Many companies use online video for customer testimonials.  Too often these videos are nothing more than customer X saying that Company Y is a great company and they have great products.   Just sit the customer down in front of a camera and tell them what you want to say. After 3-5 takes there is enough information to create a short video for a website.  This is the simplistic way to create a non motivational testimonial video.

The problem with the simplistic approach is there is no emotional attachment to the customer. In other words, the “trust” factor of the customer’s testimonial has not been established. A good customer testimonial video is more than just telling someone that Company Y is a great company and they have great products.

Customer testimonial videos need a believable “trust” factor of the unknown customer telling someone they should trust what they are sharing.  Creating these videos involves more creative development time and effort to share additional background information about the customer which is essential to establish creditability.  The most effective way to do this is to tell a story with your customer testimonial videos.

Some of the best customer testimonials videos I have seen are produced by APX Alarm in Provo Utah.  Tom Coleman is an expert at creating an emotional attachment to a customer and a product.  You can see some of APX Alarms customer testimonials videos at this link by click the play button on the image.

The next time you are planning customer testimonial videos, take some time and do something different – tell a story.

Corporate Video Production Cost, Part 3 – Types of video production to meet your budget

Now you know the cost drivers for video production and typical questions to narrow your scope of you project, let’s look at 5 general types of corporate video and the price ranges it cost to produce a video:

1. User Generated Production
2. Basic Production
3. Mid-range Production
4. High-end Production
5. Complex Production

User Generated Production
Examples: Recorded webinar, podcast, converted PowerPoint presentation with audio or   basic video using webcam or consumer video camera.

Many user generated videos are perfectly fine.  They are “good enough” for the project.  It all goes back to the question, what is the purpose of the video?  Most of these videos are targeted to employees for training or simple communications.

The cost to produce these videos is minimal and usually time to produce is the only cost.

Basic Production
Examples: A short, narration led program, which is scripted mainly by the client, incorporating photos or images with text and basic editing with text and graphics.

A lot of corporate videos fall into this type of production. They include basic information, but produced with a higher professional look and feel than a user generated video.  The use of a professional voice talent and stock photos add to the production quality. The big difference is the quality of the audio and graphics.  Many companies have the in-house capabilities to produce at this level, but do not have the time.

The cost to produce these videos is would fall into the range of $4,000 to $10,000 depending on the length complexity of the script and required graphics.  Length of the video could cause the price range to be even higher.

Mid-range Production
Examples: A narration or presenter led program, fully scripted by script writer, produced over a number of days, incorporating more detailed motion graphics or 3D images and some basic music production.

Mid-range productions take video production it to the next level with dimensional graphics and images and add animations of processes or concepts.  This could also include a short green screen production of a video host.

The cost to produce these videos is would fall into the range of $8,000 to $25,000. The higher cost could be related to animation development time, longer finished minute of video, video host and studio recording time or cost to acquiring specific images or graphics and music tracks.

High-end Production
Examples: A drama or role-play reconstruction using professional actors, or a company profile video with detailed video production by incorporating sophisticated motion graphics and music.

This production value adds the use of actors, video hosts, complex video script, detailed animations, shooting specific B-roll footage, location rentals, permits, studio time and larger studio crew.  This would also included videos of C level executives that create a high value of image and branding.

The cost to produce these videos is would fall into the range of $15,000 to $30,000.  The higher cost could be related to animation development time, longer finished minute of video, video host and studio recording time or cost to acquiring specific images or graphics and music tracks.  More preplanning is also required for high-end productions.

Complex Production
Examples: A longer, more complex production or a series of videos, using known actors and presenters, incorporating state-of-the-art graphics and special effects and original composed music.

The difference between this and a high-end production is adding higher quality actors or spokespersons, locations, planning, using extras, script writer, production crew, and complex motions graphics and animations.

These production start around $25,000 and could go above $100,000.

Remember these are all general price ranges based on unknown production needs.  I tried to group these into 5 general category types of video production that most companies would use.

Now you know why when question is asked – how much will it cost to produce your video? The answer is- It depends.

Welcome to my blog. I hope to provide useful information about corporate video production, using videos to promote your business, nurture leads, train employees, improve customer service and support experiences, and insights to Xcelus Studios – a video production company.

A little about me, I have an Accounting degree from Utah State University and an MBA in Marketing from Brigham Young University. I have been primarily involved with marketing training services for companies like Novell and SmartForce. Marketing and sales videos were primary components to my marketing mix. This was before Internet streaming was prime time.

At SmartForce I developed lead generation programs based on an online video news show. We were using Yahoo! and Broadcast.com as the engine. These news programs were 18 minutes in length and featured a show host and three news segments about SmartForce customers who were successfully using their elearning products. These video based lead generation activities were very successful.

After SmartForce I worked shortly with a small production studio called Emerald Forest. From there I went to work for Hitachi Data Systems as their Sales Training Program Manager.

At Hitachi Data Systems, we developed video based sales training using a talking head and bringing in key bullet points or images. These training courses were delivered on a CD-Rom to all sales globally. Eventually they were converted to web based an iPod format for mobility.

In May of 2005 I started Xcelus. We initially did training development using video, Flash animations and HTML programming. In 2008 we did our first commercials for a Paintball company promoting their Paintball guns. Our next commercial was for Monster Balls paint balls. This commercial ran on Fox Sports channel. Soon we were doing as much marketing video development as we were doing sales training development.

The web based videos followed my video philosophy of short, to the point, videos. 60 seconds for the elevator pitch and less than 4 minutes for a product overview/more information video.

Using this blog should help you in your video production process to improve your results and to share creative ideas to take your video production to the next level.