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19 The Dos and Don'ts of Video Marketing for Small Businesses
227 Plays2 years ago
Listen, we don't do video production, and there's a good reason for it. It's a lot of work, and in today's marketplace it's multidimensional and as critical as ever. So we're talking to Todd Vaske, a longtime video producer, about the why questions: Why is video so important in 2023? What does it take to build a video campaign? Most importantly, what is a food stylist?
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Dial It In Podcast is where we gathered our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
Links:
Website: dialitinpodcast.com
BizzyWeb site: bizzyweb.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Dial It In Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of Busy Web, and every week, Trigby Olsen and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
Meatloaf's Song and Its Transition to Oldies
00:00:24
Speaker
Dave, do you remember that really great song called I Do Anything For Love, But I Won't Do That?
00:00:31
Speaker
I remember. And it was Meatloaf, if I remember. Yeah, it was Meatloaf. So first of all, it's terrible because now these songs that I like that were on my iPod back when I had an iPod now are on the oldie station. Number two is I've been listening to these songs by my eight year old and he listened and I listened to that song in the car and he said, boy, that guy doesn't really want to do anything.
00:00:55
Speaker
which kind of got me thinking of all the things that I don't really want to do. I don't really want to fold my laundry. The famous joke about you, Dave, is Dave doesn't do details. But one of the things that we talk about at Busy Web all the time is we don't do video.
Meet Todd Vaskey: Videography Expertise
00:01:14
Speaker
And that's something that more and more people are asking all the time.
00:01:19
Speaker
So in that respect, I thought maybe we should talk about why we don't do video. We don't do video because it's hard and it needs an expert to do it. So our guest today is an expert in the field of videography. It's our good friend Todd Vaskey from Agile Video. Hey, Todd. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. Welcome. That was normally something where I actually let Dave talk, but I just kind of went off on my own there.
00:01:45
Speaker
It's all good. It's all good. I will say this, I was not expecting any meatloaf references today. I think this podcast is already worth it. Any day without a meatloaf reference is a day wasted in my book. Todd, tell us about Agile Video and tell us about you.
Todd's Journey in Video Production
00:02:06
Speaker
We know you as a longtime friend of the show, but for those who are listening, tell us about Agile.
00:02:11
Speaker
Sure. An Agile video evolved after 20-some years of me being in the industry, and I will freely admit I used 20 years to do research on how to create my own company.
00:02:24
Speaker
And so I've worked at various production companies throughout the country, including working for Food Network. So kind of been able to jump around and do a lot of different things. And as I was doing that, I was making notes. I'm like, okay, that's something I should remember on how to do if I start my own company. And that's something that I, ooh, make sure, take a note, don't do that. And because, you know, that, that has consequences.
00:02:49
Speaker
And so after about 20 years of working for other people, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to give this, give this video production company thing a shot on my own. And so I took that leap of faith in 2019, you know, sure enough, the pandemic hit it out, but hey.
00:03:04
Speaker
I had my best year in sales basically every year since then, and it's just helping people understand video. I'm one of those producers that won't say you need video for everything. I'm also one of those producers that will say, you know, that's a great idea, but you can do it yourself.
00:03:21
Speaker
I know I'm babbling here, but I always like to say I got my start in video because the first thing is I went to school at St. Cloud State to get into radio. The professor said, everybody, if you're here to be in radio, get ready for a minimum wage career. I immediately went across the hall and went into TV and that's how I got into it. Fantastic. Well, Todd, it's great to have you on.
00:03:49
Speaker
One of the things that we get from our customers at BusyWeb all the time is, or when we're talking about video, is, you know, where do I begin or what do I do? And, you know, what's a decent resolution? What can I expect, right? And so,
00:04:07
Speaker
I know that you offer a number of different video services, so if you were talking to a small business that wanted to either tell a story or to stand out from the crowd, which are probably the easiest ways or the biggest strengths of video, if you were talking to one of those small business owners,
00:04:30
Speaker
Where would you start in the conversation on how to create a compelling story and video? Sure. The first thing is, number one, I always say if you don't know this, you're not ready for videos. You have to know your
Understanding Audience in Video Production
00:04:44
Speaker
audience. Who is this video for? Because you can go out and create the most elaborate type of video with all the bells and whistles. But if you didn't know who your audience was and it doesn't hit the right people, it's going to flop.
