When To to DIY, And When Hire A Video Agency

iPhones and Androids are, quite frankly, an invaluable tool for the lives of nearly every American. And there's a reason why the question headlined above gets tossed around more and more. The line between amateur and pro has never been blurrier. When is the right time to hire a professional? When should you do it on your own?

As the very biased owner of a video production company, I’m going to tell you something you might not expect: There are absolutely times you should NOT hire us. We flat out do not want your money if you're not going to get benefits out of the services we are providing. That's how we get bad reviews, and you go out of business. With that being said, let's help you save some money.

When to film videos by yourself

There are a few types of businesses where it would actually be a benefit to shoot by yourself most of the time. These are businesses like small boutiques, or an old mom and pop shop. Smaller local businesses like these can benefit by using those cost savings to run ads, hire more employees, or just take more vacations.

Documenting get togethers and staying in touch with the community will likely be more efficient uses of your time and money than going through the process of creating a video campaign. Not to mention that these videos shot on your iPhone usually come across as more authentic and relatable to the people you serve.

Here are some more examples of when it'd be a good idea to shoot videos by yourself:

• It’s a quick social media update: A "day in the life", quick "thank you" to your followers, or some fun social content around the shop.
• The budget is tight: If the cost of hiring a pro team would be a financial burden rather than an investment, save your money.
• The shelf-life is 24 hours: If the content is going to disappear in a day (like an Instagram Story), keep it simple.

When you should start hiring a team

For most other business needs, especially for companies clearing $1M+ in annual revenue, the DIY route starts to get expensive. As the saying goes: "Good work is expensive, though not nearly as expensive as cheap work."

If you’re an owner or a high level marketer, your time is worth hundreds (or thousands) of dollars an hour. If you spend five hours struggling with an editing app to get the captions to look "just right," you haven’t saved money. You’ve just spent your most valuable resource on a task that you're not sure will even pay off.

The real reason to hire a pro isn't just because we have bigger cameras. It’s because you are investing in an entire library of content, along with a strategy of how and where to deploy those deliverables. Hiring out also allows you to focus on your core roles and let us wrestle with the monster of creativity. You should hire a video production partner when:

1. Trust is on the Line: For a flagship video on your homepage, first impressions are everything. You want a look that says "established," not "started this yesterday."
2. The Story is Complex: Moving a customer through a sales funnel requires strategy. A pro team knows how to structure a story so that it hits those emotional high notes and drives action, whether it's 15 seconds or 15 minutes.
3. You Need Scale: You usually need more than just one video. We take one shoot and hand off tens (sometimes even hundreds) of assets, with a guide on how to use them as well. This saves you time on the front end of creation, as well as the back end of marketing strategy.

Focus on What Matters

At the end of the day, my team and our network of contractors are here to let you get back to your real job: running your business. Let us handle the content planning, production, and revisions so that you can focus on the pressing issues that actually grow your revenue.

If you're still unsure what the right path forward is for you, give me a call and I'll be happy to help. Based in Cincinnati.