How to Find the Best Video Marketing Company for Your Business

Marketing has come a long way from when the main form of advertising people encountered was TV commercials. But the format that worked for TV can be just as important for companies practicing inbound marketing.

A good inbound marketing strategy includes exploring a number of content formats and, in recent years, the growth in online video consumption makes it clear that video should be part of your content mix.

Video marketing has a lot to offer.

It’s good for SEO. Simply plopping a mediocre video on your website will not necessarily improve your SEO. But a well-done video can help you build backlinks to your site, keep visitors on your page longer and more easily convert them into leads. These factors then help web pages with video land on the first search engine results page (SERPs).

Video’s popular on mobile. Fifty-one percent of all videos played online are on mobile devices. As mobile marketing becomes an increasingly important part of inbound strategies, the importance of video can’t be discounted.

Video performs well on social media. Sixty-five percent of ad impressions on Instagram were from video content, and people watch 100 million hours of video on Facebook a day. And those are just on the social sites that aren’t primarily devoted to video. People watch a billion hours of video each day on YouTube.

Video’s good for conversions. Use of video on a web page can increase average order value by more than 50 percent and improve conversion rates by nearly 10 percent. In addition, use of the word “video” in an email subject line leads to a 19 percent increase in open rates and boosts click-through rates by 65 percent.

It’s the way a lot of people prefer to consume content. Four times as many consumers say they’d rather watch a video about a product than read about it, and 43 percent of consumers have said they want to see more video content.

You can appeal to a new set of leads. One analysis of how users interact with content found that people who choose video content over text on one visit to a site are more likely to do so again on future visits, just as people who choose text are more likely to do so again as well. That suggests people generally have a clear preference and if your inbound strategy lacks video content, you may be missing out on the leads who prefer it.

Clearly, video marketing should become a part of your inbound strategy if it isn’t already.

How to Find the Right Video Marketing Company

If you’re new to video marketing, then doing it well will be tricky without help. You’ll likely get a lot more out of your investment if you hire a video marketing company that can bring their expertise to the process.

1. Know your goals before you start looking.

First, sit down and figure out what you want to get out of video marketing. There’s a wide range of types of videos you can create and ways to deploy them, so to make sure you take an approach that makes sense for you, you need to have an idea of what you want.

If you’re struggling with this step, but want to integrate video into your current digital marketing strategy, then you should specifically look for a video marketing company that helps with marketing strategy as well as video production. They can help you understand the different options available to you and how they’ll work with your other marketing content and strategies, so you can gain a more informed idea of what you want out of video marketing.

2. Start looking for video marketing companies to consider.

To find the right video marketing company for you, you’ll probably need to consider a few different options. To build out a list of possible contenders, start looking at a few main sources.

• Go searching for examples: Browse websites of companies similar to yours to see if you come across any videos you love. When you see examples you like, try to track down who created them.
• Google: Of course, Google is one of the easiest go-to options for finding any type of company you need. Supplement the list you have so far with any companies from search that look promising.
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn has one advantage over Google—you can identify companies you have some connection with. For any video marketing companies you find there, you can quickly see if you know someone associated with them that you can ask for more information before moving forward.
• Mine the talents at marketing agencies: Your inbound marketing agency or other top-rated agencies likely have talented videographers on staff and are experienced in creating video content as part of their marketing services. A marketing agency that offers video services (or works with a video production company) can do a better job of making sure you don’t just get a good video, but a good marketing video. And they’ll know how to make sure the videos you create help support the rest of your inbound marketing strategy, so you’ll get more out of them.

3. Look at examples of their work.

Once you have a list of potential options, it’s time to dig a little deeper into each one. Start by looking at the videos they provide on their website as samples of their work.

As you watch, ask yourself:

• How’s the production quality? You don’t want to hire someone only to end up with videos that look cheap or sloppily thrown together.
• Can you tell what the goal of each video is? And do they seem to achieve them? Marketing videos can’t just look good; they have to help you meet some marketing objective. You should be able to tell when watching a video what the client wanted to achieve, and make an educated guess at whether you think the video pulled it off.
• Do they look creative and unique? As more companies pursue video marketing, ideally you don’t want to release something that looks just like what your competitors have already done. See if it looks like they brought something creative to the table in the videos they created.

This step should help you focus on a few main companies you like, so you don’t waste your time moving forward to the next steps.

4. Set up a meeting and come prepared to ask questions.

A company can make great videos, but not be a good fit for what you need or how you work. A meeting will help you recognize which of the companies will work well with your needs, priorities and work style.

There are a few main things to be looking for in this portion of the process:

• Does their approach seem one-size-fits-all? Any good video marketing company will recognize that every client is different. Your needs and goals won’t be the same as those of the clients that came before. While using a developed process can be a good thing, make sure it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to shoehorn your business into a one-size-fits-all model without bothering to work out what makes your situation particular.
• Do they ask about you? Similarly, to truly help your business meet your goals, a video marketing company must take the time to understand what your company does and who you’re trying to reach. If they’re not asking questions about your business during the meeting, then they won’t be able to deliver what you need.
• Do they have experience in different types of videos? There are so many types of marketing videos—product videos, explainer videos, animated videos, interview videos, video tours, 360 videos, to name just a few. The video marketing company you hire doesn’t necessarily need to be experienced in every possible type (that would pretty much be impossible), but you do want to make sure that the types they are experienced with seem to be a good fit for your needs.
• Do they only offer video services? For video marketing, you’ll be better served by a company that not only makes great videos, but also knows how to work their videos into an overall marketing strategy. Get a feel for how much the company you talk to knows about inbound marketing and whether they can help you ensure the videos you invest in become a part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
• Do they sound like they have an organized, efficient process? Video has a lot of moving parts. A company that’s good at planning and preparing will both save money and produce better results than one that isn’t well organized. You’ll also want to figure out here what kind of process they have for edits, so you’ll know what your options are if you aren’t 100 percent happy with the first-round results.

You’ve got a lot of ground to cover in your meetings with potential video marketing companies, so take some time to plan out your questions in advance to keep the meeting efficient.

5. Confirm that the details work.

By this point, you’ll have figured out most of what you need to know, but there are a few crucial details left to work out.

Confirm that they can work within the budget you have. If you recognize that video’s valuable, but your main hesitation is about cost, know that there are ways to make video marketing more affordable by creating it in-house. You don’t need expensive cameras or fancy lighting to do it well. An experienced video marketing company should be able to help you work out what you can afford within your budget that will still appeal to your target audience.

Check if they can work within the timeline you have in mind. If you have some flexibility as to when you need a completed video by, this part will be easier. But if you know you need it done by a specific date, make sure that the company you’re talking to can pull that off.

The success of your video marketing will depend on how well it fits into your overall marketing strategy. If you approach the videos you create strategically and use them as a tool to further the rest of your inbound marketing, they can be a boon to your overall digital marketing results.