Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Online video has become hugely popular in the last decade, as technology has become accessible and affordable, and sites like YouTube have become the go-to place to find great content online. Whether you’re a business, musician, comedy group or filmmaker, online video enables you to put yourself in front of millions of people from countries across the globe, and that is why more people are turning to businesses that specialise in creating video content to grow their online audience.
If you are looking to launch a successful online video business and start creating great video content for all ranges of businesses, follow the steps below and you will be ready to take the internet by storm with your work:
Get Your Finances in Order
First things first, to successfully launch a business, you need to have your finances in order. Whether you have funds at your disposal, you’re dealing with investors, or you’re getting business loans, you’ll need to have everything in place before you start, or you could find yourself in trouble before you’ve been given a chance to get started. This requires you to research and find banks which agree to an iva debt in case you would not be able to repay the loan amount and also research regarding where you can get the best loans at the lowest interest.
Any business owner should be seeking out sound financial advice before launching a business, and there a number of companies out there who can help point you in the right direction; click here for a great informative guide on how to find a loan for your business. Once you know where you stand, you can start putting your business plan into place, including finding premises to rent, purchasing equipment and more.
Show Clients What You Can Do For Them
According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, and with YouTube being the second most visited site in the world outside of Google, it pays to communicate the importance of online video to your potential clients. You can do this by showing them what you can do, both by detailing your services (online video, advertising, brand videos, animations, etc.) and by showing examples of your work, either for past clients or by creating a showreel if you haven’t yet started working with clients.
The showreel should be a 60-90 second promo video that consists of examples of what you can do. If you haven’t got any client work yet, get out there and do some filming, make an animation that will show off your skills, and use the showreel as a ‘coming soon’ that you can use to pitch to potential clients when you start sourcing them out.
Practice Your Pitch
For many businesses, pitching can be a nerve wracking experience. Not everybody is super confident and a natural when it comes to pitching to clients, but you can give yourself the best chance of winning over clients by being yourself and being prepared. Practice your pitch until you can recite it word for word, but do your homework so that any questions that the client has can be answered without hesitation.
The best way to prepare yourself is to create an awesome pitch document that highlights your strengths, including what you can do for them, a price breakdown, and any strengths and weaknesses you have identified with their current marketing practices. Nobody likes to be criticised, but if it is constructive and you are putting yourself forward as the team who can put these issues right, the client is likely to respect the fact that you have done your research beforehand, and are selling your services geared towards the client.
The aim of your pitch is to highlight the importance of video content, and what it can do for them. Video content introduces a small business to a worldwide audience, and the right video can send their business global. If that doesn’t excite them, nothing will.
Know Your Prices
Online video can be tricky to create a set price for, as there are a number of factors that can alter the price, including the length of the shoot, the size of the project, the cost of the actors involved in the project, and more. But if you can give a rough guideline for day rates and packages based on the services you provide, you will cut out the time wasters and give potential clients who like the idea of online video but have no idea of the cost a rough guide to follow.
If you are a small company of 1-5 people and you are outsourcing services such as animation, editing and sound, you will have to factor their day rates into the pricing that you put on your website. If you’re not careful, you could find yourself massively undercharging, and you’ll have less profit from the completed job to put back into the business.
Meet Local Businesses
Every business needs to put itself out there, both online and on the street, as face-to-face networking and client sourcing can be a great way of getting your businesses name out into the local community. When you first launch your business, grab your business cards and list of services and start sourcing business networking events, and start mingling with the business owners in your area. It’s a great way to get used to pitching clients, and it will teach you how to create an elevator pitch when you only have a small amount of time with each potential client.
Do Some Free Work
Working for free may not seem to be the best way to launch a successful company, but for an online video company, having work to show to potential clients is more important, and that can be achieved by offering your services for free when you first start out.
You could contact companies who are running events and offer to cover them and create a video for them to share on their social media platforms, or you could contact musicians, comedians, artists and other creatives to see if they would like music videos, gig coverage or a showcase video creating for them. It’s a great way to build your list of contacts, show off your skills and create a lot of goodwill for your fledgling business.
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