00:04:59
Speaker
So that's first and foremost. And then the second thing is, okay, you know who your audience is. Where is it going to live? You know, it's really important to know upfront, is this going to be, you know, LinkedIn? Is it going to be, you know, TikTok? Is this going to be Instagram, your website? You have to know all those things because videos on each of those platforms tend to be, tend to be different
00:05:22
Speaker
whether it's content related or whether it's even if it's vertical or horizontal. So if you don't know your audience, then I say, then let's hold off. Let's get that in order first because doing a video for a teenager in the Midwest, for example, is a lot different than, say, doing a video for a group of engineers at a medical manufacturing company. So you just have to make sure you know that. Perfect. Thank you.
00:05:52
Speaker
So if somebody comes to you and says, I want to do a video, where do you take them from there?
Refining Target Audience and Messaging
00:05:57
Speaker
All right. So, yep. I start off, you know, what is your audience and who is your audience? Yeah. Usually they've got it. Now, if you say everybody, I say, okay, let's narrow that down. Let's make sure. Cause that's, that's not a, that is a, not an appropriate answer.
00:06:12
Speaker
I want to pause on your narrative because I think you bring up a really good point because that's something that we get all the time, too, is when we say, you know, who's your target market, people say, oh, anybody. And unless you're a food lover warmth, you know, you don't really have an everybody market play or the Beatles, I guess, maybe.
00:06:34
Speaker
Why is that important to, if you excuse the pun, dial that in? Take for example, let's just say you put this video out there and your ultimate goal is to get new customers. You put it out there and it gets 10 million hits.
00:06:52
Speaker
and you get zero new customers. Well, great. I mean, you're winning the internet, but you're not winning new customers. Whereas if you put it out there and you get 500 views, but you end up with 15 new customers, what's a better return for you? What are you trying to do that guides the, who are you doing this video for and how you do it, guides how you bring in those viewers to become actual customers?
00:07:22
Speaker
Great, okay, sorry. So yes, my target market is everybody, and then what does your prospect say? If they say it's everybody, I usually say, okay, how do you message when you say everybody? Let's say I know it's an engineering firm, for example. I usually know the industry that I'm talking to right away, and I'll say things like, okay, so if you get a 15-year-old girl in Montana to watch this, does that help your business?
00:07:53
Speaker
And they usually say, no. And I just kind of start walking through, you know, how just having them come to grips with that. Okay. I do need to, to narrow this down. I mean, I've, I've actually, I've turned down a couple of videos when I knew I was, it was just wasn't going to work because if your audience is everybody, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be successful.
00:08:14
Speaker
And you're not going to be happy with my work because you're going to get, you might get tons of views, for example, but it's not going to do what you ultimately want it to do so.
00:08:23
Speaker
I know that's probably not the most helpful answer, but everybody has a market. Nike has a market. They're not trying to get my dad as one of their customers. I do as well. For example, I don't do weddings.
00:08:45
Speaker
You can call me for those, but I don't do those. So I will, but I can refer you. Much like Maitla, if you don't do that. Nope. Yep. I would do, you know, anything, but I won't do that. Nope.
00:08:59
Speaker
Amazing. As you're talking through your client, they have their ideal audience. The fact that video is such a visual medium and includes 3D space with everybody being able to grab their phone and start shooting
00:09:16
Speaker
one of the things that really separates true professional video is the ability to tell a story. So how do you walk your customers through the storytelling process? Like, do you, do you come with templated shot lists or, you know, encourage them to do a script or what, what does that storytelling process look like? Oh, absolutely. That storytelling is right now, I mean, the hottest way to, to, um, get,
00:09:43
Speaker
people to watch your videos, to get new customers they don't want to be sold to. To answer your question about a templated way, not necessarily. I think that's where the professionals can come in. I feel like when a producer calls you up and you want to talk video, you've got to start asking the right questions about, okay, what is your video about?
The Importance of Planning and Audio Quality
00:10:06
Speaker
I'll use an example for testimonials. Those are big types of videos right now.
00:10:11
Speaker
And my recommendation is, okay, you bring on your customer. Let's hear about them. Who are they? What do they do? What kind of company do they own? I give them 50% to 60% of the time up front to tell their story. And then the last 40% is them saying, okay, this is how that company helped me out. And to me, that brings the viewer in because you're hearing a story and I can relate.
