Starting A Video Marketing Company .

[I AM THE SENATE]

I have a reputation as a decent video producer/editor, which is great, but there is no room for growth or promotion at my day job. I'd like to see if I can grow a profitable online video marketing agency over the course of the next year. I'm starting out small, at square one. I currently have a simple website with a portfolio of my work. I have a handful of my own freelance clients in the last year who really love my work. My goal for this month is very small this month.

My skillsets:
Video Production
Graphic Design
Social ad creation and simple social campaigns.
Basic sales skills.

Goal 1. - Earn $500 -Deadline December 31st.

Action : Picked my targets.
1. I narrowed down my first three targets. Clients A B and C. I've decided on Client A. He's fresh off of getting a great response on the last video I made for him.
2. I picked 3 services I can sell him.
3. I've started putting my pitch together. Gathering images and logos.
4. Trawled through Upwork looking for video editing gigs. Only found one worth bidding on.

 

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[Andy Black]

I have a reputation as a decent video producer/editor, which is great, but there is no room for growth or promotion at my day job. I'd like to see if I can grow a profitable online video marketing agency over the course of the next year. I'm starting out small, at square one. I currently have a simple website with a portfolio of my work. I have a handful of my own freelance clients in the last year who really love my work. My goal for this month is very small this month.

My skillsets:
Video Production
Graphic Design
Social ad creation and simple social campaigns.
Basic sales skills.

Goal 1. - Earn $500 -Deadline December 31st.

Action : Picked my targets.
1. I narrowed down my first three targets. Clients A B and C. I've decided on Client A. He's fresh off of getting a great response on the last video I made for him.
2. I picked 3 services I can sell him.
3. I've started putting my pitch together. Gathering images and logos.
4. Trawled through Upwork looking for video editing gigs. Only found one worth bidding on.

Also check out marketing agencies who might have clients in need of videos.

“Who already has your clients?” (Jay Abraham)

 

[minivanman]

Have you made the video for YOUR company yet?

 

[Andy Black]

I always thought hotels would be a good industry to offer video marketing for.

People who churn out YouTube content (and are making money from it) might pay to outsource.

Online course creators could be another (big!) segment of potential clients.

Do you use Loom or Dubb or similar? I create quick videos daily that I send to my team, clients, and prospects. I’ve got 98 videos in my Loom account. They’re so easy to do and they work great.

I’m looking to do video marketing for our clients too. I already have the skills in-house and just need to apply them to our clients.

 

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[Andy Black]

Goal 1. - Earn $500 -Deadline December 31st.

So you already have freelance clients and your goal is earn an extra $500 this month?

What about signing up a client for monthly recurring revenue (MRR)? Can you signup a client to do a video a week for $500/mth?

 

[Nicoknowsbest]

Hi @I AM THE SENATE.

I have a reputation as a decent video producer/editor, which is great, but there is no room for growth or promotion at my day job. I'd like to see if I can grow a profitable online video marketing agency over the course of the next year. I'm starting out small, at square one. I currently have a simple website with a portfolio of my work. I have a handful of my own freelance clients in the last year who really love my work. My goal for this month is very small this month.

My skillsets:
Video Production
Graphic Design
Social ad creation and simple social campaigns.
Basic sales skills.

Goal 1. - Earn $500 -Deadline December 31st.

Action : Picked my targets.
1. I narrowed down my first three targets. Clients A B and C. I've decided on Client A. He's fresh off of getting a great response on the last video I made for him.
2. I picked 3 services I can sell him.
3. I've started putting my pitch together. Gathering images and logos.
4. Trawled through Upwork looking for video editing gigs. Only found one worth bidding on.

Well done on your progress.

Would you focus on your local market?

If not, how would you deal with the production side of video?

So you already have freelance clients and your goal is earn an extra $500 this month?

What about signing up a client for monthly recurring revenue (MRR)? Can you signup a client to do a video a week for $500/mth?

Think about who needs videos done on a monthly basis?

As @Andy Black pointed out, Youtubers might.

Hotels, course creators etc. are more on the one-off side.

At the beginning, any type of revenue feels good.

Maybe you can think about MRR right from day one though?

 

[Fox]

Nice thread.

Do you have a demo reel - if so can you post it here?

 

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[SEBASTlAN]

Congrats. Do you make VSLs?

 

[I AM THE SENATE]

So I pitched all three clients. I put together decks and stopped by in person. Everyone passed because of the holiday, slow sales, "let's talk in the new year, etc." Time to move on to plan B. Moving from local to online.

