How Much Money Should Your Brand Be Spending on Video Content?
How much should your business spend on video content? In the age of the endless scroll, where a trending sound can get you 500,000 views, the answer is tough to calculate.
It depends on the price of your product, and the size of your company.
I got started pitching and producing videos in 2016. Back then, brand voice was everything. If a company didn’t have a strong brand voice with quality branded content, they didn’t see success. This is because social media engagement was largely based on followers. If your brand had an audience, you would see a lot of engagement, and make a lot of sales. So to earn that audience, you needed quality content that didn’t feel like an ad. Aspirational lifestyle stuff did really well.
As a video producer, this was the golden age. The cost of cameras was dropping, and the reality of creating a quality video for a low budget was coming into view. So you just had to pitch a little bit lower than the competition, and a little more creative, and you had yourself a gig.
Flash forward to 2023. The media landscape isn’t like this anymore. In 2022, I started including iPhone video albums as inclusions in my pitches, because even though we shoot the main assets on cinema cameras, clients still need organic iPhone clips for social. Because engagement on social media isn’t driven by audiences anymore–it’s driven by discovery. TikTok shows content to new audiences more readily than your own. Also, younger consumers are sick of the aspirational social media lifestyle. This means relatability and authenticity beat out quality now. It also means
So this leads us back to the original question: how much should your business be spending on video content?
First, look at the price of your product.
If you’re selling a lower-priced consumer product, like clothing, then you should absolutely get your start for free or cheap. Website assets still benefit from quality, but marketing assets on social should be as cheap and in-the-moment as possible. For small-sized consumer bands, there’s no sense spending $10,000 on a marketing video anymore, because it won’t perform. It doesn’t matter if your video makes someone cry. Because the most they can do is spend $50 on your sweatshirt. You’ll need to make 200 sales to break even. Give a college kid an iPhone and $500 and tell them run wild on TikTok.
On the flip side, if you’re selling a high-priced product, quality still counts. Aspirational and lifestyle products need to feel top-tier in order for customers to be happy with their investment. It doesn’t matter if your content goes viral–what matters is that your content goes deep. Making someone truly inspired is what it takes to get them to invest in a $5,000 ice bath. But you only need to make 2 people cry to break even on that $10k marketing video. So even small-sized aspirational brands with expensive products should be investing in quality video content.
Medium to large sized-consumer brands can and should invest in quality video content too. If you’re past the point of selling a few hoodies, and you’ve now got multiple product lines with 100+ SKUs, brand loyalty is what will help your business level up. Keep the short-form organic side going, of course. But along the way there, you’ll have earned an audience that wants more. And this is your chance to make them fans for life.
Every great company in history has mastered two things: performance marketing and brand-building. They run performance for cash flow and create branded storylines to cement themselves into the hearts of the world.
P.S. If you want to spend $10,000+ on quality video content, hit me up.