00:10:39
Speaker
to that story. If they come in and just go, company X helped me do this and this and then company X did this and company X did that, it becomes a commercial. I might think, oh, this is a relative or an owner of that company. But if you can establish somebody's just a relatable story behind it. So I ask a lot of questions. To answer your question is I'll answer your question with the questions. Perfect.
00:11:09
Speaker
Well, are there different kinds of videos that a lot of people are asking for right now? Like in our business, a lot of people say, well, I need a brochure website or I need a lead generator or I need an e-commerce site. So what are the kinds of things that people are really making right now? You know, you get a lot of different types of requests. I mean, testimonial is probably one of the first ones that I'm just getting a lot more of those coming in. I get a lot of the, I want to show how my
00:11:37
Speaker
product or service works. And for something like that, when you say, you know, where's the story behind that? I want to take, okay, if you have, let's say you have some software that does some really fun things. I don't talk about the features. I talk about how does it make your life, your customer's life.
00:11:57
Speaker
So that's another one is just kind of explain, they're, they're called explainer videos. I'm kind of over that term because it's kind of an older term, but I will say still doing this, it goes back to, you know, when did the company start using video training videos? Those, that's probably one of the most popular ways for me that ways to use video because you can use them obviously for training, but they're also great marketing videos. I mean, think about when people go to YouTube, what do they do? They,
00:12:25
Speaker
type in how do I change the oil in my lawnmower, that type of stuff. And that's a training video. You might not think about it, but a whole lot of what YouTube is is training videos. And there just happened the other day, well, towards the end of the fall, bike chain broke on my bike. I don't know how to fix things. I'm the least mechanical person in the world. So I went to the YouTube and typed in, how do I change this?
00:12:53
Speaker
and found out, of course, I needed a new chain. The video was from Trek, so where did I end up? I was at the Trek bike shop. That bike shop didn't even put that together, but Trek did and drove me right to there. So that training video made me a customer of theirs. So I would say that's, you know, behind testimonials, that's probably the second biggest type of video I get requests for. And then the other one that, you know, just those social media ones, which that, you know, that's a broad term
00:13:21
Speaker
But, you know, just people wanting to put out content. I use those HubSpot would be an example of loving those just content type videos. Those are the top ones, testimonials, how to, you know, just showing off your product and social media. So, okay, you get through that part of the process and then there's like, okay, Todd, I'm going to have you do this video. What all goes into actually shooting a video?
00:13:51
Speaker
It's not just you with a camera, is it? No. First and foremost, I'm the producer so I'm not the one that's actually going out and running the camera, but I'm there.
00:14:06
Speaker
It's a loaded question because there are some instances where you know It can just be one person going around like if it's an event and I have a shot list of Who's you know what to shoot? You could send somebody out and you could do that in certain instances, but it's all about the planning That's to me. You're right that you you can't it's not just sending somebody and going you really need to know What you want to capture for the video
00:14:32
Speaker
Otherwise, you're doing this buckshot approach and it always will come back that somebody will go, hey, did you get this? No, I didn't. We weren't planning it. So if you go through and plan it, you're right. It could be as small as a producer and a videographer on site.
00:14:57
Speaker
I do prefer to go on location as opposed to studios because I think it creates, for corporate type videos, because I think it just creates a better environment, a more natural, more authentic environment. But yeah, I mean, depending on what you're doing, I just lined up a shoot to do where all we're doing is getting a shot of a product. Well, this product is a little bit larger than a Jefferson bus and they wanted it shot in a studio.
00:15:23
Speaker
And I mean, so now we're talking, you need a giant studio, which costs money.
00:15:29
Speaker
It's not for lighting. That's not just me helping out the videographer getting lights. We were talking big, heavy lights up in the ceiling. So now we need at least two people to do that. I mean, just for safety reasons, you need people for that. We needed a camera assist person because those shot lists was just so, just to make sure we were capturing everything we needed. So there was just all...
00:15:55
Speaker
I would say the amount, the video costs go up with the amount of professionals you bring in. That's kind of how I, when people ask, oh, what makes the cost of a video go up? And it just, usually it's the number of professionals you bring it in. So yeah, that's kind of a roundabout answer, but hopefully I answered your question.
00:16:14
Speaker
I love it. That's exactly what I think we're looking for because our listeners need to know what to expect. Let's go into some examples if we could. The thing bigger than a Jefferson bus is fascinating. Tell us about some of the challenges that you've had shooting over your career, either some real challenges or maybe some unexpected shots.
00:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, you talked about being part of the Food Network. How do you shoot food? Oh my goodness, yeah. You know what, again, that one I was pretty lucky because we would oftentimes have a food stylist on that shoot. But we were... Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, you're not going to run by that. The supplement and everything? What is a food stylist? Where can I send my resume?
00:17:05
Speaker
No, that, you know, a food stylist, if you can get that gig, that's probably the greatest gig you ever have.
What Does a Food Stylist Do?
00:17:10
Speaker
They're the ones that basically make the food so you can't eat it. They make it look really good. So, you know, let's say, you know, what you think might be pudding might be have, you know, brown spray paint on it or something like that. So they're the ones that, you know, if you literally, I mean, I still do a lot of food work. If you just take food and put it in front and you
00:17:28
Speaker
Shoot it and oftentimes does not look appetizer. Yeah, so you do need to but they're you know They're tricks and things like that to make things look good. So yeah food network was I was a blast It was a lot of fun got to meet a lot of a lot of fun people got to ride in a car with Mario Andretti That was that was pretty cool. But some of the I have to but that's why I drive when Dave and I go to lunch
00:17:53
Speaker
Dave's terrifying to ride in a car with. Yeah. No, I mean, challenges are often environmental. I honest to goodness swear there is somebody hired to run a leaf blower and follow me around.
00:18:08
Speaker
And wait right until we start the interview. Everything is just fine. And then honest to goodness, it happens. I can be in the middle of nowhere. And all of a sudden, there's somebody blowing leaves somewhere. So it's environmental. If you're in an office, you're rolling great. And phones start ringing, that type of thing. So I always have to warn people, if we're coming into the office, we have to listen for audio.
00:18:37
Speaker
some people forget that audio is actually more important than the actual video you're seeing if you think about it i'll use that on youtube for example i'm using my same how to change the oil in a
00:18:51
Speaker
Lawnmower I went to one done by a very popular brand and it was all used the this brands tool and this brands oil Whatever I skipped over that when I found some guy that shot one on his phone and he kept dropping his phone and Yeah, but his information was better and his narrative was better the audio was better So that's the that's the video I used if you use I've done some really limited
00:19:20
Speaker
research and having like audiences watch a video that's got perfect audio and kind of suspect footage and then that same video with really good footage and then maybe the audio is over modulated or something like that and they always take the perfect audio over the perfect video. So that's from what I've witnessed over the years. So that's another thing I always just want to make sure you're you know your audio is if you're recording sound
00:19:48
Speaker
Like we're doing here, if your audio is not great, people are going to go, huh? And then more than likely click it off. So it gets tiresome. And I, I love that you queued on audio because we all have these beautiful HD cameras in our hands that we make calls on and stuff. But the big difference between a great.
00:20:11
Speaker
video even at the amateur level and a mediocre or a terrible video seems to be how far away the person is from the camera when they're talking or if they have an external microphone. Do you have any tips or tricks for folks that want to capture good audio? What should they do? What's what's table stakes for hardware if you want to have a good looking video but also and more importantly as you said a great sounding video.
00:20:41
Speaker
Sure. Are you talking if somebody wants to do it themselves or if they're hiring? Yeah. I'm taking this as a twofer. We're talking to you as the expert on what makes a good video from the producer standpoint. Of course, the entire undercurrent of this is, hey, dummy, you should probably go to an expert. You need to talk to Todd at Agile Video. Sure. As far as I'm concerned, if you're doing a video on your own and you're using your phone,
00:21:09
Speaker
If you can, you know, there's hundreds of just inexpensive if you just have any kind of microphone and you're putting out it's going to be better than if you're, you know, just kind of, you know, holding it here and you and I talking, it's just gonna. So, you know, I don't, I freely admit as the producer, I am not a technical, you know,
00:21:31
Speaker
I don't eke out over stuff. My philosophy on gear and equipment is I'll bring on the people and it's the people using it as opposed to the product because I think if you're good at what you do, you can make almost anything work. But you do need to have that microphone and listening to it. If you can have the microphone on and headphones just to make sure if it's crisp in your headphones,
00:21:55
Speaker
I think the bar is actually pretty low when it comes to audio. I know Dave and I both have the same mic and I paid, I think, $100 for mine on Amazon. And that was pre-pandemic before everybody needed a microphone and everybody needed a camera. But it's not just that because even after you've done those things and you've storyboarded it, you've gone out to the client location, you've shot it,
00:22:26
Speaker
You don't just turn everything over. You've got to edit it. You've got to sound mix it. So what happens next in the process?