 

[sparechange]

Cold call the hell out of people offering your services / send out emails.

If someone offered to help market some of my older products for a good price I probably wouldn't say no. Target newer/smaller startups imo, maybe even do some free work for recommendations.

In the past I had some issues shooting a marketing video which ended up looking absolutely horrible..lol fun times

 

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[I AM THE SENATE]

So I had my December goal in my hand and I couldn't do anything with it. I had a salesperson from a different company who needed about $1500 worth of work done. She asked me if I could do it for her "on the side". On the side usually means, less than corporate would charge which was still a grand in this case. Because of my non-compete agreement I couldn't agree to do it and she wouldn't meet our corporate price, so I passed it to one of my contacts. He caved on his pricing and let them talk him down to $750. So it goes.

I've spent the last few days working on my Q1 goals, marketing plan and pricing and sales funnel. I'm writing scripts and creating videos for my funnel now.

 

[I AM THE SENATE]

Good news! I woke up to an email from a filmmaker friend. $900 to edit their short film. I just sent back my contract. I edited a film for this director last year and we won about 10 awards at festivals, and she insists that I edit her new one. It's good to be wanted!

 

[Roli]

I have a reputation as a decent video producer/editor, which is great, but there is no room for growth or promotion at my day job. I'd like to see if I can grow a profitable online video marketing agency over the course of the next year. I'm starting out small, at square one. I currently have a simple website with a portfolio of my work. I have a handful of my own freelance clients in the last year who really love my work. My goal for this month is very small this month.

My skillsets:
Video Production
Graphic Design
Social ad creation and simple social campaigns.
Basic sales skills.

Goal 1. - Earn $500 -Deadline December 31st.

Action : Picked my targets.
1. I narrowed down my first three targets. Clients A B and C. I've decided on Client A. He's fresh off of getting a great response on the last video I made for him.
2. I picked 3 services I can sell him.
3. I've started putting my pitch together. Gathering images and logos.
4. Trawled through Upwork looking for video editing gigs. Only found one worth bidding on.

First of all, well done for breaking out of the comfort zone and going it alone. As someone who was in your industry, and did what you are trying to do now, I can give you a few bits of advice which should help.

Number one thing to do, is to get your mindset right, at the moment you are going about it the same way I did, which is to build up your personal portfolio in order to build momentum and get more clients.

The problem with this approach is that you are not actually starting a business, all you're doing is building a job around yourself, of which you are the boss. However this isn't what you stated that you want to do, you want a company, and so you must start building it as a company from day one. It took me about 5 years to realise this, so hopefully this advice will save you some time.

Talent Sourcing:

In order to build a company, you must have other people working for you, it is your production, rather than your editing or shooting skills that will help you build any type of video marketing company.

You must learn to source other shooters, directors and editors and put them on the jobs that you get. Maybe at first you are doing this for a very slim margin, but as time goes on, you can increase those by going for higher ticket jobs, with more quality production staff.

Remember above all else, there is only one you, and even if you never slept or ate, you would only be able to attend to a few jobs a week at best. Therefore you must use the knowledge you've gained as to how to put shoots together and then go for it.

Client Sourcing:

This will be the most difficult aspect of building the business, so you must spend as much time on it as you can, whilst keeping an open mind as to how you'll gain clients.

The first and easiest port of call, is to look at how your old job did it, I'm guessing that if they were successful and they were small to medium sized, they specialised.

Specialisation is the key to your initial, and perhaps even continuing success. If you look at all the best small to medium video production companies, they specialise in one area or another. So for instance a friend of mine works for a company that pretty much only do the live graphics at car shows, and they and one other company are known as the go-to-guys for car shows.

The obvious advantage of this, is that they get to know one industry inside out, all of their needs, goals, foibles and eccentricities. As a result my friend was recently poached by a bigger firm and has been made head of production for car shows (sidenote: he should really be trying to do what you are doing, but he's happy being a freelancer).

Find your niche, whether it be food, cars, fashion, whatever. Get good at making videos for that niche and the clients will come. On the other hand if your company portfolio has a variety of videos with no particular theme, you'll miss out on the clients who want an agency that understands them and only them.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, however generally you'll find that it's only the mega agencies whom cover many different areas with any success.

Marketing/Next Step:

Find some decent freelancers who simply want to work for anyone who pays, approach them and tell them you are going to be getting work in ABC niche and talk to them about rates, availability, etc. Then once you have a bunch, edit together a showreel (with their permissions) with all of their work.

