Is Fixed-Price Video Production Ever a Good Solution for Your Business?

When thinking about instructing a video production company to create a video for your business, it can be easy to seek out the ease and simplicity of a fixed-price package. But to do so may mean that you miss out on creating the perfect video for your business.

In many ways, it’s like choosing between two holidays to the same destination. You could choose the fixed-priced package holiday that has an inflexible, predetermined itinerary (not all of which interests you). Or you could choose a tailor-made experience with your pick of attractions, accommodation, transport, and the pace at which you move through your holiday.

While the end result might technically be the same (a holiday the desired location), one of those experiences is going to be rich and everlasting, while the other may leave you frustrated as you spend half the time in hotels and attractions you’d rather avoid. Yes, the latter option may be slightly more expensive in some instances. But that is reflected in the quality of the services provided and the number of experiences that are tailored to your specific needs.

For some companies, a fixed-priced video package will ‘do the job.’ But is that something you should be aiming for as a business? Why not start with your objective in mind first, before even thinking about how much it’s going to cost you.

Don’t Start with the Budget

As a business exploring the potential of video marketing for the first time, it’s only natural that you would start by taking a look at how much it might cost. Your initial online research will therefore consist of looking at prices, comparing between providers to try and discover who offers the best perceived value.

But this might not necessarily be the most prudent approach. If you stop and pause for a second, how can you set a budget without first defining the goal or purpose of your video? Have you ever considered that video may not actually be the best method for achieving that outcome? 

If you start out with a mindset of trying to save money, then it’s always going to be a case of you get what you pay for. That doesn’t mean that you have to spend big to achieve your targets, it just means you need to have the right strategy in place from the outset. With the right plan, you could still accomplish your objectives on a shoestring budget. 

Therefore, set aside the time to properly sit down and discuss what you want the video to achieve. You may find that the initial figures you had in mind are nowhere near enough to attain your goals. By contrast, you may find that you don’t need to allocate anywhere near as many resources as you once thought. At this point, it’s worth engaging with a video producer or company to lay out your plans to get a clearer picture (pardon the pun) of what a successful version of your video is going to involve. 

Remember a Video is an Investment, Not a Purchase

A video is not akin to a one-off purchase such as a new piece of office furniture. This is an investment that, if executed correctly, will most likely pay for itself several times over. For example, let’s say you spent £5,000 on a promotional video and £10,000 on disseminating that video online. If that brought in an extra £30,000 of profit to your company, you’d soon be lining up again to create another one!

But that return on investment is not always going to be related to sales. Take a series of training videos, for instance. By investing in several videos that train new employees in specific tasks during their first week of onboarding, you can save thousands of pounds in human resources and labour costs moving forward. 

Hopefully, when you start to look at video creation in this light, you can begin to understand that you should go into the process without obsessing over price. Instead, you can look toward measuring how many times over your investment will repay itself. 

Why A Fixed-Price or “Off the Shelf” Video Package is Rarely a Good Idea

Should you be worried if you visit a website of a video production company that has a series of fixed-price packages? Not necessarily. You just need to be aware of what you’ll receive in exchange for that price.

The first item to note is that you won’t receive a tailored experience. Instead, you’ll be one of hundreds of clients receiving a similar video. Companies who operate in this manner can offer a set price but they operate a predetermined process, which doesn’t change regardless of who the client is.

The second point to understand is that the price is usually lower because it’s produced by low-skilled or inexperienced employees - The focus is on keeping costs low, rather than on producing consistently high-quality videos.  

Every once in a while, these types of companies may be able to produce a video that you’re happy with. However, you might end up overpaying for it. This is a frequent occurrence when companies price videos based on a list of features or services, as they intelligently reserve the most desired features for their premium packages.

Consequently, companies on tight budgets pay the top price to include said feature and unfortunately end up shelling out for a whole host of additional services they neither wanted nor used in the video. In many cases, the same video could have been produced by a bespoke video production company for a fraction of the cost.

Referring back to the holiday example, would you rather pay double the price for an fixed-price package holiday that included your star tourist attraction and suffer through visits to five other sites you have no interest in? Or would you prefer to pay half the price for a bespoke holiday that focuses purely on the attraction that you’re so desperate to spend your time visiting?

Lastly, you won’t have the unique project experience of working with a company who is creating a video from scratch based upon your vision. In many ways, that’s at least half of the reason for choosing to work with an experienced video production company such as ourselves. Not only can we make useful and innovative suggestions to keep costs down and returns high, but we can also help you refine your creative ideas, ensuring your video really hits the mark.

Choose Gray Media for the Best Return on Your Video Investment

Here at Gray Media, we are proud of not being “cheap.” Our creative team has decades of experience in producing, shooting, and editing top-class videos for our clients. While that may make us more expensive than some smaller video production companies, what we will not be beaten on is value for money. 

We treat each project as unique, even when the brief comes in from an existing client, giving each video the respect it deserves. Rather than force a fixed-price package on you, we sit and listen to your vision and help you to implement it cost-effectively during every step of the video production process.

What we produce then gives you a return on investment that will have you coming back for more! We’ve already been trusted by some of the biggest brand names in the UK. Don’t you think it’s time you joined them in enjoying a superior and bespoke customer experience?

Reach out today to get the ball rolling.