Wondering if It’s Best to Work With a Video Production Company or Handle Video Advertising Production In-House?
Let’s say your internal or external marketing team is planning a video advertising campaign and you’re like “should we do this in-house or bring in a video production company?”
Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have the vision or skills to conceptualize and write video ads?
- Do you understand video advertising strategy?
- Do you have video production experience?
- Do you understand lengths and formats?
- Is your homemade pizza as good as Pizza Hut?
And most importantly:
Are you going to get the video advertising results you need?
Just like most shrinks think everyone needs a shrink, I think everyone needs a video production company to help them sort out their video advertising goals, target demo, creative copy, production, editing and distribution.
If you know what you’re doing – go for it. Otherwise:
Here’s when It’s Best to Work with a Video Production Company
1. You Have No Idea What You’re Doing
I recently decided to make pizza for a bunch of friends – from scratch.
Although I don’t have the expertise or equipment, I figured how hard could it be?
How hot is 110 degree water to make the yeast do whatever yeast does? No idea – tap should do.
Is the yeast “foamy” enough? Is my dough “springy” yet? Um, sure.
Is aluminum foil in my oven the same as an 800 degree wood fired pizza oven?
It’s pizza! It’ll turn out just fine.
And it did – it turned out just fine – maybe a couple notches better than a slice of Wonder bread and a splash of Ragu – and not quite as good as a frozen one.
- Did I save a few bucks? Yes.
- Did it take longer than I thought? Yes.
- Were my guests impressed? Yes and also I heard talk of a Taco Bell run on the way home…
- Will they come back? Probably not.
So, if you can pull it off, great.
If not, designing a new campaign and writing and shooting your own video ads can at best do nothing for your video marketing efforts – and at worst, hurt them.
2. You’re Not Clear on Your Video Advertising Strategy
The first step of any successful video advertising campaign is to define your advertising goals and objectives.
Are you going for:
- Brand awareness?
- Engagement?
- Site traffic?
- Lead conversion?
KPIs – how do you plan to measure video advertising performance and success?
Who is your audience?
Which social media video advertising channels are you targeting?
- Snapchat
- TikTok
Which OTT video advertising channels are you targeting?
- TV – local or national
- Roku
- Hulu
- Peacock
- Pluto TV
- Tubi
- fuboTV
The best video production companies are going to work with your team to establish the goals and objectives that will determine everything else.
3. You Need Creative Ideas and Scripts That Grab Attention and Convert
Let’s say you’re good on the video marketing strategy, video production and your team can handle video editing.
Do your internal or external marketing teams have the skills to develop new and engaging video advertising concepts and write interesting, catchy copy that converts?
- Get the viewers’ attention in just a few seconds
- Establish the pain point
- Describe the product or service
- Establish the value proposition
- Differentiation
- CTA
4. You Need Help with Deciding the Best Lengths and Formats
Before you write and shoot – you need to know how long your video ads will be and in which formats you’ll present them.
The scripts will depend on the lengths.
The formats could determine how the ads are shot.
A video production company can work with your teams to decide the best video ad lengths for your objectives, depending on how they’ll be presented across social media and OTT channels.
The most common lengths are :15, :30, :60 or 2:00 or longer.
The most common formats are Horizontal – 16:9, Square – 1:1 and Vertical – 9:16.
5. You Don’t Have Proper Video Production Capabilities
Let’s say you have everything else covered, but just lack the expertise and equipment to produce the video ads.
Any top video production company is going to expertly handle all aspects of production for you:
- Storyboards based on the creative
- Casting, talent contracts
- Locations, art direction, props, wardrobe
- Production – crew and equipment
- Post production – motion graphics, FX and music
Key Takeaways on Why It’s Best to Team Up With a Video Production Company for Your Social Media and OTT Video Advertising
It’s super easy to just launch a campaign without considering all the steps and details that go into a well thought out video advertising campaign.
If your internal or external marketing teams are lacking on any of these areas, it may be best to contact a few video production companies that specialize in video advertising strategy, creative and production.
If you’re currently running video ad campaigns, look at your performance and determine if any of these areas could lead to improvements.
If so – or if you’re just getting into video advertising – give Supercool Creative Agency & Video Production Company a shout and we can talk over your next project or get you a quote!
