So you’re looking to get a video made and you want to find the perfect explainer video production company. You have lots of options these days, with more and more players of vastly varying quality popping up seemingly by the day.
What do you do? Well, it helps to start by doing your homework. Here is a quick checklist of 5 easy tips that may help guide you through that explainer video production company selection process:
1. Check out the type of work and styles they’ve done. Nothing is a better indicator of future performance in terms of the work they’ll be doing for you.
2. Check references, just in case. I was alerted recently to a company that actually stole work (from us and one other company) and put it in their portfolio.
3. See if they respond quickly. If they’re too busy to get back to you the same day or within 24 hours at least, you may want to move on. You’re paying and you’ve got a lot of options. You should demand good, fast service.
4. Are they transparent in their pricing? You should be able to get a general indication of cost/pricing structure from their website. Avoid the companies that come up with a quote only figuring out how deep (or shallow) your pockets are!
5. Give them a call. Does the person you speak seem to have a deep understanding of video creation and marketing in general? Do they seem like someone who’s asking the right questions? Someone with a genuine curiosity in your business? Great videos start with great messaging and understanding how to craft a strong script. There are a lot of animation companies out there who are decent at executing but poor at the front end of the process.
Great animations
Checking for references and reviews (REAL reviews) is more important now than ever since the explainer video market has been completely flooded with what I call “impostors”. People who claim to be video producers but after you hire them and receive your video you find out quite quickly it’s actually just some guy who read a 5 minute tutorial somewhere and decide to start a “video production company”.
A good way to stay away from these types is to check the price – a real video production company of any kind isn’t going to sell their services cheaply.