How To Get The Most Out Of Your Marketing Video Budget

It's no secret that video is increasingly being consumed online. In our post about creating amazing marketing videos for humans, we point out that 80% of total consumer internet traffic will be video by 2019 and when a consumer enjoys a video ad, their increase of intent to purchase goes up by 97%. 

As a marketer or business owner, you are fully aware that video has to be a part of your marketing strategy in order to increase your reach and effectiveness. But, video production costs can rack up in a hurry!

So, how do you get the most out of your marketing budget? In this post, we outline 7 tips to help keep your video budget in check. 

How To Get The Most From Your Marketing Video Budget

1. Plan Well Up Front

Poor planning is a sure fire way to let your video budget get out of control. Set your goals. Create KPIs (key performance indicators) to benchmark your success and get after it. If you don't know what you are aiming for on the front end, how will you ever know if you hit your target? 

2. Keep It Simple

Another easy way for a video budget to go well over is when the idea is too complex. In this post, we lay out 8 Steps for an Effective Brainstorming Session, and when you are brainstorming, there are no boundaries. But at some point, you need to bring those ideas down to a simple focus. Having lots of locations or complicated shots are fun, but they can also rack up your costs in a hurry. 

3. Agree On The Message

This is somewhat related to planning well up front and keeping it simple, but it's worth pointing out. Make sure EVERYONE is on board with the message of the video before production begins.

Nothing wrecks a video budget quicker than getting through video production only to find out later that it's not really the message you want to communicate. You'll either end up with a video you don't really like or have to start all over again. 

4. Use Internal Sources 

When at all possible, use what you got. Do you have locations at your office that can be used? Could someone on your team be used for the voiceover? If you can take advantage of your in-house talent and resources, this is a great way to stay within your video budget. 

5. Stick To The Plan

Ok. You've gone through pre-production meetings. You've brainstormed and kept the idea focused and simple. You've agreed on the message and script and now it's time to actually shoot the video. Hooray! It's time to celebrate, right? 

Not so fast! At this point, you'll be tempted to second guess. You'll think, "what if we just do 'x' instead?". Be careful! You're second guessing can cause a ton of extra expenditures. 

Stick to the plan. You chose this idea and message for a reason. Unless something dramatically changed and the video would make absolutely no sense at all, be sure to carry out the original plan to completion. 

6. Double Up

This tip is for those with a bit more video production experience. If your team and video production company has a record of nailing the art of planning well, keeping it simple, and creating great messages/stories with your pre-production, it's possible that you can double or even triple up to get multiple videos out of the same shoot. 

This may cost a bit more on the front end, but by leveraging locations and your video production company, you can possibly shoot multiple videos with different messages at once. 

Again, we recommend you don't try this for your first video marketing efforts. But, if you have a marketing strategy that can use a similar template for multiple videos, this can be a great way to stretch your video budget dollar. 

7. Get Creative With How You Release The Videos

Our final tip for how to get the most out of your marketing video budget is to get creative with how you use the videos. 

This is where a promotional schedule and some editing can help you leverage your videos in multiple ways. You can tease out the videos in a drip campaign over several weeks leading up to the launch. You can promote on different social platforms in a variety of ways. 

Once you have launched the video, it may live on a certain page of your website (home page, about us, services, etc.), but that's not the only place it has to live. You can experiment with different ways of using both paid and unpaid advertising, and over time, find additional opportunities to repurpose the content and point people back to the video. 

Bonus Tip: Work With A Nimble Team

One final tip is to work with a nimble team who can creatively think through how to stretch your marketing budget. 

We worked with Downy + Febreze on a marketing initiative for Daylight Savings Time that had a very tight scheduling window, and we were able to think very creatively on how to get the most out of their video budget. With 2,021,803 views and 9 million campaign impressions (and counting!), this remains one of our most successful videos.

Watch the case study below.