You already know the importance of video storytelling, but working with limited budgets can be challenging. "61% of companies point to time and bandwidth as their biggest hurdles, with team size, resources, and technical ability trailing close behind at 44%. (HubSpot)”.
So, how can you create high-quality videos within your means and still see results? Let's break down some options your organization can explore and time-tested tips for creating videos on a restricted budget.
For this post, let's focus on efficiency and evergreen content. These two elements are crucial for creating videos on any budget. At BairStories, we always think about maximizing budget and impact. This mindset is a form of stewardship for us.
Table of Contents
5 Ways to Create Brand Videos On A Budget
01. Be Efficient
Filming is one of the highest costs in video production services. Production involves many people and tools, making it more expensive than post-production (editing, coloring, sound design) and pre-production (story development and logistics planning).
One way to be efficient when filming is to batch your film days
To be efficient, consider batch filming. Schedule a day or two to film multiple videos in one location. This approach maximizes your time, ensuring you have plenty of footage for numerous videos. Batch filming lets you capture much content quickly, helping you save on production costs for your limited budget.
For example, for our client Environmental Initiative's annual awards event, we batch-filmed 5-7 stories over 2.5 days. Traveling to every interviewee across Minnesota would have blown the budget, but filming everyone at one location and using stock footage to support the story visually made it feasible.
02. Use Stock Footage
Stock footage is licensable pre-filmed footage that can be a cost-effective way to add high-quality visuals to your video without breaking the bank.
In our case with the Environmental Initiative Awards, we maximized their budget using stock footage. Many websites offer stock footage for free or at a low cost. Check our top stock footage sites for storytelling.
03. Embrace Generative AI for Video
While we’re seeing impressive results from Sora and Google, your company may not be ready to create full AI videos. However, you can still save time by using AI for:
- Auto-generating captions or transcripts
- Finding key clips to edit
- Generating a script, outline, or ideas
- Generating visuals, music, or fixing overdubs
For our storytelling, we often interview several people to find the heart of our story. We take those 30-minute recorded calls, create transcripts, and feed them into ChatGPT to help identify the characteristic traits we’re looking for. This has saved us days of time.
04. Focus On Evergreen Content
Evergreen videos have value over time because they're not time-sensitive or tied to a specific event or campaign. This type of video content is a solid investment for your organization. It can be used repeatedly to build awareness, engage supporters, and drive donations.
You could film your organization's Top 5 Evergreen Video Stories in a day or two. At BairStories, we wrote the scripts ahead of time and filmed five videos in one day. We also used stock footage to amplify the story visually.
Benefits of Creating Evergreen Video Content:
- Fuels your content efforts by serving various people at different stages of their journey.
- Allows you to package the content into different formats, maximizing mileage.
- Works as a lead generation and customer experience-improving magnet. The specific purpose each piece serves depends on the topic.
Conclusion
With creativity and planning, you can create impactful videos without breaking the bank. Using stock footage, batching film days, repurposing video content, and focusing on evergreen videos are effective strategies. Remember to tell a compelling story and connect with your audience. Your videos will have a lasting impact regardless of the budget size.