How Much Does Video Marketing Cost?

With 89% of marketers now using video in their marketing campaigns, it’s crucial to invest in video marketing to keep up with the competition. Whether you’re running a small business on a shoestring budget or an enterprise looking for high-quality video production, you’ll have to spend money on videos to market your product.

But the question remains—how much does video marketing cost?

In this post, we’ll answer this question by discussing the different tiers of video marketing and the potential ROI that you can get from this expense.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Understanding Video Marketing Costs

Before we dive into the numbers, let’s understand the costs behind video marketing and the factors that influence it.

Why Invest in Video Marketing?

Did you know that 95% of video marketers consider video to be an integral part of their marketing strategy? This means that your competition is using video marketing to capture the target audience. And why shouldn’t they? After all, these are the benefits that you get with streamlined and targeted video marketing methods:

• Higher Engagement - Videos have a higher chance of engaging your audience than just plain old ad copies or old-school, text-heavy blogs.
  
  
• Better Brand Awareness - Short-form videos have a higher chance of going viral, thanks to social media platforms. The right video (and the right time) can get you thousands of leads in the shortest span of time.
  
  
• Improved Conversions - Including video on your landing pages or email campaigns provide a massive boost to your conversion rate. In fact, adding a video to email campaigns is shown to improve click-through rates by 300%!
  
  
• Increases Brand Trust - If you’re only working on ad copy for your marketing, you’re missing out on the human touch. Videos can showcase your vision and your employees to humanize the brand and build trust with your audience.

With all these benefits, why wouldn’t you invest in video marketing? After all, these advantages outweigh the cost of video content creation!

Factors that Affect Video Marketing Pricing

Now, let’s discuss the various factors that will determine the cost of your video marketing campaigns:

• Video Type: Since there are multiple video formats, like reels, ads, testimonials, and explainers (to name a few), their production costs will be different.
  
  
• Production Quality: How professional the video looks will depend on how you shoot it. You can create a video with your smartphone for little to no cost, but a professional shoot will be expensive.
  
  
• Scripting: If you’re writing the script yourself, you can reduce costs significantly. However, it might not have the impact you want. You can hire professional scriptwriters, but the cost will increase based on their rates. Nonetheless, this can lead to a better overall video.
  
  
• Video Length: Creating short-form videos costs less than producing long-form video assets.
  
  
• Editing: Your post-production editing requirements for graphics, effects, audio, and more will determine the final cost.
  
  
• Team: You could script, shoot, and edit the video yourself for free. However, adding videographers, editors, and scriptwriters will increase the expenses.
  
  
• Distribution: Although distributing your video on social media platforms is essentially free, you might have to promote the video for more reach. Whether it’s through paid ads or influencers, this cost can increase based on the available rates.

Video Marketing Pricing Breakdown

Now that you know about the factors that determine the cost of video marketing, it’s time to take a look at the pricing of different types of video marketing campaigns. These prices can vary, of course, but we’re taking a look at different combinations of the mentioned factors based on your budget.

1. Low-budget Video Marketing

Price: $0 to $2,000 (Source)

If you’re a small business or a solopreneur with a tight budget, you’ll have to maximize your efficiency for the video marketing campaign.

Here’s what’s included:

• DIY Shooting: You can reduce your costs by using a high-end smartphone or a mid-tier professional camera.

• Editing: Use value-driven software assets like Canva or CapCut for editing your videos.

• Presentation: If the video needs a presenter or host, you can ask your employees to be the presenter, or do it yourself.

• Distribution: Try to focus mostly on short-form videos like reels or TikToks to keep the budget under control. Not only does this save plenty from your budget, but also has a higher chance of virality and generating leads.

Video Assets: Use stock footage or templates as much as possible to save costs.

You can use these types of videos for behind-the-scenes clips of your workplace, customer testimonials to build brand credibility, or short explainer videos.

2. Mid-Tier Video Marketing

Price: $2,000 to $10,000 (Ice N Fire Media)

If you’ve got a budget of $10,000 or slightly less, you can invest in a broader range of factors to increase the production quality and reach.

Here’s what’s included:

• Professional Videography: With a higher budget, you can hire a professional videographer to shoot your videos with high-quality cameras, decent lighting, and better audio.

• Editing: You can pay for and use professional video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro and CyberLink Power Director to add a high-quality finish to your videos.

• Presentation: This budget provides enough leeway to hire a professional presenter or voice-over artist to showcase the product.

Distribution: Higher budgets allow you to create long-form videos for your website, ads, or even YouTube.

Mid-tier video marketing budgets are great for creating your brand story, product showcases, and social media ad campaigns.

