In-House vs Outsourcing a Video Production Company

Building an in-house video marketing team significantly expands your organization's digital advertising capabilities, but it might not be practical for your short and long-term objectives. Understanding the key benefits, challenges, and considerations of in-house vs. outsourcing video production will help you determine what works best for your unique marketing strategy.

Understanding In-House Video Production

In-house video production is about creating video marketing content using your organization's existing team and resources. While investing in equipment, studio space, and video training may be more expensive upfront, it can save you money long-term if video content is a permanent aspect of your marketing strategy.

What It Is and How It Works

In-house production looks different for every business, whether your marketing department runs a small social media vlog or you're building a full-scale studio from the ground up. Whatever your exact plan is, your in-house production setup should prevent you from having to hire professional video production companies for every project. 

While you won't always have the expertise of a professional video team, you can retain more creative control and keep the entire project focused on your brand goals. Additionally, the more you invest in your internal team, the more experience they'll organically develop.

Typical Team Structure and Workflow

Your in-house production team depends on your available resources, which often hinges on your estimated return on investment (ROI). While one company may specifically hire full-time in-house videographers, producers, and editors, another company may simply invest in videography training for its existing marketing team. Still, even with a great setup, you may need to work with freelance specialists to achieve the shots you want.

Pros and Cons of In-House Video Production

Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of in-house vs outsourced video production will help you establish what works for your long-term marketing strategy. 

Advantages: Brand Control, Speed, Internal Alignment

The key benefits of in-house video production over outsourcing include:

• Creative control over your brand: No matter how detailed your brand style sheet is, you ultimately know your brand and target audience more than any other team. Producing your video in-house maximizes your creative control, letting you fit everything to your company's exact needs.

• Internal alignment: Keep your project focused on your overall business goals and brainstorm ways to connect to other campaign goals, such as brand awareness, as you go. 

• Production speed: Produce your content on your own schedule rather than waiting for a video production company's schedule to open up. Faster turnaround is especially important for time-sensitive projects, such as last-minute announcements, holiday videos, and internet trends. 

• Long-term cost savings: If you're planning ongoing video projects, investing in in-house resources will save you money on all future projects, even if it costs more upfront. 

Challenges: Resource Constraints, Skill Gaps, Equipment Costs

Disadvantages of filming in-house rather than outsourcing include:

• Resource constraints: Limited expertise, equipment, and other resources restrict what you can actually achieve on camera compared to what a professional outsourced team could achieve.

• Skill gaps: Even if you aren't planning anything elaborate, less experienced crew members could slow down production and result in lower-quality content. Of course, everyone gets better with practice, so your investment should pay off over time. 

• Equipment costs: While most production teams provide cameras and equipment, you'll either need to rent or buy the necessary gear for your projects. 

Understanding Outsourced Video Production

On the other hand, outsourcing video production opens you up to diverse sets of expertise, experiences, and equipment, which can significantly level up your project. However, not every production company's style will suit your brand, and investing in outsourced video marketing could dramatically drive up your long-term budget. So, you must know how to find the best marketing company for your unique needs.

How External Production Partners Operate

External partners, such as creative agencies and video production companies, work with you to create videos that meet your unique business goals, target audience, and budget. The process starts by discovering your target audience's unique habits, such as their top social media platforms, engagement behavior, and purchasing pain points. From here, your production company will develop a production strategy, taking you through all three stages of production, planning logistics, schedules, equipment, and everything in between.

When Businesses Typically Turn to Agencies or Freelancers

Businesses partner with external teams for corporate video production for various reasons, including:

• Creating specialized videos: In-house teams may not have access to or be trained with different types of technical equipment, such as cranes, drones, or camera rigs. Partnering with an experienced video production company, such as Charter & Co, lets you achieve more without investing in the equipment and training yourself.

• Planning one-time projects: Partnering with a creative agency is cheaper than building something in-house if you aren't planning on using video marketing long-term. Even if you do have an in-house team, a production company can help you create higher-quality, one-time videos that stand out from your usual content. 

Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Video Production

When comparing in-house development and outsourcing, consider how an outsourced team could directly benefit your unique needs. 

Advantages: Expertise, Scalability, High Production Value

The benefits of outsourcing your videos include:

• Expertise and training: Experienced production teams work faster and often yield better results. Many teams are also trained in specific production needs, such as drone footage, motion graphics, and animation.

• Scalability: Many local production companies already have many other local professionals and freelancers in their network, making it easy to hire additional crew members and specialists for your project.

• High production value: Simply put, a camera operator who has been behind the camera every day for several years knows how to get a "perfect shot" more efficiently than someone who just started learning this year. 

Challenges: Cost, Creative Misalignment, Lead Time

The disadvantages of outsourcing videos rather than making them in-house include:

• Higher long-term costs: Hiring the same production company over and over again will ultimately cost you more than building an in-house team, even if it seems cheaper upfront.