After this, pick up the phone, type up some emails, and do whatever it is you have to do to get attention to your reel.

Ultimately there's nothing wrong with your approach, you'll get clients and you'll make money, you may even become a super successful freelancer, which might just make you happy and fulfil all your needs. However be aware that it will never truly be a company in anything other than name.

 

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[I AM THE SENATE]

First of all, well done for breaking out of the comfort zone and going it alone. As someone who was in your industry, and did what you are trying to do now, I can give you a few bits of advice which should help.

Number one thing to do, is to get your mindset right, at the moment you are going about it the same way I did, which is to build up your personal portfolio in order to build momentum and get more clients.

The problem with this approach is that you are not actually starting a business, all you're doing is building a job around yourself, of which you are the boss. However this isn't what you stated that you want to do, you want a company, and so you must start building it as a company from day one. It took me about 5 years to realise this, so hopefully this advice will save you some time.

Talent Sourcing:

In order to build a company, you must have other people working for you, it is your production, rather than your editing or shooting skills that will help you build any type of video marketing company.

You must learn to source other shooters, directors and editors and put them on the jobs that you get. Maybe at first you are doing this for a very slim margin, but as time goes on, you can increase those by going for higher ticket jobs, with more quality production staff.

Remember above all else, there is only one you, and even if you never slept or ate, you would only be able to attend to a few jobs a week at best. Therefore you must use the knowledge you've gained as to how to put shoots together and then go for it.

Client Sourcing:

This will be the most difficult aspect of building the business, so you must spend as much time on it as you can, whilst keeping an open mind as to how you'll gain clients.

The first and easiest port of call, is to look at how your old job did it, I'm guessing that if they were successful and they were small to medium sized, they specialised.

Specialisation is the key to your initial, and perhaps even continuing success. If you look at all the best small to medium video production companies, they specialise in one area or another. So for instance a friend of mine works for a company that pretty much only do the live graphics at car shows, and they and one other company are known as the go-to-guys for car shows.

The obvious advantage of this, is that they get to know one industry inside out, all of their needs, goals, foibles and eccentricities. As a result my friend was recently poached by a bigger firm and has been made head of production for car shows (sidenote: he should really be trying to do what you are doing, but he's happy being a freelancer).

Find your niche, whether it be food, cars, fashion, whatever. Get good at making videos for that niche and the clients will come. On the other hand if your company portfolio has a variety of videos with no particular theme, you'll miss out on the clients who want an agency that understands them and only them.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, however generally you'll find that it's only the mega agencies whom cover many different areas with any success.

Marketing/Next Step:

Find some decent freelancers who simply want to work for anyone who pays, approach them and tell them you are going to be getting work in ABC niche and talk to them about rates, availability, etc. Then once you have a bunch, edit together a showreel (with their permissions) with all of their work.

After this, pick up the phone, type up some emails, and do whatever it is you have to do to get attention to your reel.

Ultimately there's nothing wrong with your approach, you'll get clients and you'll make money, you may even become a super successful freelancer, which might just make you happy and fulfil all your needs. However be aware that it will never truly be a company in anything other than name.

This is all good info. Great points.

Don't congratulate me yet. I haven't gone solo, I'm keeping my day job. This not a fastlane venture. This is an earn extra income to pay off debts and save money venture. I'm not opposed to this being a second job for a while and if it grows into a company that I can sell at some point, I'm here for that.

About me. I've worked for several news, production and marketing companies as a graphic artist, editor, videographer and producer. I'm currently a Creative Director at a local TV station. Because of that, I have a non-compete agreement which prevents me from doing any freelance work that conflicts with corporate's interests. We create everything from social media videos, events videos, tv commercials and long form production. This limits the amount of freelance work I can take on. It has to be work that comes from outside our viewing area. My bosses have looked the other way on my handful of personal clients I've had for years. They won't look the other way on new clients. This town isn't that big and word gets around. My goal is to find clients in surrounding cities online.


Talent Sourcing:
I have been searching for freelancers, both within and outside my network. I have three freelance videographers and two editors in my local network that I sub work out to right now. I'm looking online for editing and motion graphics freelancers online. I have a couple in mind.