3. High-End Video Marketing

Price: $10,000 to $50,000+ (Ice N Fire Media) 

This level of budget is usually available only to established brands or high-end enterprises. However, such a high budget is excellent for producing cinematic-quality video and massively increasing your reach.

Here’s what you get:

• Production Team: Such a high budget gives you the freedom to hire directors, cinematographers, editors, scriptwriters, and actors.

• Locations: You can either use a high-end studio or travel to different locations for shooting specific sections of the video.

• Storytelling and Editing: With actors, voice-over artists, and excellent animation or motion graphics, you can enhance your brand’s storytelling.

• Distribution: Allocate a budget for paid promotions, invest in highly popular influencers, and target your ad placements for the most popular regions.

  If this is your budget (lucky you!), you can create videos for global ad campaigns, commercials, and brand documentaries.

Maximizing ROI in Video Marketing

So, now you know the cost of making videos and marketing them. But how do you ensure that you get the best returns? Let’s find out.

Cost-effective Strategies for Video Marketing

No matter your budget, you should try to save as much of it as possible. Here are a few ways that can help you maintain your reach while reducing the spend:

• User Generated Content (UGC): Ask your customers or employees to create videos talking about their success stories or experience with your product/service. These serve as a great way to build trust and ensure widespread reach.

• Social Media: Focus on creating videos for social media platforms. Short-form videos like reels cost less than full-length videos and have huge potential to generate leads.

• Tools: You don’t need premium editing tools unless you’re creating global ad campaigns. Budget-friendly tools, like Life Inside and Canva, are great for distribution and editing.

Older Content: Repurpose previous content, like blogs, into videos. This can save you plenty of money as you don’t have to spend on writing a new script entirely. You can also use older videos and clip them to create short-form videos!

How to Choose the Right Video Marketing Budget

We’ve already mentioned the estimated costs for different types of videos. However, if you’re not sure about it yet, here are a few extra tips:

• Decide your goal: If your idea is to expand your social media reach, you don’t need a high budget. A cheap camera or smartphone and some DIY hacks will work just fine for short-form videos. However, for bigger goals, like a TV commercial, you’ll have to spend much more.
• Budget: Even if your video marketing budget isn’t assigned yet, don’t allocate more than 10% of the total marketing budget for creating videos. If you rely heavily on video, bump it up to 15%.
• Take your time: Don’t blow your budget immediately on the best and most expensive assets. Start small and monitor the response from your audience. If the response isn’t great, you can spend more of the budget for experimentation and better production-quality.

Measuring the ROI of Video Marketing

So, you’ve allocated the budget, hired the best production team possible, and distributed the video. Now, how do you measure your ROI?

Here are the metrics you need to track:

• Engagement: Watch times, Completion rates, Likes, Shares, and new Subscribers.
• Conversion: Click-through Rates, new leads, sales.
• SEO: Traffic, lower bounce rates.
• ROAS: Return on Ad Spend, and calculated like this: (Revenue Generated/Ad Spend). This is mostly used for video ads, and a 4:1 ratio is the ballpark that you should aim for.

How Life Inside Helps You With Your Video Marketing

You’re all set with your new video assets, waiting for the engagement to roll in. But, it doesn’t. Why?

If you’re working on just static video, the chances of engagement are slim. Thousands of other brands are working on the same type of content. If you truly want to stand out, you need to create interactive video content that your audience participates in and engages with.

These videos provide branching narratives, CTAs, shoppable elements, and more, for maximum engagement. You’ll not only increase your brand awareness but also your brand retention, lead generation, and conversions.

At Life Inside, we help you create interactive videos that convert. Our in-house dedicated team can automate the collection, activation, and distribution of your videos (either single videos or your entire video marketing funnel). Plus, the platform integrates seamlessly with your tech stack!

To change your video marketing game, sign up for Life Inside and experience these benefits today!

1. Frequently Asked Questions

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3. 1. How much does a professional marketing video cost?

4. A professional marketing video requires a budget of $10,000 to $50,000+.
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6. 2. Are there affordable video marketing options for small businesses?

7. Yes, of course! You can create short-form videos with your smartphone and use your in-house team to present the product or brand story. This will allow you to allocate more budget for social media distribution.
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9. 3. How much should I budget for social media video ads?

10. The cost for social media video ads can range from $500 to $10,000, depending on your needs. For example, different rates apply for various social media platforms, and you need to spend more for targeted ads in regions of higher competition.
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12. 4. What are the main expenses in video marketing?

13. The main expenses in video marketing are production, editing, scriptwriting, and distribution.