I Made a Video! Now what? // How and Why to Squeeze Every Ounce of Value out of Your Video Content

Money falling from an orange being squeezed by a woman's hand to illustrate squeezing every dollar from video content

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So you’ve made a video. First of all, congratulations! It’s no small feat to concept, develop, and actually execute on an idea in the video format. Even a simple video project can be super complex — from concepting to scripting and storyboarding, design and on-location or in-studio videography, post-production editing, motion graphics animation, sound design and mixing — all video projects are multi-step processes during which small mistakes can become super costly down the line. 

But you know that already because you’ve already created a video — a wonderful, highly articulate, visually demonstrative video. You’ve published it on your website, promoted on social media, emailed it to your contact lists with the word “video” in the subject line (because emails with “video” in the subject line earn dramatic increases in open and click-through rates,) integrated your video into advertising channels, and of course showed it to all your friends and family. 

So now what? You can’t just spam the same content over and over again to your people! And now that you’ve whet your audience’s appetite for awesome video content, they’re clamoring for more! But you’ve just finished a video project, and there’s just no way that more budget is available for a whole ‘nother one. At least not right away.

middle school aged boy looks off into space thinking in front of a computer screen to add a comical element.

Allow me to introduce you to the frugal marketer’s best friend: re-versioned content. 

My theory is that people outside of the professional world of video content creation don’t really know how easy it is for video professionals to segment messaging from a finished 2-4 minute video for supplemental purposes/use-cases, audiences, channels, and even cross-departmental use. Speaking from my own experience, but our team has been able to pull over a dozen (!) 15-30 second stand-alone videos from a 2-4 minute finished project. I can show them to you.

Typically we like these shorter video versions to pull out a single talking point or sub-topic from the completed video and pair it with existing project visuals. We tweak existing motion graphics  to intro/outro and brand the shorter videos — total tangent but believe it or not, almost every video project results in what is essentially a custom branded motion graphics “template” — a resource that almost always goes completely un-used after the fact. Then we add some musical accompaniment, make any final adjustments and we’re done! That’s it! Now we have a truly stand-alone, sub-topic-specific, repurposed video laser-targeted for a unique use case, audience, and/or messaging topic. 

The best part is we typically spend (and bill) 4-8 hours per re-version — an absolute steal in terms of ROI. 

A feminine hand places a coin into a piggy-bank next to a neat stack of coins on a desk to illustrate the concept of saving money by repurposing video content

Another big bonus of repurposing content is that everything derived from existing material will be identically branded — assuming you’ve gone through any sort of review process for the initial 2-4 minute video, you can rest assured that your “new” versions will pass the sniff test since component parts have already been approved. 

The more re-versions you create the more value you derive on your initial expenditure. We’ve seen clients apply this method and receive enough video content for a full-on strategic marketing campaign. And if you plan it right, new video deliverables derived from re-versioned, existing video can support (read: rocket fuel) a new or existing campaign for almost any organization so long as it has the same mission as last year. 

All of this without even mentioning the fact that 100% of video projects have some footage or content that, for whatever reason, didn’t make it into the final cut. And this material can be GOLD as stand-alone videos. Especially if your video editor didn’t do a thorough job logging, pulling, and creatively thinking about the story (more on this later.) 

a one-hundred dollar bill on a sidewalk being picked up by a hand to illustrate the concept of finding valuable video clips amongst discarded project audio-visual media

If re-versioned video content is so valuable, why isn’t everyone doing it?

There are a couple reasons. The first and perhaps most important is unfortunately a lack of creativity. If your video agency or video producer hasn’t envisioned and strategically planned for the segmentation of material, it may never even occur to them to suggest it. Not all video producers are marketers — in fact, some video producers are proud to NOT be marketers.

Next, the lion’s share of dollars for video work aren’t in repurposing content — they’re in hyping up clients on new, exciting projects even if the end result isn’t going to be maximally useful to the client’s organization. Time spent with you making videos from previously captured content and on-the-cheap is time agency talent could be spending selling and fulfilling a higher margin project…like the one you just completed with them! 

To make matters worse, because repurposing content bears a lower relative price tag to the greater project, it is also the first thing to go during initial project scoping when trying to control costs to accommodate client budget…which also happens to be always. Agency and video professionals don’t want to lose the gig by telling you to spend a little more money, even if it will return 10x in value.

A baby in business attire at a desk with papers stacked in front of him and a funny, concerned, somewhat sad look on his face to illustrate the mindset of someone learning about missing out on major video content opportunities that required only a little more resourcing to earn

What can be done with my existing video? 

A ton. Much more if you have access to original raw media and project files, but still I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much mileage we’ve been able to get out of even a single complete video. Hopefully the film and video community won’t strike me down for sharing trade secrets, but you can take as little as two or three b-roll clips or completed animated assets, edit in a strong, existing audio bite, and slather some repurposed, flashy motion graphics on top with a quality, licensed musical track to create a 15-to-30-second long video which will be absolute fire for your audience. You could do this a dozen or more times using the same exact material and create multiple short videos that will capture more eyeballs and return more investment together than the original, 2-4 minute video ever could have.   

Consider for a moment that television executives worked out long, long ago that 15-second, 30-second, and AT MOST 60-second advertisements were just about right. Very little has changed. If anything, attention spans are shorter now than they were in the heyday of broadcast & network cable television. TikTok has given audiences the attention spans of goldfish.

A goldfish looks at you with its mouth open to illustrate what a goldfish looks like

This is not to say that a 2-4 minute video doesn’t have value — it most certainly does! But it comes further down the funnel. The 2-4 minute version is a deal closer in the digital, low-to-no-contact, post-Covid world. People need a 2-4 minute video only when they’ve already been enticed and become interested. Seems hard to believe that the 2-minute version could be the “long” version, but here we are.  

The 15-30 second version works best at the top of the funnel — and is just as essential as the longer video. This is the stuff you’re spending money on (or time on, same thing) to put directly in the line-of-sight of your audience, the content you’re (yawn) A/B testing. It’s the “hook” on the proverbial fishing line and it better have a good hook too. The world needs more hook jokes.

Makes sense right? The human attention span is short and responds favorably to fast, titillating impressions. What’s a hook if not a spike with which to puncture attention? 

But…video is expensive. Wouldn’t repurposing video cost a lot of money?

Short answer: No. It’s insanely cheap compared to original project costs. 

Long answer: It takes a lot of time and hard work for even highly skilled video creators to produce a polished video. But once they’ve done so, the work is done. So, not only is repurposing existing video content an absolute steal in terms of expenditure (to the tune of 1/20th, 1/30th, or even 1/50th of the initial project price,) but it’s also as fast as it is efficient. 

An orange computer keyboard button with "Easy!" written on it being pushed by a finger to illustrate how easy a decision it is to decide to repurpose video content

Bring us home

The vast majority, if not all major organizations are drastically underutilizing their existing audio-visual media. While creating new content is often super necessary, it’s completely unnecessary if you already have the media you need to tell the story you want to tell to the audience that needs to hear it.  

The internet demands fast and furious content and rewards organizations that invest in media content creation and re-creation because all it takes is a small library of well-done, audience-relevant videos and a steady stream of supplemental video content to give the impression of scale and legitimacy — that’s right: simply having a lot of quality video content builds credibility with audiences. So take my advice and make a ton of it but do it smart and as cheaply as possible by repurposing your completed video media.

If you found this blog interesting and would like to discuss repurposing your video content, please feel encouraged to send an email to info@metamer.io or visit our handy dandy contact form. 

Thanks for reading!