How To Get Started and Stay In The Business

Basspig, I have studied industry statistics (in Canada, but I doubt the US is any different). Paid advertising spending amount relative to your income has very little influence on your income. In the province of Ontario, video production companies making an average of 51K and 97K spends approximately $1000 per year on advertising - the same amount! Shouldn't they make the same amount of money if they spend equal amount of on advertising? Obviously it doesn't happen that way in real life.

Companies that make around 200K spends around $2000 - but it's still only 1% of their income. A 1 to 1 correlation is a weak one, for you don't know who is influencing who.

A spending category that has the largest influence on income is actually cost of goods sold, which includes purchases, materials and subcontracts... since tapes are cheap, the only thing that has any significance to us in this category is subcontracts (or rentals, which is really another form of subcontracting). Low income companies tend to spend substantially less, relative to their income, on subcontracting than larger companies. Meaning small companies hang on to their payments from their clients by their balls instead of subcontracting work to specialists who can contribute their talents and make their videos better. Better videos will draw in better (higher paying) clients

This finding is very important for all of us to are trying to grow our businesses.

STOP USING ADWORDS OR WHATEVER THE F YOU ARE USING!!!
 
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It's tough spending your few marketing dollars in a positive way. We do a lot of free advertising and networking, but I have found most uses of money to be an absolute and complete waste of money.

For instance, trade shows -- HUGE waste of money. They are not worth it almost ever. So far, had terrible luck at them. We had another yesterday but we got paid to film it, and it was part pay, part trade, so we also got a booth. It was pretty sweet to be making a few dollars and exhibiting at the same time, and ironically this was the best trade show as far as contacts go that I've been to yet. The others generated 0 leads, so a few of these people were definitely interested and I think it'll end up being good. If we had paid, probably not, but for free, yes.

I spent some money on advertising in an industry magazine (for an industry I was targeting) once -- not only no leads, and thousands of dollars blown, but not a single phone call in 4 issues of this magazine. Not one. I was not happy.

I have really never had much success with advertising in general, I think it's a waste of money for the most part. The best advertising is your own work and getting it out there, which is free.
 
Thanks for giving us your experience so I know for sure not to advertise. Networking has been my best form advertisement. You pay 0 to $15 to get into an event and you usually end up with a handful of contacts - some better than others, but still better than what you experienced in advertising in magazine, for instance.
 
Something happens when you don't advertise..... NOTHING!

As to our advertising budget we were spending between 10-15% of our gross income on it excluding staff payroll.

Advertising via magazines, tradeshows, mailers etc are NOT meant to be DIRECT RESPONSE advertising unless you are offering a specific REASON to call you generally refer to as a "Call To Action".

You have to think of your marketing holistically as a CAMPAIGN not just running an ad or two or six. Like calls it never stops. For instance, it would be hard to find someone who has never heard of McDonalds but you still see them advertising and marketing don't you?

Display advertising, tradeshows and mailers do work but they are not a replacement for the research and "suspect / prospect" calls and contacts you make; they are meant to supplement and support your overall campaign.

For instance, you've called and left ten messages for Joe and XYZ Company but he never takes your call. Then he starts seeing your postcards in the mail, your ads in the industry magazines he reads, your press releases in the magazines and newspapers and then you run into him on the floor of a tradeshow that you're either attending or exhibiting at. You intro yourself, comment on how busy he must be and exchange cards.

One of my marketing reps, Jason ran into a prospect at a tradeshow he'd left dozens of messages for over the course of two years. We were all walking across the show floor on set up day, Jason noticed his badge and laughingly said "Hey! you're Craig with GSI; I've been trying to get in touch with you for two years!". We all laughed, the prospect apologized and said he's always meant to call us but is overwhelmed so stop by his booth later. We left that show with a $25,000 deposit check and a signed contract for a week-long shoot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico! We went on to produce several marketing videos for them, re-branded their graphics, built a members only web site and did all their tradeshow collateral / videos for 6-7 years.