00:22:33
Speaker
All right, so yeah, that's my favorite part of the process is putting it together. And I do a lot of what I do, our interview-based type videos. Those are my favorite. I just love hearing, getting people's answers. I love taking what they've said and creating that story. And one of the challenges I put on myself all the time is if I can take that video and not use any voiceover to tie anything together. If I've done my job properly and asking the right questions,
00:23:03
Speaker
getting the right responses if I don't have to use any voiceover, if I can just take whatever somebody said and string it together. So for agile video, we do, let's just say it's one of those interview type-based videos. I already have an outline of how I want the video to go that can always change. Once I'm doing the interview, it's more than likely something else comes out of it like, oh, that's great. But what I'll do is I get all of my footage transcribed
00:23:32
Speaker
So I've got what everybody said and it's on paper and I use a service for that. Then I put the script together. By what they said, okay, I can put this together. It's just a puzzle and I absolutely love doing that.
00:23:49
Speaker
Once I get it to where I think it needs to be, I always start with just the content. I don't even put the visuals on the script to start with because to me, content is
From Script to Screen: Video Content Creation
00:24:02
Speaker
king. That's the most important thing. Do we have your message through? I'll send that off to the client. Sometimes they're really good at understanding it. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Sometimes I send it to them and I always say, let's have a phone call and we can walk through this.
00:24:18
Speaker
That's usually what's needed because you see these words on a script, but it's just understanding what they mean. I'll walk them through, go, okay, person A said this and we're trying to get, this is the narrative we're trying to get. This is the messaging we're trying to do. Okay, I see that. I see that. Then it's always collaborative. I use the phrase, hey, I know video, but you know your customer. It has to be a back and forth because I can think this sounds absolutely great. Look at Todd, nobody cares about that.
00:24:49
Speaker
Okay, I do, but you know, I'm not that teenager in Montana that you're looking for. So okay, I'm so sure of effort. So I always lock in the content first with a script and then I go through and
00:25:03
Speaker
fill in the visuals, whether it's taking still shots or just video description of what's going to be shown. And usually I'll send it to the client, but they're going to just want to see it. That's more for the editor. So that's kind of my process to get the script done.
00:25:26
Speaker
then, you know, edit. I'm not a huge guy in that. I don't believe in like, here's just a rough cut that's all messy and doesn't make sense because more than likely,
00:25:38
Speaker
especially if it's a new person to video, they're going to say, well, this is really sloppy. This is too. Our web development team, before the content's done is they'll put in Latin for placeholders so that you can get an idea of where the content's going to go and what it's going to look like. I would say nine times out of 10, if a client pushes and says, no, I want to see it,
00:26:05
Speaker
and you send them, and it's called Lorem Ipsum. Nine times out of 10, what's their response, Dave? What's this? Why is all of my website content misspelled? This is terrible. Why is it in a foreign language? I don't even speak that language. I know. It's not a fully baked cake. Just understand that. I've been there. I thought that I was supposed to send off rough cuts and I've done that twice.
00:26:34
Speaker
My career I just you know what let's get it to a point I like to send that first one off and you know what if it's good enough and they like it or if it's you know You can download and let's go and I'll play it today. I just I want to make it as easy as possible for my customer They're doing 300 other things video is you know, they're probably told they needed to do it They might not even want to so why make them keep going through?
00:27:01
Speaker
something, they probably won't understand it. And then what ends up happening is I've failed them, even though I might give them the best video they've ever seen, that first experience of watching that rough cut is, well, I really had to walk them through this. So that's just my belief, not every video professional does it that way. Some of them feel like if you send that rough cut, it saves the editor time because they're not covering, basically the reason behind a rough cut is
00:27:30
Speaker
I'm just putting this together to see if it flows right, to see if the content's there, but it takes time to put all the B-roll and graphics and stuff in. So if something gets taken out, they just spent five minutes to two hours creating something to cover this and then the client says, oh, let's take that out.
00:27:49
Speaker
To me, that's just the cost of doing business. That's an, oh, oh, wow. Well, for the most part, no, I'm not going to ask somebody to build a 3d animation for, you know, a week's worth of work and, you know, and it put it in there and they, Oh, no, we don't want that. And to be clear, sometimes those things actually take weeks just because there are things available on the internet doesn't mean it's what you want.
