There is a growing demand for videos across all industries worldwide.
In fact, a 2020 survey shows 86% of consumers prefer to see more brand videos. The survey also reveals an increased interest among marketers to invest more in video marketing, with YouTube remaining in the number one spot on the social channels for video marketing.
Source: Wyzowl Video Survey
Video content is a creative and effective way of engaging your audiences and drawing them into your brand. More and more businesses are looking into hiring video production services as they are starting to see the value in it for their overall marketing strategy.
There is a massive shift in video marketing solutions from traditional to remote as the ongoing pandemic reinforces remote working conditions. This translates to most of their business migrating online for video production agencies as more clients can better enlist their services virtually.
One of the biggest challenges video marketing agencies face in scaling their operations to service clients in other cities, states, and countries is hiring the right people. Now that the gig economy is growing and the traditional workforce is becoming more diverse, there are newer, more efficient ways to create more videos quickly, help get more clients, and boost your bottom line that does not involve sitting in a boardroom for hours.
Today, video production agencies can choose between building a remote team or hosting online video contests.
Remote Video Production Teams
Remote teams work outside of a traditional office environment, and it could be anywhere from their own homes to coworking spaces and even coffee shops.
The last five years have seen a 44% growth in remote work, mainly due to the flexibility remote work provides. This type of working arrangement is so compelling that nine out of 10 currently working remotely prefer working this way permanently.
Remote Video Production Team Benefits
1. Cost-Effective Way of Acquiring Quality Talent
Brick-and-mortar businesses are severely limited in their ability to hire more quality workers in that the scope of their talent pool is only within their area. Hiring people from different cities or states in the past meant added logistical expenses like flying them and providing them with adequate housing.
With remote hiring, it is now possible to expand your talent reach exponentially and enlist a great candidate from the other side of the world to your team with significantly lesser costs. Especially when they are primarily millennials, keeping work remote is a great way of retaining the young members of your team. So effective, 85% of millennials say they want to telecommute all the time.
Consequently, this means opening a world of possibilities for your video marketing agency. You can have a Spain-based UX designer, a videographer from South Africa, or an admin officer from Thailand.
2. Reduce Overhead Costs
As mentioned earlier, remote work essentially eliminates logistical costs for the company. In fact, remote work makes many expenses disappear, both from the employee’s and the company’s side.
There are a lot of overhead costs associated with office-based work. Keeping a traditional office operating is expensive when accounting for rent, utilities, heating, cooling, and internet.
You can incentivize employees to work remotely by giving them allowances for electricity, internet, home office set-up, or co-working membership. These costs are trivial when you compare them to the costs of brick-and-mortar operations. A Standard study found companies can save $2,000 per employee by condensing their real estate footprint and going remote.
3. Wider Scope of Video Formats
Going remote for a video production agency gives rise to a broader scope of video formats and vibrant cloud-based collaboration.
As companies are leaning into remote editing workflows, remote video editors have more liberty and creative license to produce more types of video content, not including animated films, explainer videos, video ads, and vertical videos for TikTok and other social media channels.
Disadvantages of Building a Remote Video Production Team
1. Communication Problems
When it comes to working remotely, and any human interaction for that matter, communication is key. However, differences in time zones, cultures, personal domestic circumstances, and poor internet connection are remote work silos. These can cause misunderstandings and misinterpretations and can escalate quickly.
Therefore, remote teams will have to utilize communication tools to correspond quicker and more efficiently. Especially when accounting for different availability.
2. Meeting Deadlines
Employee success is another big challenge facing organizations opting for remote work. Creating work guidelines takes a lot of time to put together as there are more variables to factor in. A report from Buffer outlined the biggest remote work challenges: loneliness, distractions at home, time zones, and motivational issues.
Source: Buffer
Add to that, not all of the work can be tracked. Even with time tracking tools like Time Doctor or HubStaff, it can still be extremely tough to submit the videos on time. All these obstacles lumped together make meeting deadlines trickier.
3. Video Quality Issues
Because people working remotely with each other are not physically there to ensure they are on the same page when working on a video project, remote video marketing agency teams may encounter issues with the video quality.
File rendering can also become a problem. Long upload and download times can eat away at valuable editing time — resulting in workflow bottlenecks.
What Are Online Video Contests?
Online video contests are an excellent way to pool the best outputs from a vast network of filmmakers and video creators. Undeniably, it is also great for gathering user-generated video content (UGC) while driving more traffic to your website and social media following.
Benefits of Hosting Online Video Contests
1. Professionally Made Videos
Many filmmakers who participate in online video contests are actual professionals. They are looking for ways to challenge themselves and expand their respective portfolios. Additionally, they wish to grow their personal network of creatives. These personal motivations usually translate to videos that are of professional, first-rate quality. Sometimes, their submissions can even be a labor of love.
Ellevest, for instance, needed five filmmakers to create a video series that featured the company’s high-profile investors. We put together five film crews in five cities for this five-part series — all in two weeks!