Did the tradeshow get us that job? No! Jason got us that job by researching that company, qualifying them, continuing to peck away keeping our name in front of them and making sure we were at tradeshows where our clients and potential clients would be. This goes back to getting involved in the community or specific clientele you are serving.

If I had only one option or no money I'd make calls. After that I'd add social networking, then maybe a few postcard mailings, possibly some ad campaigns and then tradeshows. The point is you build the foundation of prospects with the research and calls and support that personal effort with add-on campaigns.

Think holistically, prospect and qualify individually.

Robert
 
Yeah, see that's the issue, Rob is totally right and offers some insightful advice -- good stuff! But the reality is that how many of us can afford to take out consistent ads in magazines, online, send out mailers, and go to tradeshows regularly? I don't have that kind of money. We have to make our dollars count and hiring a sales lady for me was the best way to start, at least, because she is really great about continuing to follow up, sending out e-mails of our newest work to prospective clients, and really going the extra mile. But I can't afford right now to back her efforts with a huge marketing push either, unfortunately. I just don't have the funds. We operate more by the old-school approach of making connections, being persistent, and following up on leads.
 
You don't start out with everything at once, you build your business and continue to feed it over the course of your career. McDonalds didn't start out with TV, they started with a building, hamburgers and a sign.

Robert
 
Our company did the video for Walter Breuning, if you heard of him, he is 114 and the oldest man in the world (fourth oldest person, behind three women). He got a ton of media coverage for his birthday last week and my company did the official birthday interview about 3 weeks before, to get it ready for the publicity. It now went viral and has 66,000+ views, which is the most we've ever had for any video we've shot. Usually it's more of a specialized niche, as you can see from some of the community tours we also did for this company (BridgePoint, Paramount House, Windchime, Whittier, etc. on that page). Here is the page: http://www.youtube.com/integralsenior

Oh also, there was very little budget for that interview piece, so we hired a local cinematographer in Great Falls, Montana. Let me tell you it's VERY hard finding someone who is really skilled in a city of 50,000 or so in the middle of Montana. So instead of me being able to go there and direct, bringing my very skilled DP from Los Angeles, we (the editor and I) had to make do with what we got from our local DP. It's a solid interview piece, it's not remarkable by any means, because the budget dictates what you're able to do for your client, but this is a great client, very cool people, and it's still a nice, simple interview piece!
 
Robert, exactly what sort of trade shows are you referring to? Certain types of industry trade shows, ones that you get a sense could use production? Or every show that comes to town?

Jonathon, how did you get the Integral contract?
Thanks guys!
 
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I'm no stranger to the telephone, but lately I'm finding myself expanding the circle out to beyond practical driving distance for a 1 day shoot--and still no one is responding. People interaction has always been my weak area, and I have this mysterious ability to 'rub people wrong' making them angry instead of sympathetic. I'm often confronted with "that's way outside our budget" when the occasional odd client does call, as was the case when I was running AdWords campaigns. The 'cold calling' has produced zero results after thousands of calls to all small, medium and large corporate businesses in my geo region.
When I do get some networked business, mainly doing recital videos for the children of very wealthy persons living in areas that are so exclusive that they are expunged from Google Maps, I still encounter budget constraints typical of lower middle class. Since when is $500 too much for an audiophile grade sound recording with HD video? I often feel like this Salesman in a High End Store when I explain what I am offering them that the ignorant videographer who will do crappy audio for half my price can't. Yeah, I want to put an ice pick through my head!
Google AdWords DOES work to some extent.. I had a decent spring while the ads were running.. I just couldn't charge enough money to make a profit and not lose the clients.. so I worked cheaper and kept myself somewhat busy last spring, instead of working on the longterm repairs to my roof. But I needed money to pay my property taxes in July and so work for cheap I did. Now my roof is leaking and winter is coming, and I'm broke. The ads stopped in end of July because I ran out of money after making a huge payment to the town. Next thing I knew, I was getting overdraft notices from the bank.. Google and Ebay and my newsgroup service had all made their deductions in the last 3 days in July and my account went negative to the tune of $306. Since the AdWords campaigns ended, I have not had one single paid production job in here. I've been out and about at many events with my camera, filming and putting stuff on YouTube, but even so, with an advert at the end of every video, I get nothing. No AdWords, no clients, is what I learned. The tough nut to crack is to get AdWords to bring in a higher caliber of client. I had a few slide shows to DVD and a few VHS to DVD conversions. I got lucky once and got to make the first of a 4 part course relating to music. But until the next session, whenever that happens, I've got nothing but telemarketing and roof repairs going on here.
"Damnit Jim, I'm a cameraman, not a marketing expert!!"
 
