If you’re a b🦋usiness owner or lead a sales or marketing team, chances are you already know that video is the present and future of marketing.

Many well-meaning companies turn to third-party video production agencies to help them create marketing videos, thinking it’s too expensive or complicated to produce video in-house. Filming and editing high-quality videos can be intimidating, and you might not have the tools or skills to✃ do so.

If this sounds like something you’ve struggled to get past with your te൩am, you’re certainly not alone — but before you hire that agenc𝐆y, you should consider the potential disadvantages of doing so.

IMPACT has worked with hundreds of businesses to help them bring video creation in-house. And, as a result, our clients have seen 168极速赛车平台:incredible inbound marketing results.

We’ve also worked with third parties, so we often get asked why producing video via an ag🍌ency is s🎃uch a bad idea.

In this🎐 article, we’re going to explain the answer to this ques🌞tion, including:

• 4 common problems businesses face when working with a video production agency
• Reasons you should consider in-house video instead

This way, as you create more video content💜 to grow your business, you know what to e🐓xpect and can get ahead of the game.

Here’s what to know.

4 reasons not to work with a third-party video production agency

While most businesses that hire a video production agency imagine the agency will take care of everything an♛ꦺd make the video production process a breeze, this isn’t typically the case.

Though there are video marketing a𝓰gencies out there that can create high-quality work, we’ve found that there𒉰 are specific issues that often arise in the process that make insourcing a better option. 

Here’s what to consider b💎efore you opt💦 for an outsourced video marketing campaign.

1. Long creation process

This is something you may run into wꦓith a production company of any size.

There’s an estimated timeframe from when a client makes initial contact with a video production agency to when the final product is delivered (and everyone is popping ꦐ𓃲bottles and high-fiving).

However, that estimated timeframe is likely longer than you think, for many reasons.

For onꦏe, the planning and pre-production process usually begins with one person acting as the contact for the production agenไcy.

If pre-production is done sufficiently to ensure a deliverable schedule that’s properly aligned with your expectations, then there are usually anywhere from 3-6 m😼eetings that need to take place.

These meetings are usually scheduled weeks apart and require much more prep work on your part, including example videos, creative asset gathering/sharing, internal coordi🔜nating, and decision-making about who will be a part of the video.

Then, even after pre-production and the production itself takes place, you’re on to the last stage of the creation process, which is almost always the bottleneck at every production agency: post-productio𒐪n and editing.

Many editors are consistently backlogged with other projects since it 🌄takes the longest time, relative to every other stage.

Editing also often requires a minimum of 2-3 revisions. The back and forth communicജation between you and the agency via email or Basecamp is sometimes several wee𝔍ks more of time and effort.

And let's face it, you have people iౠn your organization who need to approve the video as well. Then you’re tracking down your own people, trying to get feedback on each draft.

This long t🥂imeline can delay initiatives or other campaigns that rely on the conte💫nt.

It also means that your team cannot create agile ꦺcontent that responds quickly to news o𓆉r updates.

The last thing 💝you want is to start pre-production for a video that’s obsolete by the time you actually get it out.

With all of this in mind, quality agencies, small or large, must often be contacted 6 months at a minimum prior to when the final video is needed.

It also requires you and yourꦡ organization to do much of the heavy lifting as far as planning and communicationꦫ go.

This brings us to a related problem…

2. Videos don't speak to your audience

No one wants to feel like they’re rushing their project just to hit a deadline. You want a perfect deliverable, not꧃ a “this is all we had time for” video.

The challenge with video production agencies is that you only have a certain amount of pre-production time allotted to define y♈our goals𝓰.

Agencies of all sizes likely have multiple client projects they’re juggling at once. So, they will likely have to limit the amount of time spent in pre-production understanding your objecti𒁃ves and vision. This could lead to deliverables that only partially fulfill expectations.

This means they're more likely to rely on templates and formats they've used before. The problem is, even if this approach yields a beautiful video, it might not resonate with your audi🅰ence and actually ♎move the sales needle. You'll end up with something that looks and feels similar to everything else out there. 

3. You end up with the wrong kind of videos

You want to produce videos that have an immediate impact on your sales. We call these videos 168极速赛车平台:The Selling 7. 

When you rely on a third-party video production company to create these videos instead of 168极速赛车平台:hiring an in-house videographer, these videos can take much l✤onger to create. Furthermor🎃e, since the video production company doesn’t know your business as you do, it is even more difficult to create videos that truly resonate with your buyers. 

The solution?

Generally speaking, this means that you should be allocating ample time with your internal team to define exactly 💞what you want so you can relay that to your production agency.

If you want a video to look, feel, and accomplish what you’re hoping it will, it’s more dependent on your team to articul🌠ate those variables than it is for the production team to extract them from you.

