5 Tips For Video Marketing On A Budget
It’s no secret that thousands of Australian small and medium businesses are doing it tough in 2024.
With restricted budgets for video marketing, the value received from 1 single dollar has never been so critical.
So how can you be as cost effective as possible, and get the biggest bang for your buck in your business’s video marketing?
Here are 5 tips for video marketing on budget, ensuring your business can be cost effective and still receive an ROI.
1. Scale Down Your Production Size
One of the quickest and easiest ways you can reduce video marketing costs, without inhibiting your films too much is through scaling down your production size.
This is all about making things simpler.
Reducing Production Team Size
For most businesses, when creating long-form videos, such as brand films, you’ll likely hire a professional video production company to take care of the film’s production.
It is very easy to ask your video production company for your upcoming productions and projects, if they can reduce the size of their team and still receive a similar outcome.
For example, if the team was going to be 5, can they reduce it down to 3? Or 10 down to 6?
This doesn’t necessarily mean the overall quality of the film will be reduced. It just means there will be less people on set, from which these labour savings can be passed onto your business.
Keep in mind though, for some productions, a minimum number of staff on set would be required from your video production company.
In some instances, the quality of the film may be reduced slightly. It’s important to remember though, this contrasts with what the full scale could have been. Therefore, your customers and viewers would be none the wiser as to what it could have looked like.
Reduce Your Output
Another way to scale back your production size is through your output.
Let’s say your business was putting out 30 pieces a week across all platforms. If you reduced that to 20 pieces, this can help you find a bit more wiggle room.
Scaling back your output is a great way to continue to use video marketing, maintain brand awareness and keep market share, but doing so on a budget.
2. Repurpose Content
Repurposing your content is one of the best ways to stretch your investment as far as possible in video marketing.
Repurposing content can be two form.
On one instance, it can be using a short form piece from Instagram and tweaking it to be used on TikTok.
On the other hand, repurposing can also be taking longer form pieces, such as podcasts of educational YouTube videos, and cutting them up into short form pieces for social media.
We’ve been doing this for over 6 months now within our business, and have seen a greater ROI on time, money and thought, than our previous strategy of coming up with new ideas all of the time.
As an example, try creating 1-2 long form pieces a month (two podcasts) and then cut up 6-10 short form pieces from each episode for use on social media.
If you’re interested, we’re hosting a 60-mimute webinar on the topic of repurposing content on August 13th.
You can register via this link, if you’re keen to learn more!
3. Opt In-House Where Possible
This may not always be possible depending on the size of your business, the number of staff you have, and the expertise of your team.
However, if you have the resources and knowledge to, opting in-house, as opposed to hiring a video production company, to produce company is a great option for video marketing on a budget.
Whilst the quality of your output will be reduced, for short form content, this isn’t a major issue.
In short form content, information is generally more important than the quality of the video.
So much can be done with a phone or entry level camera these days, so using your internal resources can make your dollars go even further.
A warning though; keep your long form pieces with a professional video production company where possible though.
Long form content, especially brand films, require a much more polished, professional looking piece, which often cannot be achieved by an internal team with limited specialist knowledge in the area of film.
4. Invest In The Long Run
This is a good tip across all aspects of business and life, but especially when it comes to video marketing, investing in the long run will provide a bit cost relief for your business.
In the short term, it may feel like your brand is using up every single penny available to you.
But in the long term, creating pieces of content that are timeless and can be used again and again, is so important.
When investing in video marketing, the question being asked should always be “will we be able to use this piece in a year’s time? What about 3 years? What about 5 years?
The longer a piece can be used for, the better an investment it is.
If you’re on a budget, and tight for money, then creating a new video marketing campaign for every short term sale your business is holding may not be very beneficial.
On the flip side, creating a brand film, or an educational piece that your customers and potential customers can keep coming back to, time after time, to learn and connect with, is a brilliant investment.
5. Use Free Options Available To You
This tip links in with moving to in-house producing.
We’re very privileged to be businesses operating in a time where there are so many free tools available to help with video production and content producing.
Some of the best free video editing tools include
- Adobe Premiere Rush (a scaled down version of the industry standard Adobe Premiere Pro)
- Davinci Resolve
- iMovie
For phones, CapCut is a great option to create social media reels on the fly.
Outside of editing applications, use the world’s search engines to your advantage.
Search Google and YouTube for help and to learn skills related to producing your own content in house.
Attend free events, like webinars and LinkedIn Audio events.
There is so many options available – you’ve just to go find them.
Don't Let Your Video Marketing Fall Behind
When your business is on a budget and strapped for cash, video marketing shouldn’t have to be the first thing to be stopped.
Why should you be forced to lose brand awareness and market share because of being cost effective?
With these 5 tips, your business will continue to be able to utilise video marketing to connect with and forge strong, powerful connections with your customers, even when on the tightest of budgets.
Need A Hand Forging A Deep Connection With Your Clients?
It’s not always easy to forge a deep connection with your clients. Which is why we’re here to help.
Brand story films are your brand’s north star. They help you to make decisions internally, and act as the centrepiece of your marketing strategy.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you forge a deep, emotive connection with your consumer through a brand story film, contact us via:
didier@fixonmedia.com.au
+61 400 801 891
All the best,
Didier Le Miere
Director | Fixon Media Group