grove -- actually, Integral went with a competing company initially, a larger national company that I have absolutely zero respect for (is it possible to have less than zero respect? These guys are clowns), which I won't name but they have some big partnerships and some of the worst quality you'll find anywhere. I think student filmmakers in general would produce better pieces, to be honest. I'm pretty sure you could give a monkey a camera and it would turn out just about as well. ;) But they're cheap, and to some clients, cheap is good. Anyway, Integral was extremely unimpressed with the work as well, which we warned them about previously (we had been in touch), but they thought let's give them a try, they're cheap, etc. Long story short, my sales lady called them one day to check in and basically see how things were going, realizing they chose the competition. Their marketing head said, basically, they're going awful, the quality is not good, and if you want to do the next two videos, we'll give you a shot. So right there, we got given two videos to show our skills, and we knocked 'em out of the park. We were hungry to pick up the rest of the business so we gave them a great deal, and we've now done 10 pieces for them with 11 and 12 coming in November.

Today we also are about 90% sure we locked down another client with 10 communities, a fairly large deal that will be fantastic for the company. These contacts, and companies, usually take many, many months to exploit. It's not uncommon for us to be in discussions with a potential client for 6 months or more before we can get them to go ahead with us. You have to be patient and realize they operate on their own terms, not yours, and they'll do the work when they feel the time is right. It can be frustrating, of course, but you get a lot of things in the pipeline and you get some momentum.

We have another client with about 6 more properties that we've already shot 1 video for, they are going to proceed in the next few weeks with completing the remaining properties, supposedly. Again about 80% sure on that one, not 100% yet. Then a few other potential clients with a property each, and it should finish as a good year, enough to pay the company's overhead for the rest of the year easily and hopefully make it through January and February, at which point we should be doing other work that is anticipated.

We're just starting to hit the stride, so even though right now we're just plugging away, breaking even, treading water, this is only my second year with my sales lady (just started second year in August), so the first year we lost money, basically didn't do much work at all, and the second year we are picking up clients, doing great work, and getting our name out there. We're well ranked now on Google for corporate videos in L.A. and have gotten quite a few e-mails the last month, which is fantastic. And we have about a quarter of a million dollars in proposals out to potential clients. You can bet you're never going to win them all, but the idea is to convert as many as possible into clients and then add more to the potential clients list. It's kind of exciting, we'll see how things go. I've honestly been so focused on my feature film and finishing that off, and optimistic about our financial prospects, that I haven't been as focused on the corporate work. My sales lady has done an excellent job stepping up and even fulfilling some of the producer / administrative side of things while I've been occupied.

Now as we lock picture (this week) and send it off to sound and music, I'll be able to focus a bit more on my company and staying on the ball. Here's to a good 2011, we need a better economy!
 
Wow! great thread. I'm mailing this to every industry slave i know!

Epic Kudos to you Rob!
May the ticks of a thousand camels infest the armpits of your enemies!
 
Jonathan, congrats on snagging them from a larger, less responsive company- I've done that a few times, it feels great!
What's your Google strategy?
Good luck on your film.
Yes, here's to a better 2011- my mantra is "If I survived 2009, I can survive anything!"
Thanks,
Chuck
 
Regarding tradeshows, a lot of people / ops / producers fall into a relationship with a certain client that provides work, money and contacts that eventually allow them to grow their business. We'll call these clients "Rainmakers"; they pay the bills and are fans of you and your work, not just clients. This usually opens the door to a specific industry they work in.

