So you’re looking to getting a professional video made for your business, how much should it cost? It can swing wildly from ‘My friend’s niece will do it for free’ all the way up to ‘I will need to remortgage my house to be able to be able to afford that.’
But what difference is there between the two and realistically what should you be looking to pay for a high-quality business video? Watch the video below or scroll down for the written version.
What Are The Costs?
Let’s set a baseline so we know what we are talking about as different videos will involve different amounts of work.
We want a company overview video which will sit at the top of our website, telling our viewers about what we do and why they should work with us. Generally, I find these videos take one to two days to shoot and another day to edit.
Let’s get rid of the option for someone creating a video for you for free as even if it comes out terribly, all you’ve lost is time.
So the cheapest video you could get will be about £100 to £200 and you will find plenty of people offering a video at this price on sites like Fiverr.
On the very high end, you could be looking at paying £15,000 or more for a video but most video production companies will come in at £1500-£3000. So what do you get if you pay more?
Quality
The most obvious difference will be the quality, this could be the shots, editing, graphics and even the music selection.
Generally, if you are paying more it’s because you are investing in all of the knowledge that company has built up over the years such as knowing how different shots and angles will elicit different emotions in your viewer.
These are the things that you may not notice straight away but they are subliminally sending a message to your customers.
Honesty
The next thing you are paying for is honesty. What I mean by this is, if you say to a cheap video production company ‘I want a video’, they will say ‘Yep, great, let’s shoot it.’
Whereas a more expensive and experienced producer will say to you. ‘I don’t think that type of video will bring a return on your investment. Instead, you should be looking at these types of videos.’.
I’ll give you an example. I was contacted by one of my clients who is currently building a showroom for their construction company. They wanted me to come down for multiple days and make a video about the building of the showroom.
I could have taken that job and made a nice bit of money but instead, I said ‘Do you know what I think will be a better use of your money? Testimonial videos! Go into your customer’s house a few weeks after you have finished the work and get them to talk about how much better their life is now that they have a new kitchen.’.
I know that we won’t be able to film videos like this for a few months but I know a powerful testimonial is much more likely to win a lot more business and return the investment on the video than a look at their showroom being built.
Revisions
Another area to be aware of is revisions. Normally when I’m working with a client they get up to 2 rounds of revisions to their video. Video production is a very collaborative process and working in this way allows more and better ideas to flow and for the customer to get a video they are truly happy with.
Does your cheap option allow you any revisions? Are they easy to communicate with so that you can get just what you want without explaining yourself 10 times? These are all things worth considering.
Value Vs. Price
The last thing to talk about is value. It could be really easy to look at a £500 testimonial video and think ‘That’s way too expensive for one video’ but you need to work out what that video is going to bring you in the long term.
Let’s go back to the building company again. They want to move into designing and building more kitchens and each job is worth £1000 PROFIT to them after taking out all of the costs.
That means if the testimonial video gains them ONE new client they will have already doubled their invest. But if the video is promoted and used properly (something a good video production company should help you with) then you could easily use this video to win 10 new clients meaning you’ve made £9500 from a £500 video. And that’s not even taking into account the referrals from those new customers.
Average Lifetime Value
Okay but what about a smaller business like an accountant? As the business is quite straightforward you could have a business overview video made for £1500.
You charge £300 for a self-assessment which means you would need 5 new customers from your video just to make your money back, let alone start to make a profit!
Not true!
You need to be looking at the lifetime value of your customer. Just one of your customers could be with you for 10 years which takes the value up to £3000. But what if as that business grows, they become limited, need payroll and have multiple directors who need their tax calculated. I’m not an account but that is probably quite a bit of money, especially yearly.
Think Investment Not Cost
So what I’m trying to say is don’t always go for the cheapest quote. Go for the quote that you believe will get you a good return on your investment. If you only make £100 over the lifetime of your client then paying £3000 for a video isn’t worth it for you. Whereas if each client is worth £100,000 over their lifetime then paying £5,000 for a video is a good investment.
Paying more will get you a higher quality video, knowledge to tell you what works and what doesn’t and experience to accurately gauge how much your video will make for you.
Realistically, for 2021 in the south East of England which is where I am based, you should be looking to pay £1000 up for a decent video.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.