So you want to create more corporate videos for your business, but you’re not sure where to start. Is hiring a B2B video production agency the answer?
There are so many options for getting help with your video. You could hire an in-house team to shoot video content for you. You could outsource a freelancer or agency. You could leverage AI. Or you might do a combination of any of these.
Bringing in an outside B2B video production company could take the quality of your video content to the next level. Before you jump into hiring an agency, it’s important to understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of working with an outside team — and what makes a B2B video production agency stand out.
What’s B2B Video Anyway?
Before we dive any deeper, let’s define what B2B video is.
B2B (aka business to business) is a transactional relationship between businesses. It’s not usually what we think of when we envision video marketing content — often that’s for B2C businesses. But if you have a product or service tailored to serve a specific kind of business, you’re marketing to people who work at those businesses.
Ultimately, B2B video promotes your products or services to your target audience: other businesses. It also communicates your value to the businesses that buy from you.
This B2B dental equipment supplier below shared a year-in-review video with its customers (dental offices) that highlighted data like products purchased, discounts and savings, equipment purchases and more. Recapping a great customer relationship highlights your value and encourages retention in the coming year.
What Does a B2B Video Production Agency Do Differently?
If you’re looking to hire an agency for B2B video production services, how do they stand out? What can they offer that you can’t create in-house at your company?
First, a B2B video production company understands the nuances of producing this kind of video content.
They know you’re speaking to other businesses, and they’ve had plenty of experience creating video for B2B organizations.
A full-service B2B video agency does more than just film or animate simple videos, though. Agencies bring a full-service production team to the table to deliver both high-quality video and the strategy behind it.
A team brings the entire production process to life, from pre-production to post-production. When you work with an agency team, they’ll:
- Storyboard and plan your videos via whiteboard sessions
- Organize and create voiceover scripts
- If filming, select locations and capture B-roll
- If animating, create custom animation to illustrate your video
- Record or supply voiceover
- Add graphic design elements, text, and transitions
- Edit and finalize your videos
There’s often a deeper understanding of digital marketing and marketing strategy involved when you work with a professional studio. So not only will you get fantastic professional videos out of the working relationship, you might also get help with your video marketing.
That depends on the agency, so you’ll want to make sure you ask when you’re interviewing potential vendors. Do they talk video marketing ROI and discuss things like your video CTA? That kind of focus can help you hit your KPIs.
You should also consider the kind of video you want to create. If you’re looking to make a Personalized Video for each business you work with, choose a studio that’s savvy on dynamic storyboards and how to write scripts that incorporate personalization.
If you want an Interactive Video, make sure the production agency understands the best way to include interactivity. It can be so much more than a button. A creative team will share suggestions beyond the CTA. This choose-your-own-adventure video from EE is a great example of that (even if it is from the world of B2C).
While any agency or business can work with our self-serve video platform to create a next gen video like the ones above, a team (like ours) that does that all the time is going to do it better.
Types of Videos Created by B2B Video Studios
B2B video production agencies create a variety of creative content, from promotional videos and social media clips to explainers and full-length training video courses.
If you’re considering a B2B video agency, you may want multiple video styles. After all, digital marketing often demands a well-rounded suite of video types, and you might need those in different lengths, like long-form or short-form, and formats, like vertical, horizontal or square. (Pro tip: AI can help with this.)
You might want to feature informal video testimonials on social media, create branded training or host engaging videos on platforms like YouTube or Vimeo.
Ultimately, an agency creates video content you can use to attract and sell to other businesses. For example, this video targets brokers and agents in the commercial real estate market who want to reach more potential buyers.
A video production services agency can also help you produce more technically complex brand videos, such as:
- Animated explainer videos
- Case studies
- Demo videos
- Documentaries
- Live action
- Motion graphics
- Product demos
- Video ads
How an Agency Helps With B2B Video Marketing
As mentioned above, an agency could help you with B2B video marketing campaigns. It all really depends on whether the agency offers marketing services or considers itself a video marketing agency.
When you’re interviewing agencies, be sure to ask plenty of questions about their knowledge of marketing strategy and how they can help you out with B2B video marketing.
Besides producing cinematic quality video content, many B2B video production agencies offer other digital marketing services and may be able to help you with:
- Building brand awareness
- Showcasing your brand story
- Expanding your content marketing strategy
- Honing in on your core value proposition
- Planning your video marketing strategy
- Building your video landing page
The ROI of Video Production
Since video production is a significant investment, you’re probably wondering whether hiring an agency team will help increase your ROI. While we can’t make any guarantees, it’s likely that a B2B video agency could help you improve your video production.