00:28:13
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Or that you have the authorization to use it. You know, that's a great, great point, though. I just still have to tell people that the Google search is not everything there. I'm not even going to say most things. I'm going to just say it. Everything's copyrighted on that. So make sure you've got rights to use it. And with the bots out there, man, that stuff's being detected really easily nowadays. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
I got really lucky at a point in my career where when I first started out, I hired somebody in India to do graphic design work. I had a client that was based in a particular area of Minneapolis that was very unique. The Hennepin Avenue Bridge was kind of the way you get to that neighborhood. So I sent him pictures of the bridge and I said, I really want this logo to look like the bridge.
00:29:04
Speaker
He said, yeah, okay, great. And he did a whole bunch of things and he came up with a really cool concept that I took to the client and sold it and they loved it. Then about six to nine months later, I got an email from a guy in Montreal who said, you know, you're using my licensing.
00:29:23
Speaker
I don't know what you're talking about so long the whole turns out to the bridge that i thought was the head of an average was this guy's interpretation of a bridge in pittsburgh that i had been resold something else and so i went back to my graphic designer said what the heck he's like oh yeah i know i just found that i google search no.
00:29:42
Speaker
That was very, very bad. So fortunately everybody involved was cool about it. The guy in Montreal, I said, you know, here's how much money I got for the project. You can have all of it if you give me the licensing. And he said, you know, that sounds cool. And thank you for doing that. And I fessed up to the client. He still uses the logo to the day, this day, and it's still very cool. But Google search is not your friend. No, no, I, you know, I'll use it.
00:30:10
Speaker
for here's an example of something like this. I even usually put up in my script if I'm using, if I pulled an image, something like this, not this one. Just to be clear, but yeah, you gotta be careful. That and music. If you're asking for issues, if you're not paying for the music, I guess is the best way to put it. There are tons of royalty-free,
00:30:39
Speaker
Platforms out there just and the 30 bucks to grab a tune and
00:30:44
Speaker
That's worth the investment. Again, we're getting back to our common theme of how to be professional in your video. Making sure that you own and procure your own audio, your own music. One thing that you talked about a couple of minutes ago that I want to come back to is animation. All of the things that go into that, that's an entire art form all of itself. But if you're spending the time,
00:31:13
Speaker
create a video in for the most part professional video is probably less expensive than you think if you haven't talked about it for a while especially when you think about what you get for it. But it's also still an investment and so people that are thinking well i need is a phone and i can go to town i can i can get canva and i can.
00:31:34
Speaker
grab a whole bunch of stuff off a Google image search and go to town, that's not how to work it. That's amazing. Yeah, it's all on the planning. I like to use one example of if you plan it, you can do video and relatively inexpensive. I'll use an example. I won't give the name. I was at another company and we were working with the retailer and they were doing content videos.
00:32:04
Speaker
And, uh, I'll just say that it was, you know, a kind of a wine shop type place, wine and liquor store. And we had to shoot in the morning before anybody got there. So we started at five in the morning, had to be finished about 10 set up time. You know, people don't think about this, but oftentimes it's a good hour, hour and a half to set up lights and microphones and things like that. So you take away another hour. So now we've got about four hours, three and a half hours. And we banged out 22 videos in that amount of time.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, it was all because of the planning and the subject matter experts we had ready to go. I mean, it was literally an assembly line. All right, here's, you know, here's a video on this type of wine. Okay. Here's a video on how to make a margarita. Okay. You know, some of them were those like top down or you just really quick music type stuff, but all very effective type videos.
00:32:54
Speaker
Well, I think just what you described, Todd, is a really good distinction because all those peoples, the lighting people, the sound people, the camera people, the producer, all of whom are there, and they're not getting paid by when the red light goes on.
00:33:10
Speaker
I'm getting paid by the hour and in order to do all that you really in order to be effective use your time that's where. Video production and producer comes in so you can say okay for four hours here's down to the minute what everybody's gonna do so we can be we can really maximize everything you get.
00:33:30
Speaker
Nothing drives me crazy more than being on a set and sitting there and go, okay, well, what's next? What do we do? And burning hours. Really admit I had one client that, and they've done a lot of videos. They're a pretty big company and it's, you know, the day before the shoot and I'm saying, we don't have any scripts. We've got, you know, people have to have lines and say, Oh, we're, we're, we write the scripts when we get on set.
