It can be hard to know where to start when creating a B2B video marketing budget. These four tips will help you determine where to allocate your money and how to spend wisely.

Plan the whole year at once.

Video can be expensive, but there are many economies of scale in video production. If you plan out your strategy for the whole year at once, you may find ways to be more efficient with your budget. For example, you may be able to combine production days, reuse footage, or get a bulk rate with post-production teams by combining projects.

To create a strategy for the year, start with a yearly goal. The goal should not be based on creation, such as “Make a new brand fim.” That’s jumping ahead of yourself. The goal needs to be what you are hoping to achieve with your video marketing. That could be brand awareness, driving more traffic to your website, or more cost effective paid ads.  Once you have your goal, you can break down the goal into smaller chunks, such as quarterly goals that build to the yearly goal.

With your yearly goal as the target, then plan how video marketing can get there. Keep in mind that video marketing is about more than making a video. Video marketing needs to include strategy, multiple videos, and distribution plans.

A decade ago when video production went mainstream for corporations, making one great brand film for the home page of your website was often enough to see a sales boost. These days, a great brand film or home page video is simply expected. To move the needle on your video marketing results, consider making a suite of videos.*

*This doesn’t necessarily mean spend loads more money! See more below.

Use the buyer’s journey framework to allocate your production budget.

Not all videos deserve equal budgets. Investing in the bigger pieces and being frugal with others can help you stretch your budget.

We recommend spending the most on high level videos with awareness goals. The reason is that awareness audiences often don’t know who you are or don’t know that you can help them. They aren’t actively interested in your company yet. That means that you need to make it worth their time to watch your video. You do that by making something engaging and worth watching. This is also the time for the best video production quality you can afford, because it makes your company look best.

As prospects move down the sales funnel toward a purchase, they don’t need to be razzle-dazzled anymore. They want practical, useful information delivered in an easy-to-digest manner. That might be testimonials, product walkthroughs, or use cases. All these video types can be created at fairly low cost. They even can be made in house with screen recording software, or self-recorded with webcams or smartphones. As long as the content serves the viewer, they will continue to watch.

Budget for distribution.

How do you get people to watch a video ad? You pay to get it in front of them. These days, a video marketing budget without money dedicated to paid advertising is missing a critical component. Even if you have a dedicated social following, you need to get your spots in front of new audiences.

We generally recommend at least 20% of a B2B video marketing budget be allocated to paid advertising. That increases for B2C or DTC clients, or in highly competitive markets. It should also be higher if you don’t do other forms of digital advertising.

The amount of money you should budget for paid ads will vary depending on your goals and audience size. For most brands, it likely makes sense to budget for either several large quarterly campaigns or a smaller, always-on approach. Either approach should have the same year-end total.

At the end of the day, paid advertising is necessary for most companies to cut through the noise and get their message in front of prospects.

Make creative video ads.

I promise this is a budgeting tip, let me explain. As marketing assets go, video ads have a particularly long shelf life. While a booth at a conference might get traction for a week, a video ad on YouTube can be churning along generating leads for years. The best way to get that shelf life is to make something high quality.

I define a high quality video ad as one that brings value to the viewer in some way. That might be entertainment, or it might be educational. Either way, these types of video ads can have a long lifespan.

A long lifespan of an asset means that it keeps generating ROI for you. It doesn’t magically expire at the end of the fiscal year, or fade to the bottom of your LinkedIn feed.

Even more importantly, if you are running paid ads, some networks like Facebook explicitly say that high-quality videos will cost less at auction to promote. That means more views for less money. On top of that, a creative ad will be more memorable to your prospect anyway. Longer shelf life, cheaper to promote, more memorable - creative ads are simply a smart investment.