Don♐’t get me♎ wrong, the success of video planning and pre-production is not solely on your shoulders as the client.

However, I believe it’s important for clients of video agencies to recognize that this burden is again more on the client than the agen🍎cy, especially when the client acknowledges that the agency’s scope is sm💞all and spread across multiple projects at once.

This is why we always recommend our clients 168极速赛车平台:hire an in-house videographer. With a videographer embedded in your team, you will never have💙 to wait for an agency to create and deliver your videos. You will have someone there who is constantly creating this conte𝔉nt for your business.

Just keep in mind that while an in-house videographer is getting started, there is going to be a learning curve and they will need time to get to know your brand. Your videos won’t be perfect right away, but with the right videographer in your company, you can expect them to be producing two to three videos per week — compared to the months it can take for an agency to co🌞mplete just one vide🌠o.

You don’t want to be spending money on a third-party video that will take much longer to comp🐽lete an𒆙d is doomed to be ineffective from the start.

4. Changing talent pool

How do you know that your team is exp✱erienced not only with the gear, but also witܫh each other?

It’s very common for agencies, especially smaller ones, to fill the additional hands required on a shoot with freelance video professionals (which can be a detriment to your video success — more 🅷on this later). Small agencies commonly do this, particularly when the agency is not local to your business.

If your company is asking the agency to travel for production, it’s more cost-effective for the agency to hire loc🀅al freelancers rather than fly a second cameraperson out with them.

Freelancers can keep costs low for the agency — and also for you — but problems arise when the cont💯racted team members producing your content have different experience levels.

Freelancers are typically chosen based on convenience, availability, and 🔯cost long before the level of team compatibility𒀰 is considered.

This sets up a quality variability that you don’t want to show through on your end deliverable, particularly if you’ve made multiple projects with the same agency. You will want the same hands working on your content to maintain consistency across creativity and expertise.

The same can be said if the crew ꦉworking on you𝓡r project hasn’t collaborated before.

There’s a real collaborative rhythm required on a shoot to make near-perfe🐽ct content, and that rhythm requires a serious levওel of understanding and gelling between all involved.

It’s important to ask if the agency has worked 🧸with the freelancer(s) in the past, and how often. Ask for example footage that was created by the same team so you know what to expect.

Otherwise, you’re going to feel like the agency is acting as the 🌱“middleman” between you and the local freelancers🉐 for hire.

🌠If you had someone in-house, however, who was dedicated to sharing information about your business — who was part of revenue team meetings and owning the process from start to finish — this wouldn’t be an issue.

5. High cost per video

When you combine both the time and money investment req💎uired to create each video with an agency, you💧’re looking at a big-ticket cost no matter how you cut the cake. You need to pay for another company to hire a crew and purchase or rent equipment.

The cost of using an agency a few times each year can be equivalent to hiring an effective videographer in-house (starting at ro꧃ughly $55,000 salary plus benefits), but minu𝔉s the flexibility.

Every organization wants to save money, and you might think that outsourcing your video production is a way to do so, but as you can see, if your business is planning to make video a regula🐲r part of its content marketing efforts (or even just check the boxes with The Selling 7), the costs can add up quickly.

So, should you outsource video production?

After years of working with hundreds of clients — and at one time even doing the video production agency work ourselves — we can tell you that time and time again, our clients earn the biggest ROI when they embrace a culture of producing video in-house.

The reason? 

No one knows your company, your vision, and your goals better than your own team.

To get the best possible results with your video marketing strategy, you must 168极速赛车平台:hire a full-time videographer to own your business𓂃’s video production process. Otherwise, you’ll be spending far too much for a deliverable that 💖barely makes a difference to your bottom line.

You might be thinking, “Why would my business need a full-time videographer? There’s no way🌠 we need someone working on this 40 hours per week.”

But the truth is, our clients would tell you that it's worth it. The videographer's impact on your sales and market🍎ing numbers can be significant.

Sure there are challenges to hiring in-house, such as some of our clients who get in their own way by striving for perfection, when they should just start publishing. Others don’t explain why they’re hiring a v𝕴ideographer to the rest of the 🅘team, and buy-in is lacking.

Even so, our c🙈lieไnts would tell you the results speak for themselves.

Ofꦛ course, there may be instances where you want to outsource for a one-off video, but if video content is going to be a staple of your strategy, in-house is the way to go. 

Grow your business with video in-house

We’ve♚ helped hundreds of B2B and B2C businesses like yours create winning video strategies that build trust with prospects and enable sales teams to sell better than ever꧙.

The best 🗹part is this growth c𒆙an happen for you in months — not years.

Once you have the right person in p𝓀lace, creating lots of videos for your small business will be a piece of cake. You will be amazed at the dramatic increase in traffic, leads, and sales — and wonder why on earth you didn’t hire an in-house video production team sooner.