A Little Foresight Will Maximize Your Marketing Dollars

Don’t reinvent the wheel.

It’s a sentiment we’re all familiar with. But, here’s a question for you: When it comes to marketing our businesses, how many of us actually abide by this rule?

Based on what I’ve witnessed in the media world, not many. Allow me to explain.

Let’s say you’re going to invest in a marketing video for your business. You know what you want to say and showcase in this video—but, have you thought about future needs. How about a product video, recruiting video, training, or something for social media? What do you want to talk to your customers about in 3 months or a year down the road. You can probably reuse a lot of the video but inevitably you’ll say, “I wish we would have gotten a shot of this or that, and if I just would have added that one question to the interview.”

The production can be the most expensive part of your video. Having a crew and equipment for several days adds up. What else can you capture today that can be used in the future.

With those additional avenues in mind right away, you can better plan out your marketing initiative with an eye toward tomorrow. That little bit of added effort will hopefully help you avoid those dreaded “This would be so much more useful if we had just done it this way!” moments in the future.

We all want to get the most bang for our media buck. Start by talking to your production company early. Good media companies do many different kinds of videos and are usually happy to brainstorm additional ways for you to use your newly captured footage.

So, the next time you’re working on a piece of marketing content, challenge yourself to think of other ways you could repurpose that very same content to expand its reach and boost its effectiveness right off the bat. After all, there’s nothing quite like killing two (or even more!) birds with one well-thought-out stone.