There are many factors that will affect your video marketing costs. Do you want live-action or an animated video? Are there people to be interviewed? Is it an on-location shoot? All of this should be considered when putting together a plan for your marketing videos. The type of videos you want and who you choose to produce them will affect your video marketing budget.
Ultimately, you should budget anywhere from $500 to $50,000 for your video marketing. It really depends on the story you’re trying to tell and what it is you’re looking for. The key is getting the most for your money.
Let’s take a look at how much you should budget for video marketing this year and ways you can get more bang for your buck.
Pre-production is a critical part of the creation of any marketing video, and pre-production meetings are where this magic will happen. Factor into your budget enough time to vet your video before the first frame is ever shot.
Depending on the type of video marketing agency you’re working with, your project may be billed hourly, or your price may be based on the length of your video. Let’s take a look at what both of these look like.
Thumbtack did a great job explaining what you should budget for your video marketing in a recent blog. This is a broad-stroke explanation, but it gives you a really good idea of what you can expect to spend for each video you’d like to produce.
They used examples from several video production companies. They pointed out that a Pennsylvania company offers three standard packages based on finished runtime and shooting time:
| Total Runtime | Shooting Time | Total Cost |
| 1 minute | 2 hours | $499 |
| 2 minutes | 5 hours | $599 |
| 4 minutes | 8 hours | $699 |
You can see that the length of the video affects the price. Sometimes, less is more, so if you’d like super-short videos that get right to the point, you could spend less.
Typically, packages like the ones mentioned above also include editing, basic motion graphics, concept video treatment, and script. But this is a hyper-local company that will only produce a video. They don’t travel very far and there is no video marketing strategy included in the price. The only thing you’ll get for your money is a video. And, of course, if things take longer to film, the price will go up.
Another example Thumbtack uses is that of a California company that offers a few different hourly rates for marketing videos.
Additional time (for things like pre- and post-production) is billed at the hourly rate of $50/hour, but once again, this is to produce a video-only and does not include a marketing strategy.
Wyzowl finds that the average cost for producing a 60-second explainer video is $7,972.
I found another production company that charges $1,400 for an eight-hour day of filming. But depending on what needs to be done during the post-production process, a finished 3-minute video could cost anywhere from $4,000 to over $10,000. It all depends on what has to be filmed and how much time is needed in post-production.
If it’s an animated video you need, it will cost even more. It’s a time-consuming process and most resources are used creating the original art, but once those assets are done, you can animate them to do anything you want. A 60-second animated video can cost nearly $10,000 or more, depending on the intricacies.
A professionally-produced marketing video will be more expensive, but the production value will be much greater. The end goal, of course, is presenting your brand in the ideal light, but what good is an outstanding marketing video if nobody can find it?
If your video is being produced to showcase your product or service, you’ll need a video marketing campaign to go along with it. A professionally produced video could fall short of reaching potential customers if you don’t have a plan to back it up.
Working with a video marketing agency (that produces video) will not only get you a quality video but will also help you:
Your marketing budget will go a lot further if you partner with a digital marketing agency that is known for creating videos for your target audience. You’ll essentially budget nearly the same amount of money, but you’ll get more for it because you’ll be working with people who can apply digital marketing strategies for your industry.
They’ll look for ways (using account-based marketing) to get your video in front of the people you want to see it most. A digital marketing agency that produces marketing videos will also implement keywords into the script and in the description on websites like YouTube, so your video ranks higher on Google.
A digital marketing agency will also be able to put together a social media plan for your video. They’ll work with you on the proper length and keywords that should be included in your posts.
In the end, your video marketing budget can be as robust as you need it to be. Just keep in mind how much further your budget can go by working with a digital marketing agency that produces high-quality marketing videos.
If you’d like to learn more, please check out our video marketing page to find tips on how to create great videos. Or take a look at examples of some of the videos we’ve produced for our clients.