According to data from Hubspot, 42% of marketers experienced better quality videos when they used an agency. The Hubspot State of Video Marketing Report 2023 reported that 96% of marketers feel that video content helps users to better understand their service and product offers.
Because 89% of people say online video has persuaded them to make a purchase, it’s possible that your B2B marketing videos could help your target audience buy with confidence.
If your business needs video content but doesn’t have the in-house resources and expertise to make it happen, a B2B video production company could be the answer to boosting your ROI.
Who Should Hire a B2B Video Production Company?
Hiring a video production company often requires a healthy marketing budget. But don’t let that discourage you. We’ll talk more below about how to cut costs, but first, it’s important to realize that video is for every brand, from startups to mid-market service providers to enterprises, because every customer wants it — and that includes the decision-makers at major corporations who might be your customer.
If you have an audience of customers you want to attract and retain, then video marketing is for you. If you want to make high-quality video content, a production company can be a good choice.
Before you hire, think about what you want from your video campaign. Is the goal sales? Churn reduction? Improving the customer experience?
As a creative B2B video marketing example, we love how Google created a massive number of Personalized Videos to shine a spotlight on a special segment of their customers: SMBs. This is a great use of B2B video content to strengthen the brand-customer relationship.
Cons of Hiring a Full-Scale B2B Video Production Agency
Now that we’ve covered many of the benefits of hiring a full-scale B2B video team, let’s look at some of the potential downsides.
High Production Costs
It’s no secret that hiring a B2B video production agency means potentially steep production costs.
According to HubSpot, 14% of marketers report video production costs between $7,000 and $10,000 to create one video. While that percentage is in the minority, the numbers reveal just how costly it can be to hire a B2B production team.
The budget will vary depending on factors like:
- Type, length, and number of videos
- Kinds of tech your team will be using
- How many production days are required
- Size of your production team (i.e., crew members who need to be paid)
- Any actors you hire for the production
- Post-production considerations
- Venue fees, if renting a shooting location
- Travel costs, if applicable
One thing is clear — your B2B company will need a dedicated budget for its video. Of the marketers HubSpot surveyed, 81% said their companies have a budget that’s earmarked for video only.
The good news is, your B2B video content creation process can look however you need it to. If agency pricing is out of your range for full-service partnership, it might work well to bring a B2B video agency in for specific campaigns and use your in-house team the rest of the time.
According to Hubspot, 14% of businesses that use video rely fully on an outside agency to produce it for them. Forty-nine percent use a combination of agency-produced and in-house video.
If you want to reduce the budget even further, incorporating AI video into your B2B video creation plan could be a great option. AI dramatically speeds up your production process to help you to cut costs and launch sooner.
Less Creative Control
Entrusting your video production to an outside agency can mean giving up some measure of creative control. While it depends on your working arrangement, you’ll likely need to entrust your creative vision to the agency you choose.
Since agencies can come at a high price point, it’s important to ensure that the agency you work with catches your creative vision.
On the other hand, it might help to do a cost-benefits analysis of having your own in-house tema. In the HubSpot survey, 69% of marketers said the most significant benefit of in-house video production was retaining creative control and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.
Lengthy Turnaround Times
It’s possible that hiring a full-service video production company could mean longer turnaround times for your B2B video projects. When you work with an agency, that agency is servicing other clients. Depending on the lift, you might need to build lots of lead time into your video marketing campaigns.
In-house teams and tools can mitigate longer wait times since they’re dedicated company resources.
B2B Video at Your Fingertips
To sum up, hiring out B2B video production services could increase your video quality and ROI significantly. A professional agency team can also help your company to produce a higher volume of video content, giving your marketing strategy a boost.
But you want to make sure you hire the right team.
At Idomoo, we’re not a marketing agency here to dazzle you with showy sizzle reels (though we can), but we do work with B2B brands of all sizes to create dynamic, compelling video content. That’s thanks to our Next Generation Video Platform that allows you (or anyone) to create Personalized and Interactive Video at scale.
Our studio can handle your video campaign from ideation to the finished product, leveraging AI to speed the process so you get what you need faster and for less than typically marketing studios.
Want to know more? This button below is the first step in your next gen B2B video marketing journey. Click it and let’s create something incredible together.