Client Sourcing:
This is what it all boils down to. At my current job we have 5 sales people with 2 sales assistants bringing in millions a year in airtime and 250k + in production. They do old school sales, cold calls, beating the streets, shaking hands, going for drinks, following up etc. They also do email marketing. They don't do social in any sort of coordinated way. The question then becomes can I create a sales funnel of my own that works online and is automated that can reach the same level of production revenue. Well the good news is that I know I can sell with video, I do it everyday. I'm using video heavily in my online sales funnel. Finding the right clients and getting my videos in front of them is the real work.

Specialization.
I've worked in a few local video production shops/tv stations and I've watched who has made it and who hasn't. Most of them had a bread and butter industry while still being able to step outside of that. I can do that. I've produced everything you can think of in a local market. Car, fitness, health, medical, restaurant and lawyer commercials (so many lawyer commercials). PSA's, event videos, training and recruitment videos, news shows, tv shows, short documentaries and short films. I haven't decided on a market to specialize yet. That's something I need to give some thought. My friend works at a shop that specializes in video marketing in the dental industry. His boss has helicopter. I get it.

Marketing/Next Step:
I have a couple of demo reels already. I have a company reel & sales letter video. I'm creating a split test video ad sequence for my sales funnel and landing page videos. I also have a list of new videos to add to my website portfolio. But I do like your idea of editing a demo reel from freelancer's work. If I didn't have a body of work I'd go this route.


Thanks for the well thought out and thought provoking post! It helped me clarify a few thoughts.

 

[S.Y.]

[...]

Do you use Loom or Dubb or similar? I create quick videos daily that I send to my team, clients, and prospects. I’ve got 98 videos in my Loom account. They’re so easy to do and they work great.

[...]

@Andy Black any chance you can elaborate on what kinda videos?

 

[aishley]

Cool!
Video marketing is definitely the next big thing. We can see how well is video content performing over the internet. As a business, it is now a must to have a video marketing plan. People love to watch videos and share it more than any other type of content, that's why video gets higher engagement. Therefore, having a video marketing agency is not a bad option nowadays.

 

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[Roli]

About me. I've worked for several news, production and marketing companies as a graphic artist, editor, videographer and producer. I'm currently a Creative Director at a local TV station. Because of that, I have a non-compete agreement which prevents me from doing any freelance work that conflicts with corporate's interests. We create everything from social media videos, events videos, tv commercials and long form production. This limits the amount of freelance work I can take on. It has to be work that comes from outside our viewing area. My bosses have looked the other way on my handful of personal clients I've had for years. They won't look the other way on new clients. This town isn't that big and word gets around. My goal is to find clients in surrounding cities online.

Wow. That's really cool, you have exactly the right experience to go it alone, and this post has illustrated to me that you have the right mindset as well. If there is anything lacking, I'd guess it's confidence, you have a nice security blanket of regular income, and creative output, so the idea of throwing that all away on something you haven't established yet is daunting to say the least.

I think the congratulations is still in order, most of all because of your mindset, you really are thinking about this in the right terms.

I can't remember if you mentioned your savings, however if you haven't already, then start saving big time. For me in the old days, I only needed about 3 months worth of living cash in order to just walk out of a job, so I would advise getting to your personal safety savings net, and just leave.

You sound like you've got a great relationship with your current employers, and I'm not surprised they've been happy to let you moonlight in other territories, because as you'll find out when you start employing people, good staff are hard to come by, great ones are even harder to keep, and you are clearly a great employee! Just make sure you leave on nice terms, don't burn any bridges, I'm sure they'll want to keep a good relationship with you, just as much as you will with them.

Anyway, keep your mind where it's at now, I like the fact that you're thinking about how to improve the sales techniques and how to get clients outside of your immediate geographic area.

As far as the niche, I guess it's a combination of choosing one that you feel you personally can give value to, and one that's lucrative enough to keep you in helicopters .

The idea is to find a boring, high ticket industry, that is just used to video production enough to value it and not quibble over pricing, but one that's not too saturated. Think, oil & gas, mega construction, that kind of thing, or even go down a similar route of your friend, and try and seek out some plastic surgeons that need stunning examples of their work, or even sub down further, and find surgeons that do a specific kind of work that will really benefit from good video.

All in all, I think you'll be okay as long as you stick to the attitude you have regarding working out your structure regarding freelancers and clients, and your general methodical approach to building the business. Most of all though, you just need to have a safety savings net to chill you out as you start to branch out on your own.

Good luck, and please keep us informed, this is just the sort of journey that needs to be documented, both for your own purposes and to help others in similar situations to yourself.