On top of that, we also helped develop the storyboard and handled all post-production tasks.
Below is one of the videos we completed featuring Venus Williams.
2. Access Isn’t Limited By Your Bank Account
The prizes you can offer from hosting online video contests are not limited to the monetary kind. Southwest Airlines partnered with us to host a video storytelling competition. Filmmakers were challenged to bring the best traveler story on board in less than three minutes. The prizes were 24 one-way flight e-passes for the United States and Puerto Rico.
The chance to travel internationally was a good incentive for hundreds of filmmakers to join the contest. Southwest Airlines received distribution rights to the top videos, while the winners received great travel prizes.
The winning entry was a touching story of an African-American woman taking on a journey into her ancestry:
3. You “Pay” Only What You Like
Another perk of online video contests is that they can provide video marketing agencies with several high-quality videos to choose from based on what the client is looking for. Based on the video contest guidelines set by either the agency or the client, only the filmmaker whose entry was picked will receive remuneration or a reward from the client.
In addition, the video marketing agency or the client will have gathered rich marketing data from the participants and the social buzz that the contest creates.
Disadvantages of Hosting Online Video Contests
1. Getting People to Join
Before you jump in, you need to consider first if video contests work for you. If you are a start-up or a brand recovering from a bad reputation, you may want to opt-out of online video contests.
This kind of marketing strategy only benefits brands that want to enhance an already strong loyalty. On the other hand, those that want to create or repair customer relationships may find it more challenging — especially if you are a small team.
You will have to have a dedicated person developing and launching the promotion or an entire group of people who will answer questions and submissions, update your social media pages, manage unforeseen crises, and make sure the winner gets their prize promptly. Even when you have people working the different facets of the promotion, getting people to participate can still be challenging.
2. Requires A Lot of Resources to Launch
Hosting an online video contest can also require a lot of resources to launch, especially if you are a small team. You will need a dedicated person managing the execution of the promotion or an entire team. They will answer questions, and submissions, update your social media pages, ensure the winners get their prizes promptly, and even mitigate risks.
Aside from that, what you are willing to shell out for the competition’s prize or pot money may not be proportionate to the demand you put out for participants or the scale of the competition. You also have to make sure that the leads and sales will offset the cost of organizing the contest it will generate.
3. Legal Rights and Issues
The subject of legal ownership of the content submitted can get murky and messy really fast. You have to first review the laws of your state and the rules of the platform that hosts the contest.
You also have to set clear terms and conditions for the participants to read and consider, especially around usage rights. In a video entry for instance, the brand must obtain releases not only from the videographer but also from every person and third-party rights holder in the video. It is even more complicated because it may include music with multiple rights holders.
In 2008, Subway sued Quiznos for running a user-generated video competition where participants were asked to create videos explaining how Quizno’s sandwiches were better than Subway. Subway alleged that Quiznos violated the Trademarks Act. And that their online video contest created misleading representations of their products.
It is best to talk with your legal team to avoid unintentional law infringements. You may also benefit from briefing your content team to ensure your contest wording or any copy you put out will not cause you any implications in the duration of the contest.
AudPop: Your Online Video Contest Partner
AudPop is the number one global video platform, and we provide high-quality, authentic custom videos that businesses need. Our proprietary software helps businesses connect to our Creator community. We do this through turnkey video contests, film challenges, and our Creator freelancer marketplace.
Every company has stories to tell. As your trusted creative video agency, we aim to provide you with the Creative team, Software, and Creator community to tell yours.
We also have an array of services that will help your video marketing agency launch a successful online video contest that resonates with your audience and keeps your video production needs in mind.
Below are some videos two of our most successful online video contests:
You can check out more of our video campaigns and discover opportunities to advance your video career.
Online Video Contests: The Better Option
The problems associated with building a remote video team are far too complex and costly to manage. Especially for a fledgling video marketing agency.
On the other hand, online video contests give you a guarantee that deadlines are met, video quality is not compromised. And also, that less company resources are expended in the creation of the needed video content.
Between the two, hosting online video contests is a better, more cost-effective way to grow your video production agency.
If you are interested in launching an online video contest for your video production needs, get in touch with us today to learn more how we can help.
ABOUT AUDPOP
At AudPop, we’re filmmakers, designers, marketers, strategists, and writers. But mostly, we’re dreamers! Dreamers who believe stories can change the world. Our mission at AudPop is to connect partners with creators. Filmmakers with partners. Audiences with authentic stories to facilitate collaboration and change.
How do we do that exactly? It’s simple.
We’ve got you if you’re a partner or agency looking to create original premium video content. We can connect you with over 75,000 diverse and talented filmmakers. Are you a filmmaker ready to share your stories with the world? We can connect you with partners and audiences hungry for quality, authentic content. Do you want to watch quality video content with real stories? We have over 12,000 videos from filmmakers from 190 countries. All with unique stories to tell.
Dreams start here—and together, we can make them come true. Check out AudPop.
