6 things to consider before hiring a video production company.

Video is an extremely effective way to get a message across to market your business or brand. But before you approach a video production company, it is vital that you ask yourself some key questions. These will be useful to help guide the process and make sure everything is planned out beforehand so the video has the best chance of success.

Here are some questions a professional video production team is likely to ask.

1. What is the purpose of the video?

The first question to consider relates to what the overall motivation is and the reasoning behind wanting to create video content. More importantly, they will want to know what you are trying to achieve.

• Is it to inform, entertain or educate?
• Are you trying to raise brand awareness?
• Are you attempting to build trust with new website visitors?
• Are you looking to train new customers or staff?
• Is it to raise your sales conversion rate?

Every video needs a business outcome – and the more this is defined, the easier it will be for any video production company to design a video that works best for you.

2. Who is your target audience?

It’s not just about who you are talking to; it’s also very important to define exactly who those people watching the videos are. You shouldn’t focus on everyone, and instead, identify the specifics of the audience you are trying to target.

• What do they want?
• How old are they?
• Where do they live?
• What do they care about or relate to?
• Do they belong to a certain group or industry?
• Having a clear understanding of who you should be communicating with will help video production companies find ways to engage that particular audience, and encourage them to take action. This will affect how they approach the style and feel of your video.
• Does it need to be a more professional style or video or does it need to be fun and quirky?
• What colours or images do they relate to?
• Does the tempo of the editing need to be fast or slow?
• Does the cinematography and lighting need to be dramatic or soft and natural?

3. What is the project time frame?

You might think this is an obvious one but when video production companies ask this, it is quite common for clients to not have even thought about it. This gives video professionals a good idea of when things need to happen, like shoot dates and edit deadlines. They need to know this to see if they can fit you in and if the project is feasible within that timeframe and your budget. An average time for a smaller video project can be 2 – 6 weeks, however, this will depend on the scope of the project.

4. Have you come up with a budget?

Most video professionals expect you to be able to provide this information early on in the process, particularly if they are a video production company with a fixed-cost model. Video production companies want to see you succeed and they will try to make your project work within the budget. This may mean that you may have to make some compromises on your original idea if your budget is too low. Knowing what you want to spend on your video gives them an idea of the level of resources that they will be able to dedicate to the project. Even If you don’t know what an average video production costs it is still a good idea to have a number in mind of how much you would like to invest.

5. What is your distribution plan?

A video is only as strong as its distribution and it’s important to have a think about where your video might be published and how it’s going to be seen by your audience.

• Are you looking to put it on your website?
• Do you want to share it on your social media networks?
• Will you be putting it on a TV channel or publishing it through a cinema network?
• Will it be used on a landing page or in a sales funnel?
• Do you intend to drive traffic through online or social media advertising?

It’s okay if you don’t know the answer to this question right away. A good video strategist will help you to develop a distribution plan as the last thing they want to happen is for your video not to be seen.

6. How do you measure success?

This is the most important question that needs to be answered. You should know exactly how you’re going to measure the success of your video from the very start.

• How will you test if your video is increasing conversions?
• Is there an increase in traffic to your website?
• Have sales increased because of your video?
• Have you reached your target audience?
• Is there a particular time frame in which you want to see results?

By answering these questions, video production companies can figure out if they can achieve the things that are important to YOU. It will also help them determine where they should devote their resources.

Conclusion

No matter how good your idea is, if you don’t have these things planned out ahead of time or at least thought about, video production companies may not be able to create the video that you envisioned. By mapping out your video strategy and doing your research, your video will have a better chance of success and deliver a higher ROI.