Internet has completely changed the way people do business worldwide. People can buy and sell services to anyone across the globe.
This transformation has affected all businesses; and videography/video production has not been left out. There is a huge shift.
As per BBC Research, the digital photography market is growing at 3.8% and its value was estimated to cross $100 billion in 2018.
Early adopters are the ones ripping profits out this change while late adopters are struggling to fit in.
These changes in many ways has negatively impacted the economy. Many traditional type of businesses are closing down on a daily basis because of one reason; customers no longer walk in to their offices and shops to buy their services.
In this blog post, I share with you the strategies Videography clients are now employing when looking for video services and where you need to go in order to meet them.
Searching Online
The way people used to look for a videographer 5 years ago is not the way they do now. They prefer the easy way..which is searching online. It means that if your presence online is not that serious, your prospect will not take you serious.
Your presence online is determined by the way you Brand yourself. First, you need a website, with your own domain e.g www.techtubestudio.com. It must be well designed with your own company’s images in it.
This is how you make your first impression online before you meet with the actual prospect. But this is not all. It’s just the tip of the ice.
Checking Your Ratings on Google Business
With Google leading as a search engine-and Google business being their product, it follows that having your Videography business listed on Google My Business is the good idea. This is where people rates and reviews your business.
As a result, you get a chance to appear on the first page of Google. You will most probably receive an inquiry call if you have a website and your business is listed on Google my business. But that’s not all. Internet is evolving every day. With more and more people joining, the competition is becoming more fierce.
So, how do you keep your business sustainable if you get one or two enquirers a week with no one ready to commit yet? You can only survive if you have an advertising budget.
But if you are depending on organic Traffic, you have to work more harder to get clients. As I write this post, there is a big shift now taking place and most videographers are not ready for it.
Videography Clients are Hiring Freelancers and Agencies
Well, believe it or not, companies are moving from dealing with companies to dealing with agencies and Freelancers. Freelancing is taking over. With this said, videography and video production jobs are now done by freelancers remotely. Freelancing sites like Upwork have simplified the process of hiring freelancers with specialty in a given skill.
By simply posting a job, one can get many Freelancers applying for it. And in 3 days, they will be ready to hire one. One advantage of this is that, the client is able to offer bit sized assignments to gauge Freelancers skills before committing them to do a bigger project.
Expanding International Businesses Can Hire ‘Freelance Videographers‘ in any Country Worldwide
This is one of the biggest reasons international companies are using Upwork and other Freelancing sites to hire. Let me give you a scenario. Let’s say Uber-which is based in Amsterdam- wants to do a TV commercial targeted at people living in Nairobi Kenya. They don’t have an office yet in Nairobi. So because of trust and security that Upwork offers, they post a job saying that they are looking for a videographer in Nairobi to film a story according to their storyboard. They receive 10 applications. And they settle on 2 since they have two scripts and they want to do 2 commercial videos for split testing purposes.
The funds are held on escrow until they job is completed. Uber pays the freelancer once they are happy with the delivery. Because of the time saved, the Freelancer is paid well and gets a 5 star review.
Bonus Point-Value Addition
Videography and photography business is changing it’s face. It’s now more of ‘value addition’ rather than actual shooting of videos and photos per se. Camera’s that come with smartphones are doing a better job. So as a videographer, what value can you add to videos already recorded to grow your revenue? That’s the question you should be asking yourself.
On the other hand, what value can you add to existing photos to make them good and get people paying you for them? That is where the money is now.
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Until next time bye bye and take care.
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