It’s every marketing department head’s nightmare, to hear the big boss say “We need to cut down on our marketing video budget this year, but I expect you to roll out more campaigns.” It’s that feeling of running towards a dark alley knowing that Freddie Krueger is just around the corner waiting to give you that high five before he does what he does best. But that is not what I will be talking about today.
Almost every business no matter how passionate their entrepreneurial spirit is, have gone through certain stages of bottlenecks in their operations especially in the budget side of things. It’s that time when company priorities go haywire, where the finance department is the scariest place to be.
Smartphone videography to the rescue!
What do you do then with your remaining budget?
What’s your next step when you still need to deliver a series of videos but your budget was cut in half?
Do you run for your life?
We have a better alternative, if you carefully follow the steps below, you will remain to be in good shape. Believe me, I am the last person to tell you that videos won’t cost you tons (we produce videos for a living!) Yes it will cost you tons to do it, but it does not mean that it can’t be done during desperate seasons.
Concept is king.
Think of a concept that would not require you to bring in too many cameras, lighting equipment or even manpower.
This concept should be anything that can be filmed in a day, plan ahead and write a basic outline. I wrote an article discussing what you can come up with a half day production shoot.
Work with whatever you have on hand.
Do you have a blog site? What is your most read topic? Maybe it’s time to do a follow-up content and film a short video discussing the same topic. Re-purpose your content so you need not have to go through the tedious process of always coming up with a new one.
Stability is key.
A lot of smartphones now can film high-quality videos, just make sure you have a tripod, with enough ambient light. Here is a good tutorial on how to shoot videos using your iPhone, in under 2 minutes you will learn how to do it. Try it, it’s not that hard.
Organize your thoughts
One thing you need to learn is that with tight budget comes tight schedule. The last thing you need is to shoot a video unprepared. Make sure you have an outline prepared and free flow on the topics that you are comfortable in discussing. Never force it, why? Because it will look forced.
Keep it short.
If you have planned well, you can film tons of video episodes in a day. Videos under 90 seconds that captures the insights, the thought and squeeze in a pinch of entertainment you are up for a digital blockbuster.
So the next time you came across budget constraints, remember that a little creativity can bring you places. What’s important is your level of confidence in creating the content, in delivering the ideas.
The more you do this, the better you get at doing it.
Try it and create your own, we would love to check out stuff that you have done, please drop us a message.
