In-house video production teams versus outsourcing to a third-party video production company. Both have their pros, their cons, and their uses. There is no right or wrong answer, really. It all depends on your needs. However, for a good chunk of businesses out there – especially small-scale enterprises and start-ups – a third-party video production company may be your smartest option. Here’s why.
Outsourcing Saves Resources
While there’s nothing wrong with having an in-house production team, the fact of the matter is that you’re still taking time – whether it be thirty minutes to an hour – off your work every day to oversee the production progress. That’s time that could be better spent checking emails, approving drafts, or even taking a personal break to recoup your energy.
And what happens when you don’t have video projects to work on? Does the video production team just stand around, twiddling their thumbs, when that happens? If yours is the kind of business that requires a video a day, then this won’t be a problem. But if you need merely one or two videos for a six-month marketing campaign, the time your video team spends doing nothing is costing you resources that – in the end – yields absolutely nada for you.
You Avoid Recruitment Disasters
Say you decide to venture into the new (for you) and unchartered territory of online video. You want to produce maybe a simple brand video or explainer video to raise brand awareness. These kinds of videos range from sixty to one hundred and twenty seconds, which – from the unknowing bystander’s perspective – makes them child’s play when compared to some of the longer testimonial or product demonstration videos.
And so, being the well-meaning business owner that you are, you decide to start hiring new staff for your own in-house production team.
Emphasis on the word team.
When you start hiring staff to produce videos in-house, you’re not just talking one or two if you really want professional-grade work. Start counting upwards of five. You’ll need cameramen to work different angles, directors to oversee the shooting, video editors for raw film footage, audio editors for raw audio clean-up and effects – the list goes on.
If live video is a little daunting, what about animated explainer videos. Those should be simpler, right? Maybe so, but then you’d still need at least two animation experts (even a thirty-second animation can take days to make), a storyboard artist, an audio editor, and production expert.
Not to mention you’d be giving up office space to make room for them.
The point is, building your own in-house production team might come out more trouble than it’s worth – especially if you don’t plan on producing videos on a regular basis. If your video needs are leaning more towards per-project than regular – or even semi-regular – basis, you’re better off outsourcing to a third-party video production company.
You Won’t Spend For Miscellaneous Fees
Using the same hiring-for-in-house analogy we used previously, you won’t just be spending money for the salary of five-or-so new employees. You’d also have to provide high-grade video equipment; cameras, lighting, production sets, video editing software, and more.
These may seem like worthwhile investments since they’re pretty much long term, but they’re really not. Equipment gets upgraded every year or so, as does video editing technology, software, and plugins. In a matter of two, three years, you’ll have outdated equipment. What happens then? Spend for an update.
It’s a vicious cycle of finally paying off all your equipment just to splurge again for a new batch of lighting rigs or another camera. Again, it all depends on perspective. If the company budget can keep up with this, and you’re churning out money-making videos on the regular, then sure. Go bananas. But if you do the math and find out you could earn a lot more by just getting another company and letting them use their own equipment?
The answer’s pretty clear-cut, then.
