Pros and Cons: Making Your Own Videos vs. Hiring a Professional
Video continues to be the most powerful form of content on the web and people know the importance of it in their marketing. I’m not blind to the fact that there’s a growing trend among businesses to create their own video content.
There are pros and cons to making video content on your own and pros and cons to hiring someone to make video content for you.
I want to take an honest approach and step out of my genre and break down what it looks like for you to answer the question, should you make video content on your own or hire someone to make video content for you?
Making Your Own Video Content
Pros: Always Accessible, Usually Cheaper, Freedom in Trial and Error
Cons: Time Consuming, Learning Curve, Unpolished Product
Hiring a Professional
Pros: Return on Investment, Professional Equipment, Takes Care of All Stages
Con: Money Money Money, On Their Timetable, Personality Conflicts
Making Your Own Video Content
Pros:
Always Accessible
The greatest thing about creating your own video content is that it is always accessible. No more waiting on your videographer to return your email, or schedule a shoot date, or waiting on the edit. As long as you have your phone or a camera on you, you can make a video.
Usually Cheaper
I say usually cheaper because it can get expensive depending on how you decide to make your videos. If you choose to invest in creating a video studio with professional equipment, that is going to cost a pretty penny. However, if you are just shooting video on your mobile device or webcam, then it’s going to cost hardly anything other than what you pay for your device. With video, you can invest as little or as much as you want in creating that content.
Freedom in Trial and Error
When you create your own video content, it allows for freedom in experimenting. You can really evaluate what’s working on a trial and error basis. This isn’t as easy when hiring a professional to do your videos. There would be more strategy that goes into it because you’d want to get the most out of your investment. But if you wanted to see how a Tip Tuesday video would work or how a weekly product demonstration video would work, you can easily shoot those and adjust as you needed to, to have the most effective video for your audience.
Cons:
Time Consuming
Once you start making your own videos, you’ll find that it is very time consuming. Unless you are a rock star at just talking into the camera, you’ll need to spend time scripting, shooting and editing. Sometimes you’ll realize that the audio sucked, so you’ll have to go back and record again. Having good and consistent video content is going to take time and might seem overwhelming with all the other responsibilities you have in your business.
Learning Curve
There is a learning curve when it comes to creating your own video content. I’ve heard from several people that they don’t know how to do lighting, write scripts, work their camera or the biggest learning curve, editing. Even just being in front of a camera is hard! If video production is not your industry or expertise, grasping those things will take time and the learning curve could possibly be steep.
Unpolished Product
For some, this is less of a deal than for others, but normally what I’ve found is that when you create video content on your own, it will be less of a polished product. The lighting might be bad, audio could be dicey, cuts are questionable. Some businesses are comfortable having that unpolished video but others like having a professional looking video that they can put some money behind in ads.
Hire a Professional to Create Your Video Content
Pros:
Return on Investment
According to marketing research, brands are seeing up to an 88% return on investment with video marketing. Businesses are having videos made that build brand awareness and build trust with their audiences. In fact, according to that same research, 57% of customers want to see more video content from that particular brand.
Professional Equipment
One of the pros of using a professional video company to make your videos, is that you know they have already invested thousands of dollars into their camera, lighting and audio equipment. You’ll get clean audio and great picture quality. Also, they’ve invested in editing equipment and other post-production elements. They already have all that STUFF so you don’t need to get it.
Takes care of all stages (pre-production, production, Post-Production)
In most cases, the video production or marketing company is going to take care of the three stages of producing your video. Things like scripting and talent search in the pre-production stage, or the lighting and filming during the production and then editing and coloring in the post-production stage.
Cons:
Money, Money, Money
Yes! Having videos professionally made is going to cost money. However, once you see that return on investment, is spending money on video production really a con?!
On their timetable
Because there is such a demand for video content these days, video production studios are busy. You’ll be on their timetable. They might be able to get a video shoot in but depending on how many editors there are, the finished product could be weeks away.
Personality Conflicts
Sometimes you and the person or company you hired to create your videos are not going to see eye to eye on your vision for the videos. This might be because your vision isn’t realistic or because the person you hired doesn’t good people skills and are just hard to work with. Do some research on who you’d be working with and see if they’d be a good fit for your brand.
Regardless of how you go about making video content, the moral of the story is that you should be USING video content.
What about using your own video content and professional video content? I actually encourage people to do this! Hire me or someone else to create videos that will take your website or social media to the next level. But also make your own behind the scenes business videos for Instagram Stories and other quick blasts to engage your audience.
That’s the great thing about video, it can be used in so many different ways!
If know you need video content but don’t know where to start, click the button below and let’s grab coffee!