THE COST OF MAKING VIDEOS: PART 1

By Michael Goldstein 

In the world of video marketing, the options are vast, the pricing confusing, and the results at times are hard to measure.  In addition to all this, there are more video production companies to work with then there are Christmas flavored lattes, and they are all promising you the same thing; “We make the best videos.”

Yet, despite the similarity in claim from one company to the next, you might find while shopping for a video production one thing seems to change considerably, cost.  Where does this magic number come from?  Is someone trying to rip you off?  Does this company make crap videos?

I cannot speak for all video production companies, but in an attempt to de-mystify cost of production, I thought it would be helpful to go over the basic things that can raise, or lower the cost of making videos.  In this series of blog posts I will break down individual things to consider regarding keeping your shoot in budget.

Length: 
Whenever a client asks me how long their video should be, my answer is always the same- As long as it needs to be, and not a second longer.  Unless you are working within a television commercial time constraint, web videos really have no limit. So, why not talk it up?  You have a great product or service, so let’s do a song and dance for the next hour, throw it up on You Tube, and let the people see your business for the glory that it is!  Problem is, it is very unlikely people will stick around to watch the whole thing.  And if they can see the total running time of the video is long, it might turn them off to watching it at all!

Brevity is key, especially with promotional videos.  Keeping your video production short and sweet can not only save you money, but it will increase the likelihood that a potential customer or client will watch the video all the way through and get your message across to them.  After all, if a video falls in the woods, and no one is around to see it, does it really make a difference?