Anyone with experience having Video Ads made? Expensive?

[dburke]

Anyone have experience having Video Ads made for their business?

I have an auto-detailing company and I was considering having a video ad's made. Possibly to put on my site but also for use as a Facebook video ad. Anyone with experience having Video made? Are they expensive to make? Thanks in Advance for any feedback!!

Kind Regards,

Dave

[Freelancier]

Depends on the ad. We put together a 3 minute animated infographic video for about $5000, from beginning to end. If you have to hire actors, do location shoots, need special effects, that's where the price goes up a lot. But if you do something for 30 seconds with just a voice-over, some simple animation or stock pictures, then it won't be too expensive to produce.

[dburke]

Wow, yea I may not want to swing $5k at this point at least. I was thinking something in the few hundred to $1k range. Any idea what something like that would get me? Thanks a lot for the quick response by the way.

Dave

[krymson]

$500 to 1K might get you a 30 second with a voice over. I would look for a student studying film, being that this is your first one and hire them for that amount. Tell them you want a 30-60 second ad with some simple video and voice overs, they should be able to get something together for you in about a week. Just don;t ask the world from them. Something simple is all you need.

[Harold Mansfield]

I did an animated promo about 2 years ago. Cost me $150 to use Go Animate, $300 for Camtasia Studio (to record a screencast section of the video), and another $75 to get my buddy to do the voice over.
Of course I did all the animation work, scripting and so on myself and that probably took me 2 weeks to get it the way I wanted it and a weekend to put together.

It still continues to bring me business. Not directly as a click through ad, but as part of my website and other online profiles. People always mention it.

[Brian Altenhofel]

In most cases, you get what you pay for. The question is whether the extra investment will make a return. People will notice the difference between a $1K 30-second spot and a $10K 30-second spot, but you would need to decide if the additional prospects or conversions are a good return on the extra $9K. By the way, an expensive spot can be over-polished (making you appear unattractive to those looking for "affordable" service if that's your target demographic) or deliberately under-polished (making you appear even more attractive to those looking for "affordable" service).

[RR151]

Brian has it right, do you need a TV production or are you looking for an affordable way to deliver your message. Ask first, Who is your target market?

The top executives over at Universal you need the 10 to 25K pitch with all the polish and it needs to be much less than 30 seconds long.

If you are looking to get the local restaurant a spot for their website then it needs the flavour of the local restaurant. No actors or voice overs just a home grown message from the owners. Maybe a news cast interview. Set up 5 questions about their business and let them talk about the things they are very passionate about...their business.

Whiteboard animations is another way to go either with custom caricatures or canned ones. Fiverr has a ton of talented people that can create custom caricature graphics, voice overs and the whiteboard animations well within the $150.00 range for 30 seconds. Remember 30 seconds is under 80 words and again needs to be built for the audience.

Just a thought, RR

[turboguy]

If you were talking about putting the video on TV or using it for a Super Bowl commercial then it would not pay to cut corners. Since you are talking about putting it on your website and facebook pages you could pretty much do it yourself.

If you are doing actual videos even your cell phone would likely take a good quality video. If you need a more professional voice you can find someone on Fiverr who will do a great voice over for small change. There are a lot of free video editing programs. I usually use Roxio Creator which was $ 69.00. I do have Adobe Premier that I sometimes use but just got used to the Roxio program and its comfortable for me.

If you want to do an animated video Powtoon can be used for free and it is really nice. My wife just did a 10 minute animated video using Powtoon for a school assignment and it came out so professional that the company she used as the subject of her video (Monster.com) would not be ashamed to use it. After watching what my wife did I plan to create an animated video as one of the videos I use for my business when time permits.

I have always done my corporate videos myself. They are not as polished as a pro would do but they work and generate millions of dollars of sales a year. It isn't a quick process. I probably spend about 4 hours for each minute of video if I count everything but doing it myself lets me make changes quickly and easily and puts me more in touch with the message I want to convey.

If you can find someone to do what you want for the budget you have in mind then that might be the best option but if not then doing it yourself for now might be worth thinking about.

[Patrysha]

I make videos in-house. They aren't high quality - but I haven't found that they need to be for my target market - most of them are impressed enough with my bravery and messaging that they pay no mind to the lack of quality. It all depends on your target market and what you need to achieve. You can put together an adequate video for a local audience quite inexpensively if you're willing to put the time in to getting it as right as you can. Or you can spend $5000-$30K for a professional production - production value can increase the response rate - but anything (imo) is better than nothing in this increasingly digital video consuming world.

[Harold Mansfield]

I just have one tip if you're thinking of DIY. Sound quality is everything. Before I did my video I watched hundreds of small business videos over the course of a few months and the one constant that was the main culprit of professionalism was how bad the sound was on so many of them.

Crappy microphones, crappy voice overs, background noise, hums, and so on. If your sound is so crappy that it's immediately noticeable, you can't present that to the public. The only exceptions would be video blogs, or instructional videos where you're not necessarily promoting your company.

I purchased a nice mic, shock mount, pop filter, swing arm and other audio equipment that I thought I needed.
20 minutes into the project I realized that buying all the equipment doesn't make me a professional.
It's a talent that you can't just pick up and wing it on demand.

I ended up paying a buddy in the radio industry to do the voice over for me and it was worth it.

Take your sound seriously. Crappy sound quality will ruin the entire thing and your perceived credibility and professionalism.