 

[I AM THE SENATE]

I've spent the last couple of weeks with my daughter before she went back to school and I've spent some time updating my resume, posting my demo reel online and sending it around to my network. There has been a lot of people leaving and there are big changes around the office which have made all of us a little jumpy.

I've been fighting a lot of doubt and fear. I know I'm good at making videos, but there are tons of things I know I don't know and those have been paralyzing me. Although I have a plan, I have no idea if it will work and I've been afraid that I will put myself out in the market and fall flat on my face. I've been retreating into learning more about operating a business, marketing, social media marketing techniques, researching new camera gear and computer parts, etc. But I realized what I haven't been doing is doing the things that can make me money. Action faking. So I'm getting off my butt and getting back to work. Ive starting by reaching out to the contacts I have now.

Action Steps
Tonight I edited a tv commercial for a client and sent that off for approval.
I finished a course on running a marketing agency and compiled my notes to a document file.
I uploaded new videos to my youtube channel.

 

[Roli]

I've spent the last couple of weeks with my daughter before she went back to school and I've spent some time updating my resume, posting my demo reel online and sending it around to my network. There has been a lot of people leaving and there are big changes around the office which have made all of us a little jumpy.

I've been fighting a lot of doubt and fear. I know I'm good at making videos, but there are tons of things I know I don't know and those have been paralyzing me. Although I have a plan, I have no idea if it will work and I've been afraid that I will put myself out in the market and fall flat on my face. I've been retreating into learning more about operating a business, marketing, social media marketing techniques, researching new camera gear and computer parts, etc. But I realized what I haven't been doing is doing the things that can make me money. Action faking. So I'm getting off my butt and getting back to work. Ive starting by reaching out to the contacts I have now.

Action Steps
Tonight I edited a tv commercial for a client and sent that off for approval.
I finished a course on running a marketing agency and compiled my notes to a document file.
I uploaded new videos to my youtube channel.

As I said before it's confidence that is your biggest barrier. What are your savings looking like? You don't have to tell me a number, I'm just wondering how long you can realistically live without a salary.

If the answer to that question is 3-6 months, then I would start arranging to leave on good terms.

Remember, there are always jobs out there for skilled individuals such as yourself, if it doesn't work out, you can return to your current employers, or their rivals.

How was the course by the way? What did you learn? Was it worth it?

Lastly, I think the most important thing you can do now, is choose your niche. How about rhinoplasty? I know you guys in the States love your plastic surgery, so there's a lot of competition, and it's a very visual industry.

Once you've chosen a niche, you can start thinking about what style and type of video you're going to use to wow everyone in that industry enough to buy you a helicopter!

 

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[I AM THE SENATE]

As I said before it's confidence that is your biggest barrier. What are your savings looking like? You don't have to tell me a number, I'm just wondering how long you can realistically live without a salary.

If the answer to that question is 3-6 months, then I would start arranging to leave on good terms.

Remember, there are always jobs out there for skilled individuals such as yourself, if it doesn't work out, you can return to your current employers, or their rivals.

How was the course by the way? What did you learn? Was it worth it?

Lastly, I think the most important thing you can do now, is choose your niche. How about rhinoplasty? I know you guys in the States love your plastic surgery, so there's a lot of competition, and it's a very visual industry.

Once you've chosen a niche, you can start thinking about what style and type of video you're going to use to wow everyone in that industry enough to buy you a helicopter!

If I could leave I would have already. There isn't as much work in this market as you might think or I'd be gone already. I'd have to move to another market, which is an option.

The course was worth it only for the fact that it confirmed what I already had planned. I don't know what value you can put on that.

I have always done good work for plastic surgeons, I have two I work with on a consistent basis in my day job. I still haven't decided on niche because honestly I've never enjoyed niche work. If that was the case I could just be safe and well paid as a marketing director for a tv station and have one client (the station). I find that boring. I like having a variety of clients from a creative point of view, but from a business pov I understand how niches make riches.

 

[Roli]

I still haven't decided on niche because honestly I've never enjoyed niche work.

Totally get that. However you need to remember, you're trying to build a business whereby other people will be working for you, not build your freelance career. So I don't think the monotony matters as much.

I hear you though. Keep searching!

I have always done good work for plastic surgeons, I have two I work with on a consistent basis in my day job.

Sometimes, the answer to our problems is staring us right in the face. It just takes someone else to point it out...

 

[B-qiri]

Great thread! Has anything new happened since then?

 

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