You have a product, service, or idea you want to market, and you’ve decided to make a commercial. Congratulations! It’s a big step up from printed media and word-of-mouth advertising.
You may not know how to start, but that’s why you should hire an expert team to handle it for you. Finding a video production company will make your life much easier, especially if this is your company’s first commercial. But how do you even find a video production company, let alone the right one for your project?
Here are five tips to get you started in your search for a video production company in San Diego and beyond:
1. Find a Company Whose Vision Matches Yours
If you want to make a commercial, you probably already envision what you want it to look like, what kind of branding you want to include, what the actors might say, and other factors. You might also already have an outline for your script, if it isn’t completed already. What about the scope of the project? Does your budget have you running your commercial on prime-time TV, mobile ads, or local channels?
When looking for a video production company, check out their portfolio work and a demo reel. This is a production company’s best work, snippets of their “greatest hits” and what they’re known for. On this reel, see if you can pick out your favorite and least favorite piece—not the “worst,” just the one you liked the least.
Can you pinpoint why you didn’t like it? Maybe their style doesn’t quite match what you’re thinking, or perhaps their budget is too high (or too low) to match what you want to do. If their team has a different vision, you might keep shopping for a production company to use.
2. Work With a Company That Knows Your Niche
Odds are that if you’ve started a business in any industry, you’ve found your niche: that thing that makes your company unique. Whether you own a restaurant, car dealership, boutique clothing store, or computer repair station, you know your business better than anybody. If you’re going to properly showcase what your company is about in a commercial, it’s important to work with a video production company that understands your niche.
A company that is familiar with your industry will have already done plenty of market research about companies like yours. They’ll have an idea of what works and what doesn’t for your field and probably already understand your target audience. Knowing the age of your customers, where they spend time, how they came to need your product, and how your product or service solves a problem for them can help the video production company create a commercial that really resonates with the people you’re trying to reach.
The best way to determine their expertise in your particular industry is to ask. Have they worked with businesses like yours before? Ask to see examples of work they’ve done for companies similar to yours and for analytics so you can see how well that work served the client.
3. Read Testimonials
When looking for a video production company, reading testimonials is a great way to gauge whether you want to work with the team. Whether you’ve heard about a production company through a recommendation or referral or if you’ve seen testimonials on their website, try and take it a step further and ask around or check out a few review websites. The more positive testimonials you find, the more you can trust this company with your vision and niche marketing.
Don’t just look at testimonials listed directly on the company’s web page—go to other review sites as well, such as Yelp, Google Reviews, or Yahoo, as these websites have clear scoring systems. While it’s great that the company has positive testimonials on its own website, these can be cherry-picked to be the very best. Folks on other sites are free to post what they really think, and they might have more unfiltered responses.
Another thing to pay attention to here is whether the company responds to poor reviews or criticism. They might have had a bad review because of something out of the company’s control, but how they respond to this review can speak volumes.
4. Determine Whether You Need a Local Company
Consider whether your vision includes shots of your own business and other specific locations or whether you can film your commercial anywhere. You may have yet to calculate travel in your budget, but if your commercial can be filmed anywhere, you can choose the best production company, no matter where they are located. For instance, Pretzel Logic Productions is a San Diego video production company, but our team services businesses all over the world. It just depends on what you need.
Are you okay with working with people over video chat, emails, and phone calls? If yes, you might find the most qualified video production company for your purposes is the one that doesn’t happen to be local. If you prefer working with someone and being in the same physical location while presenting your ideas, or if you want to film your actual business location, you might choose a local video production company.
5. Opt for a Full-Service Video Production Company
Some video production companies only work on the video aspect. They may not help you with the planning or the post-production, but that can be just as vital to the success of your commercial.
At Pretzel Logic Productions, planning is the first, most essential step. Not only can we help you with the concept and scripting, but we go above and beyond with storyboard, campaign strategy, and budget planning, to name a few essential tasks, before the cameras roll. And, of course, there’s post-production: editing, color grading, sound editing, and more. We’ll make your commercial sparkle when the production wraps.
Pretzel Logic Productions is your go-to video production team, with experience in commercial advertising and sales video production. Our San Diego video production team is made up of creative innovators and filmmakers. We help create the best commercials, from the creative development beginnings to the scripting to the motion graphics and the editing at the end of the process. Whatever your needs, we have your back. Contact us today to see how we can make your video commercials stand head and shoulders above the competition.