For us it was the resort and hospitality industry and one client back in 1987 that opened the door for us there. She's still a client today! I enjoyed traveling the world shooting resort commercials so that was our / my focus so we went to and displayed at the shows where resort developers go.

Many people who hired us for years we'd never even met face to face but at the shows we got to meet them. It brought the relationships full circle.

Tradeshows are expensive and at one point we had grown to a 20x30 or 10x40 ft booth that was costing us $20k and up to produce at the main tradeshow. It was a lot of work and a lot of money but we booked 20x that off each show so it paid off.

This is clearly a different level beyond "How To Get Started and Stay In The Business" but if you want the bigger jobs you have to step up to being a trusted professional who understands the client's industry and their clients.

Robert
 
Starling once again hits it out of the park. Just wanted to chime in and say how much I appreciate the insight he brings.

2 thoughts. First, no amount of marketing effort ever beats the one-on-one recommendation of a respected client. Foster, nurture, protect and promote these at every opportunity. Say thank you - a lot.

Second, the only thing that even comes close is the compassionate persistence robstar describes so well.

For Basspig - I've followed your comments across several threads. It comes to me that you fit the stereotype closet geek genius that marketing keeps locked away in a cave to save their hides when gigs go bad. It's a mutual love-hate relationship that's spawned more than a few scripts because there's truth to it.

Most truly uber-intelligent people have the inherent capability of irritating the living *&%$ out of the rest of us. The hardest thing they ever learn is to keep their mouth shut. This isn't anything personal, there's many of you out there reading this, you know who you are.

To all those gifted masters, my humble 2 cents. - Go nowhere near any form of marketing, avoid client interaction at all costs. Hide behind intermediaries. Include a professional salesperson or two. Train them on what you do, not necessarily how you do it. By now you should have learned that marketing is both very hard work and an art form unto itself. Pay them whatever base you can afford and very good commission. Pray they make a million dollars the first year - understanding it's a win-win.

Thanks again & best wishes to all.
 
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I know, I know.. :) But there's little choice when one has to open one's mouth to make a sales pitch. No one else will do it for me. If I could find a good sales front end person to bring in the work, that would be sheer heaven. But hiring a sales specialist is fraught with the same obstacles as finding a good client--there are so few and the few that are good are already working for the big boys. It's a catch 22!
 
I found this on a friends FB page under favorite quotes:

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard"

Robert
 
Hmm

Hmm

"No victor believes in chance."

As for trade shows, I appreciate that for some companies that may work, but in my experience they are totally worthless and a complete waste of money. It's very true that you need to understand your clients and their industry, that's a key point, but being at the tradeshows isn't part of that. Having been to several in the assisted living industry, I know what they are about, but that doesn't mean I have to go to anymore.

We pretty much are dominating that industry right now, with numerous companies in contact with us, and we've done dozens of videos now for assisted living communities, plus we are in early talks with one of the biggest (or maybe they are the biggest) companies in the industry. I also would say that almost every company in the industry has probably heard of us by this point since we've contacted them all, haha. Aside from that, I grew up learning about and being involved in assisted living matters. My dad's company was a pioneer in the industry and I even did community service in it. Then I have directed a bunch of videos in numerous communities, too. So I understand all of the needs, all of the sensibilities of that industry without needing to go to tradeshows. If I did go to a tradeshow, I'd be better off going as a guest than a vendor because $5,000 minimum for a booth makes no sense for us. We have ALL of those contacts already, we can call them on the phone, e-mail them, show them our work, etc. without any need to pay exorbitant fees to some idiotic convention center and/or organization.

Maybe it's different in other industries, I don't know. We did make money off a trade show video in the hospitality industry, California Hotel and Lodging Association, and they let us have a booth in partial trade for the video we did for them. That was worthwhile. Besides that, we didn't even book a single client off two assisted living tradeshows.
 
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