00:33:57
Speaker
This big. And I think we got about a third of the content that we had hoped on that day. Then we had to go into another shoot day. Actually, two more shoot days instead of one. We could have done in one if we would have just planned it. I ended up being three.
00:34:15
Speaker
Well, I think the $64,000 question to all of this, and which I guess is a dated reference that for three middle-aged guys makes sense, but somebody under 30 asked me like, well, what do you mean it costs $64,000? Like, no, that's not what I mean. How much does really good produced video cost?
Video Production Costs and Efficiency
00:34:33
Speaker
All right. So if you would have asked me about five years ago, five to 10 years ago, they had this formula out there that it was, Oh, it's about a thousand dollars to 1500 per finished minute.
00:34:46
Speaker
That's, you know, if you want to use that, go ahead. It's not very accurate. Uh, for example, I, I just talked to, um, a client, they want to do a hundred videos in a hundred days, right? Came up with a game plan and literally we can get that to probably about 500 bucks per video. However, it's all in the efficiencies. It's all in the complicated moon. Not like the edits aren't very complicated. So, you know,
00:35:15
Speaker
You can get a video for 500 bucks. Now, if you're only shooting one, probably not. You know, you gotta think about it.
00:35:23
Speaker
video production company, they'll charge you for usually a full day or a half day. And the reason they don't do by the hours, if you book two hours, that means you're the rest of the morning that you can't book that. Right. It's shot because you got to load up the car, you got to go out to location. Exactly. So that's why I always say, look, if you want us to come out new video, usually somebody will call me and say, I want to do, you know, this training video, for example.
00:35:46
Speaker
Well, I always say, okay, that's great. What else? What else? Do you have your frequently asked, what are your frequently asked questions? Can we get content for those? Because, you know, you're not, you're paying me for my time and you're not paying me by, by the video, so to speak. So if I can get, you know, the main video plus four or five more in a half day shoot, which usually about five hours, that's what helped during the, I'll get to, I'll answer your question here in a second about the actual call. Oh, this is perfect. Yeah. Keep going.
00:36:16
Speaker
Some of my clients, that's what saved them for video content during the pandemic was we had planned. We have video in the hopper. I didn't do any video shoots. I think it was about nine months. I wasn't allowed, but I had my biggest year that year because we had tons of content ready to go, plus adding in the motion graphics and stuff like that where we didn't need to go out and shoot.
00:36:43
Speaker
Usually on the money side of things, usually I'll start off a client. This is just for me. Not everybody, not every video production company is the same. I usually start off with, if you've got a budget of $5,000, you're well within the game. $2,500, we can talk. That might be worth doing it. But I always say call somebody. And if they can't do it for whatever your budget is,
00:37:11
Speaker
a good producer will either give you the reality check, that's not going to happen, or you know what, I can't do it for that, but I've got a referral for you, so I'll send them this way. If you've got 5,000 to start,
00:37:29
Speaker
You know, you're, you're going to end up with a really nice video. And I'm talking that'll be about 60 seconds with some motion graphics, maybe some really nice animated, or maybe, maybe even a little bit of 3d in there. That's all not that stock footage. I think people now in today's world recognize stock footage and get that it's not quite as authentic as, you know, if we're going to your company and shooting it, I'll get people like CPA firms. Well, what are you going to shoot here?
00:37:57
Speaker
We can use graphics and things like that, but we want to see you. We don't want to see the old static handshake. That's often a sticking point because people say, I don't want to be in the video. I don't look good today. It doesn't matter. What people want to see is the people they're going to be dealing with. Right. I absolutely love it.
00:38:24
Speaker
In my 25 years or whatever, I've been doing this. I've had a lot of people say, Oh, I'm no good. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be able to do this. What I'm most proud of is I usually can make anybody talk. It's you. It's, I want you to forget that the lights and camera are here and you are just having a conversation. And you know what? If you have an all or an arm or you stumble a little bit.
00:38:44
Speaker
Don't worry about it. That's what would happen if you were, if somebody came up to you at a networking event or you're at a family gathering and asking what you do, probably not going to have the smoothest answers. That's fine. You know, it just, just go with it. And to me, that shows that it was more authentic. You weren't reading a cue card, you know, that you weren't reading a script. So I like making people feel comfortable in front of the camera. You know what? You very rarely have to get it all in one shot, you know, we can
00:39:12
Speaker
And nowadays we'll have one videographer and two cameras set up. So that makes it even easier for you.