• Creative misalignment: Like a game of telephone, passing your project between so many sets of hands risks your message or aesthetic being misconstrued.

• Lead time: Most production companies work with multiple clients at the same time, which means you may have to wait longer for them to film and edit your project. 

How to Choose the Right Production Model

Deciding between filming in-house vs. outsourcing requires you to consider several crucial factors, including your budget, your creative vision, and your long-term goals.

Budget Realism and ROI Expectations

Understanding your brand goals and estimated ROI to set a realistic budget and avoid spending more than you'd stand to make. Outsourcing your video project could be cost-effective if you have an immediate financial goal, such as a massive product launch. However, if you're primarily focused on brand awareness with long-term, indirect impacts, you may be better off establishing an in-house development team rather than outsourcing. 

Evaluating the Complexity of the Video Project

Write down and storyboard your video ideas to start brainstorming tangible ways to bring them to life. While your in-house team may be able to pull off standard videos, you may need external assistance for more complex production needs, such as crane shots, stunt driving, and animation. 

Long-Term Needs and Scalability

A video marketing strategy may benefit your business objectives on paper, but there's never a guarantee that your videos will resonate with your audience. As you begin your video campaign, track viewers' engagement, conversions, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your videos' impact.

While it typically takes a moment to get past algorithm-related hurdles, your early KPIs still indicate which types of videos resonate with your audience and which do not. Because of this, it may be better to work with a professional video and marketing team to avoid spending too much upfront on equipment and video content that you won't actually use.

Alignment with Brand Identity and Creative Vision

While the most skilled video teams can effectively make any type of content, many use similar aesthetics and filming styles throughout most of their projects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but one team's artistic style may not suit your brand's style. 

Take your time going over each team's demo reels, portfolios, and customer testimonials to determine if their video content meets your stylistic and quality standards. Write down your key questions to ask your video partner before consulting, too.

Hybrid Strategies: The Best of Both Worlds

If your project requires more than your internal team can handle, you can always outsource certain aspects of your project while still keeping most of your creative vision (and budget) in-house. Combining in-house and outsourced production significantly expands your video capabilities while retaining your creative control. 

When to Blend In-House and External Resources

Outsourcing video production may be essential when approaching projects outside of your current scope or capabilities. Possible scenarios include:

• Videos with specific equipment needs, such as motion rigs and drones

• Videos filmed away from home, such as on professional business trips to Chicago

• Large-scale projects with complex logistics, such as location scouting, filming permits, and larger crew schedules

• Events that require multiple cameras and camera operators at once

• Projects with extensive post-production needs, such as color grading, audio cleaning, and visual effects (VFX)

Customizing the Approach by Project Type

Look at each project's budget, estimated ROI, and specific project needs when deciding whether to outsource or keep development in-house. Even if your video could benefit from a complex crane shot at a paid location, the extra money may not suit your bottom line. Always consider creative ways to achieve or replace complex shots in-house without minimizing quality or brand integrity. 

Building a Scalable Internal–External Workflow

Networking is essential to any industry, and video production is no exception. Maintaining strong professional relationships with local production companies and content creators expands your external network and the production capabilities at your disposal. For example, if you need to clean a grainy-sounding audio track, and it's beyond one production company's capabilities, they may refer you to an audio specialist who focuses on correcting audio. 

Maximizing Internal Capabilities for Long-Term Success

While outsourcing has its benefits, you should always invest in your home team first, especially if you can do so while maintaining high quality and brand standards. 

Upskilling Teams

If your in-house production team is genuinely interested in learning more about video production, consider investing in training sessions and modules to expand their skills. For example, you can invest in online courses, consult with professional production teams, or assign training based on new tools you adopt, such as for drones and video-editing software. These investments will pay off long-term as you increase your in-house team's capabilities and artistic experience. 

Investing in Core Equipment

While you can typically rent any specialized equipment you need later, your in-house video studio should at least have the following production essentials:

• Cameras and lenses

• Tripods, gimbals, or other camera equipment

• Microphones and headphones

• Lights

• Memory cards

• Video-editing software

When investing in a camera, you must also consider your investment's longevity. For example, many "industry standard" cameras cost tens of thousands of dollars, but their values depreciate over time as new cameras come out with even better picture quality and capabilities. So, it may be better to rent these high-level cameras when you need them and rely on less expensive, standard-quality cameras for smaller projects. 

Creating a Repeatable Production Framework

Social media algorithms demand frequent posts and content, often requiring a weekly posting schedule. Establishing a consistent in-house production workflow lets you churn out new content every week for your marketing campaign, meeting social media expectations while keeping you on your followers' minds.

Align Your Production Strategy with Business Goals

Consistent, high-quality video content keeps potential customers engaged and elevates your brand awareness to the next level. Even if you plan on doing almost everything in-house rather than outsourcing, a professional video marketing company will help you structure your production and marketing strategy early on. This way, you can maximize your budget, scalability, and internal resources without limiting content quality. Get in touch with the experts at Charter & Co to start planning.