You’ve all heard about video marketing by now; it’s everywhere, and it works. There are many great examples of videos in marketing, from high-end commercials with budgets similar to feature films to short, amateur-made videos that went viral overnight and completely changed some companies forever.

With the rise of video marketing and technology advancements, most notably the quality of cameras in our phones, there’s a lot of different options on how to approach commercial video production. And since we noticed some confusion in terms of what to expect from each option, we decided to explain the differences between differentvideo service providers and which way to choose depending on your budget and skillset.

Choosing the right video partner is important, and if you want to avoid any friction during production, unnecessary costs, or missed deadlines, you must know what to expect from each.

1. DIY

The first option is to do the video by yourself. This is the cheapest option; simply use your smartphone and record the video or use the camera if you have access to one. Making videos by yourself is great if you are using them to build authenticity or social proof for your product, especially for the consideration stage of the funnel. You only need a smartphone and some basic editing skills to create video content carrying your desired message

The pros of such an approach are low budget and the authenticity of the content, as people will mostly recognize you made it yourself. And since we’re so used to seeing this kind of video every day on social media, a lot of times your video ad will perfectly blend in with other organic content, improving the views and recall of the people watching it.

Note that in this case, you are in charge of pre-production, shooting, and theneven postproduction. It might take you a lot of time to finish it, depending on your existing video and editing skills. The result in the end probably won’t be the highest level of quality, that’s why we don’t recommend using such commercial videos on product pages and websites or in the awareness stage of the funnel.

Freelancer are a great option when you know exactly what you want, and need somebody to help you do it.

2. HIRE A FREELANCER

Hiring a freelancer is a good idea if you have a low budget and a good idea ofwhat do you want, but need some help to do it. Freelancers will usually take care of shooting and editing for you, but you have to do most of the pre-production work by yourself, like location scouting and talent casting. Keep and mind that freelancers are usually specializing only in video production, so they might not be able to assist you with the marketing aspect of your project, like choosing the right format or message of the video. It’s on you to set the right specifications for the video and up to them to make it happen. But it’s a good »cost-effective« solution.

The rates freelancer charges you can vary, that’s why we suggest getting multiple offers from different providers. Not all of them will offer you the same level of involvement, have the same gear available, etc. Find the one that makes you feel like it’s the perfect match for you and what you want to do.

3. PRODUCTION COMPANY

Production companies consist of multiple professionals, all specialized in different areas of video production. First, they have producers who are making sure the rest of the crew members are doing what they are supposed to do, getting all the permits ready, setting up meetings, and arranging everything necessary to execute the shoot. Then you have people specializing in set design, light technicians, camera operators, and crew in charge of the audio. They are all led by the director and director of photography while on set.

After the shooting is done, the work gets split between editors, audio and color mixers and if the project requires it, a team of visual artists taking care of CGI.

Like you can imagine, videos made by such companies are expensive, but usually at the highest level of quality. Most productions will offer also creative development of your video at the beginning, but it’s again up to you to make sure the brief you give them matches your marketing strategy.

And that leads us to our 4th and final option:

4. MARKETING AGENCY

An agency won’t take the approach of starting with the video and work from there, but will rather take one step back and try to look at the bigger picture. Does your video have a valid strategy? What other elements of your campaign need to be done to get the most of out this video? Once we have those answers, we can start working on the video production plan and developing the idea of the video. Similar to production companies the agencywill also handle the whole project for you, but the price might be higher because it won’t include just the video production service but everything elseneeded to deliver your project, like landing pages, media buy, etc.

In summary, different types of videos can be done with different approaches. 

DIY and freelancers are great options for smaller businesses and if the video strategy allows it in some cases even for bigger ones. Hiring a production company or an agency to take care of commercial video production on the other hand might be better for established companies who have to pay attention to their brand image or can’t afford to release semi-professional content as part of their marketing. Even for smaller companies who aim to sell expensive products is recommended to invest in professional video services, because the difference in the quality of videos made by yourself or freelancers and production companies/agencies are notable, to say the least.