00:39:20
Speaker
What are a couple of times the the animation stuff? What's the process like with you? If you are going to do like motion graphics and animation, is it like somebody else that you work with or do you do that in-house or if we were a small business, who would we talk to? All
Cost-effective Animation Techniques in Video
00:39:37
Speaker
right. So you talk to me. That's part of my business. The way I'm set up, one of the things I learned over those years of learning from all the other places I've worked is when you have people on staff that cost money.
00:39:51
Speaker
No, what I do is I have worked for 25 years and built up relationships with, you know, I've got 30 animators, 25 videographers, hundreds of editors I can work with. I feel like I can bring in the right person for that job. So animation, you know, to me is again, all finding out, okay, who's your audience and what kind of style do they like? You know, younger kids, is there a video game style that, you know, would look good?
00:40:18
Speaker
And the nice thing about animation is, much like video too, but the costs have come down a little bit because there are, you know, templates for characters and scenes and things that, you know, look really great that you can use. And I mean, let's face it, if you wanted to rebuild a character every time, that's going to make animation completely.
00:40:41
Speaker
out of the rain, unless you're doing a Super Bowl ad, people aren't going to have the budget for that. So through a lot of just templates and things like that, we can create some just great animations for about the same cost as video. Cool.
00:40:55
Speaker
When somebody's thinking about hiring, I think in any business, there's a spectrum of really good and expensive down to really bad and really cheap. So what are some things that people should think about when they're looking to hire out a video project? I think the first thing if somebody, if somebody, if you call somebody up looking in your say head, like I'm looking for video, if they don't ask a lot of questions, I think either they're inexperienced,
00:41:23
Speaker
or you're going to get a formula and it's going to be the same. They've always done the same video over, so they don't need to ask a lot of questions. Honestly, if they don't ask the question within the first three minutes, who is your audience? I'd be a little worried about it. To me, what's going to determine the cost is just how many people are going to be involved. Agencies will bring in a lot of people. Oftentimes, you have to. That's what's needed.
00:41:52
Speaker
I call myself that medium-sized production company. Now granted, there's only one of me in the company, but I do have a large group of people I work with, and we tend to be a little more lean. We try to keep the cost down, but not necessarily the cheapest on the planet.
00:42:15
Speaker
You know, kids coming out, I mean, your kids doing zone, um, zone, um, blogs on jobs and things like that. Yeah. You know, kids coming up now, they know how to run cameras and things like that. So I mean, you technically there's some that you can do in house.
00:42:32
Speaker
It all depends on how you want your viewer to see it. Do you want it to become across? Is it really professional or is it... Use an example of when a phone is appropriate. Let's just say you're celebrating somebody's 50th work anniversary or something and you're having a little party. There's nothing wrong with walking around and getting your phone shot and putting that on Facebook. People like that kind of stuff. Just a little content or a spur of the moment type thing.
00:43:00
Speaker
But if you're really trying to get a very precise, specific message on training, sometimes you have to do A to get to B to get to C. If you're not right, there should be a safety issue. Those are the types of things where if it's in front of a big audience,
00:43:21
Speaker
I always say it might need to be a professional piece, but if it's just something you're showing off for social media that you're patting your company on the back, yeah, go ahead, grab a phone. TikTok's perfect for that. That's what that was invented for if it's still around when this airs. Yeah, we'll see if it hasn't been illegalized, right? Illegalized, yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
Todd, thank you so much for all the time you spent with us today and all that helpful hints. If somebody's looking for you and they want to talk about a project that they might want to have, first of all, you've been a great friend of the show, but also a busy web for a long time. So it's definitely worth reaching out to Todd if you've got a video project, but how would you like people to find you?
00:44:04
Speaker
You know, I'm on agile-video.com. You can look me up there. That's probably the easiest way, easiest way to remember you can reach out to me if you'd like to. I always tell people, you know, reach out if you just, you know, if you're even a video professional, I love talking shop, you know, if you are looking for, you know, help. Hey, just a phone call or an email we can, we can chat and if I'm the right person, great. If not, I can either steer you in the right direction or
00:44:31
Speaker
tell you, well, you're not going to get that Super Bowl commercial for 75 bucks. I'll be honest. Which I've had that.