seem an obvious characteristic when hiring the best video production company but it’s worth emphasizing. Above all you want clarity. You don’t want a company that is unable to explain or doesn’t want your input at each stage of the development process.
This is particularly important in post-production. The team should ask about your editing requirements. You might, for instance, just want the video company to do the shoot and then mail the content in the right format to your in-house team for editing.
You also want a video production team that has open communication and is honest about what can be achieved on the budget that you have. They should take the time to find out what your needs are and be aware of your priorities and won’t compromise the standards that are agreed upon.
Essentially, good communication makes life easier and it’s important to have that relationship with your video production team from the very beginning.
7. Building a Long Term Relationship
Finally, you should choose a video production company that you can build a long-term relationship with. It’s important when you’ve found the right team to start looking to the future and planning further video content as it’s going to become increasingly vital in marketing activity.
Work with the production team to explore new ideas, find out whether they can deliver what you may be looking for next and further down the line and discuss how the process might be tailored to provide more regular content.
If you are trying to figure out how to hire the best video production company, we hope these quick tips are enough to get you started. If you would like to find out how Kinter.Media can take your video marketing to the next level, contact our talented team today.
