Video has become an essential marketing tool for over 91% of businesses. And with 90% of marketers saying that it gives them a good ROI, it’s not hard to see why. But for many organizations, deciding whether they should outsource video production or build an in-house video team can be a tough call. Especially when both have benefits and drawbacks.
In this post, we’ll break down the main factors to consider with outsourcing video versus hiring your own in-house production team and how to make that final call. If you’re already leaning towards hiring an in-house team, “The complete guide to building an in-house video production team” has everything you need to get the ball rolling from hiring to equipment, with expert advice from successful in-house video team leaders.
4 main factors to consider with outsourcing video
Making the call of whether to outsource video creation or have your own team can be a complex one. Deciding to outsource your videos to someone else can seem convenient compared to hiring someone, but it also comes with costs. While there are a lot of different elements to consider, the four factors that you should look at first are budget, timelines, flexibility, and onboarding.
Budget
Cost is top of mind for many organizations and businesses, so it’s no surprise that this is the first factor to consider. And when budgets get cut or team members get laid off, many turn to agencies or freelancers, thinking that they’ll save more with outsourcing the work. But the reality is that it’s often more expensive.
Casey Clark, Senior Manager of Video at Luma Health, was hired on to take over video for this exact reason: “I was working for another Fortune 500 company. And they did outsource all of their video marketing to agencies. The reason they brought me in is because they were starting to realize this is very expensive. They realized, if we just paid one person to maybe reel some of these costs in, we could save a lot of money.”
With agencies and freelancers, you’re paying a premium for specific expertise and deliverables that quickly add up. Whether you’re creating short-form content or longer videos, all of the different elements of your request can end up being far more expensive than what it would be to produce in-house.
As Kaitlyn Rossi, the Creative Director at Storyblocks, explains, “We’ve seen outsourced videos be 10x the cost of what you might spend on them in-house because of all the skills that you bring in to make it happen.”
On top of that, there can be unexpected expenses down the road. If you eventually want to transition from an agency to in-house, you’ll have to buy the footage they filmed for you back. Clark experienced this first hand, saying, “One of the places I was working at, when we wanted the footage that we paid a company to go out and shoot, since I had come on board and wanted to redo the video, we had to buy the footage back. Just to get the raw files, we had to pay them again. So it was like double dipping.”
Timelines
Next, you have to think about how long you’re willing to wait for your videos to get done. When you hire an agency or freelancer, you’re at the mercy of their schedule and availability. You might want a video to go along with your new product launch, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to make that date.
Not to mention the fact that you’ll be in line behind all of the other companies and businesses who also decided to outsource their video production, leading to longer timelines, delays, and backlogs.
Flexibility
Signing a contract with an agency or freelancer means that you get a set amount of revisions, hours, and deliverables. So if you want to make last-minute changes to your video’s script or a new deliverable, you’ll either be out of luck or have to pay extra, often at a premium. If flexibility is a priority for you, outsourcing your video production will be a challenge.
As opposed to when you have someone in house, as Clark explains, “If you want to repurpose a two minute video and make a quick social clip, you don’t have to reach out to your agency contact. You don’t have to write another brief that says we need Steve to clip 15 seconds of this two minute video to be able to put on Facebook or LinkedIn. You ask the person who’s working in-house.”
Onboarding
Finally, the last factor to consider is the entire research, vetting, and onboarding process for your agency or freelancer. You’ll need to go out and find potential options, schedule calls, negotiate contracts, and bring them up to speed with your brand or product before the first video can get underway. If you choose to outsource video, you need to be prepared for the time commitment that comes with those beginning stages.
Communication can also be a huge challenge during this process. Typically, over communicating is the best approach with external vendors. But that also means more time you need to spend sending emails, commenting on drafts, setting expectations, and more.
“One of the biggest challenges of outsourcing is the level of project management required to onboard new vendors,” Rossi points out. “Outsourcing work to an external vendor adds a lot of time to the production process.”
Benefits of hiring in-house
If you read through the last section and are re-considering choosing to outsource video production, let’s take a look at the other option. While hiring in-house can face some of the same challenges, it has more long-term benefits for your organization.
In-depth knowledge of your brand
When you hire someone in-house to create video, all of their focus is on that. Unlike freelancers or agencies that are juggling multiple clients, your team can more quickly get up to speed on your organization’s brand, style, and company goals. On top of that, they’ll also be more invested in your company’s long-term success since their work is directly tied to it.
Whereas an agency or freelancer only knows as much about your organization as you tell them, your internal team is in company all-hands, meetings, and up-to-date with current priorities. They understand your brand and audience best, so the videos they create will be far more likely to succeed and resonate with your viewers.
Ability to move fast and adapt quickly
When an urgent project or request comes up, an in-house team is able to move much faster and re-prioritize their work compared to outsourced solutions. Instead of having to schedule a kick-off call weeks out, your in-house team can directly connect with stakeholders to start moving on new videos quickly.
Let’s say you launch a new video and it isn’t performing. An in-house team can create a new version to test fast. But if you have that same problem with an agency or freelancer? You’ll have to pay for the new version on top of waiting for their availability to free up.
Kyle Miller, Storyblocks’ own Manager of Video Production, has experienced this difference first hand. “Having an in-house video team allows you to move faster, especially when you want to test creative. Without initiating lengthy briefings, kick-off calls and signing contracts, an internal team can swiftly bring ideas to life,” he explains. “We’ve gotten a request saying hey, we want to launch this much spend on Instagram in two days, are you able to whip up this quick video? And we’ve been able to make it happen. How often could you do that if you were working only with freelancers or external teams?”
Historical knowledge and learnings
Finally, one of the biggest benefits of having an in-house team is the fact that they can build off of and learn from past successes and failures. When you have someone dedicated to video, they’ll have a record of past videos, analytics, and campaign data to reference. So instead of starting from scratch, they’ll have concrete information to help guide your video strategy and continue to improve on it.
Plus, if you want to be able to go back to an older video file and re-purpose that content for a new idea? Your team will know exactly where it lives. As Clark explains, “If anyone needs anything, I know exactly where to find it. Cause I’m the one that put it there in the first place. So I can get them what they need a lot quicker than having to reach out to somebody else to do it.”
How to decide if outsourcing video production is right for you vs hiring in-house
Now that we’ve gone through the main points to consider when weighing what direction to take with video creation, let’s talk about how to make the final call. You’ve heard the pros and cons of both sides. Ultimately, this decision comes down to your organization’s specific needs and resources.
Do you need video created quickly? How important is flexibility with changing course or last-minute requests? If speed and adaptability are what matters most, then an in-house team is most likely the right choice. But if you’re only creating a few videos a year, then outsourcing makes much more sense.
As Rossi puts it, the simplest way to know which decision is best for you is “When the cost of sending video work out of house to a freelancer [or agency] outweighs what it would cost for you to produce video in-house with a couple full time employees, that’s absolutely the decision to make.”
You should also consider your long-term growth plans as a company. Video is an investment, but building an in-house team has the better payoff in the long run. From the ability to iterate, test, and learn from the videos they create, your in-house team will give you a solid foundation to build off of.
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Weighing the pros and cons, prioritizing what matters most, and doing your research is what will help you make this choice of how to create video in the end.
But if an in-house team is what you land on, The complete guide to building an in-house video production team is here to help. In it, you get everything you need to help you build an agile and flexible video team in today’s economy, from how to choose your first hire to what equipment you should invest in based on your budget. You’ll also get expert advice from our own team here at Storyblocks along with members running their own successful video production teams.
