How much should I budget for video?

We’re approaching that time when a lot of us are reviewing budgets ahead of the end of the tax year. And with that, you might be looking at what you need to budget for video. If you’ve never used video before, or it has been a few years since you have, or if you’re looking for a different strategy then it can be difficult to know what to budget for video. So, where to start?
Start with thinking about what you need: video? Video marketing strategy? Or marketing strategy?
If you have an in-house marketing manager or video marketing manager, we’d recommend including them in your budget for video decisions. Their experience will help you understand if a single video would be most beneficial, a wider video marketing strategy, or whether it needs to be part of a wider marketing campaign or strategy. This will then help you allocate budget for the year ahead to video.
But, what do you do if you don’t have an in-house marketing team? You could look at getting provisional quotes from a range of video agencies but how do you know if you are comparing apples with apples in terms of prices? That approach might leave you feeling like you’re going down the rabbit hole of video production and potential costs.
Or think about how much do you want to invest?
Our advice if you don’t have an in-house marketing team is to look at how much you would like to invest. There will be video production agencies or freelancers that will work with a range of budgets. However, the general advice out there recommends between 5-10% of your revenue on marketing.
This is for overall marketing, which, depending on your revenue might be a total budget for one video with an agency. If you’re concerned that this might be the case and want to do more than just video this is where picking the right video partner can help. There is an opportunity to look for a partner who will understand how video can integrate into a wider marketing campaign. When you’re reviewing potential video agencies or video freelancers have a look for a team that regularly produces:
- Shorter versions for social media
- More than one type of video e.g. interviews, drama, creative concept, animation etc
- Video that works with wider marketing activity whether that’s an exhibition or website
- Video within your sector or for similar size of organisation
Have a read about how we’d recommend choosing the right video production agency.
Final thoughts on how to budget for video
It is worth remembering that you’re paying for people’s time when it comes to video production. A larger team will likely be a higher price than a freelancer. Likewise, if you need an agency or a freelancer to travel this might come into the equation too. On average, based on our industry knowledge, we know that hourly rates vary from £50 an hour to £250 an hour. This means you can expect to pay a minimum of £500 for a short video (under two minutes) but more likely upwards of £1,000.
We’re conscious that SMEs want to use video as a marketing tactic as it engages far more than other tactics. That’s why we’ve created our entry-level package. This is designed for businesses just starting with video. For £2,000 we’ll create you a two-minute video perfect for your website and YouTube and a shorter social media edit of this video. If you’re planning you’re budget for 2024 then don’t worry, we’re cementing this offer in until April 2025. Drop Ant an email at ant@humanoid.uk to get started.