#82 - Should You Bring Video In-House or Outsource? Pros and Cons
w/ John Azoni
Podcast Host
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SHOW NOTES
In this solo episode, John Azoni breaks down the pros and cons of hiring an in-house videographer versus outsourcing video production. As the founder of UNVEILD, a video production company, you might expect him to push for outsourcing—but his perspective is refreshingly balanced.
John emphasizes that the key factor in making this decision is having a clear video content strategy in place first. Without a distribution plan that dictates what types of videos your institution actually needs, hiring in any direction is a waste of budget.
Key Takeaways:
Pros of In-House Videographers:
Agility: Immediate access to video talent for quick-turn projects.
Familiarity: A deeper understanding of your institution’s brand and culture.
Flexibility: Ability to capture more B-roll and on-the-fly content without additional costs.
Better Communication & Collaboration: Direct, real-time interactions with other departments.
Ideation: A good videographer can shape creative concepts internally.
Cons of In-House Videographers:
Misalignment: Without a clear content strategy, they become short-order cooks fulfilling random department requests.
Skill Gaps: Not every in-house videographer has experience in high-end production or strategic storytelling.
Equipment & Training Costs: Maintaining cutting-edge gear and keeping skills sharp requires ongoing investment.
Lack of Scalability: One videographer may not be enough for high-demand periods.
When to Outsource:
When you need high-end, polished storytelling for large campaigns.
When your team lacks the expertise or bandwidth for a specific type of video.
When you need consistent, scalable production over time.
When an external perspective can help craft fresh, compelling narratives.
John’s ultimate advice? Start with strategy, then decide who is best equipped to execute it. If you’re just firing off random video requests, you’re burning budget inefficiently—whether in-house or outsourced.
Connect with John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnazoni
Website: https://unveild.tv
Newsletter: https://unveild.tv/newsletter
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00:00:00:04 - 00:00:32:06
John Azoni
Well, hey, folks, thanks for joining us. Today, we are talking about higher ed videography. Should you hire in-house or outsource? And this is a great question and I think you might be like, oh, okay, John, you know, promote his own video company so he's can be biased towards outsourcing. And that is not true. You would be wrong because I actually I see a lot of value in in-house videographers and I'm a big fan of them.
00:00:32:06 - 00:00:55:22
John Azoni
If you are going to do it right, it's not the right decision for every school. For some schools, I think it makes sense and for a certain pocket of deliverables, I think it makes a lot of sense. I think that every school should have an in-house videographer. If you can afford it. So that said, sometimes, you know, it might make more sense to outsource.
00:00:55:22 - 00:01:18:05
John Azoni
And we're going to talk about why it makes more sense to outsource versus to hire. So here's the my one disclaimer is, if you don't have a crystal clear video content strategy in place that starts with a distributor action plan, a distribution roadmap of any sort, and works backwards from there to dictate the types of videos that you should be producing, then let me stop you right there.
00:01:18:07 - 00:01:40:04
John Azoni
Spending money on an in-house or outsource production help is putting the cart before the horse, and a decision in either direction is really going to be an inefficient use of your budget if you are just shooting from the hip. So let's get that strategy in place and then make an informed decision about the most appropriate type of talent to bring on to execute that strategy.
00:01:40:15 - 00:02:03:09
John Azoni
But don't do the whole like ready, fire, aim thing. All right. Let's start with hiring in-house pros. So we're going to do pro countless. Here's the pros. And you know, I worked with Chachi because I wrote this whole article about this. And then I worked with Chet to come up with a word that would lead each bullet point that was sort of like, define each bullet point.
00:02:03:09 - 00:02:24:19
John Azoni
So Chatty Buddy told me agility. That's the word for this bullet point. The ability to move quickly on time sensitive video needs since you have direct access to your videographer at all times. So absolutely. I mean, you can walk down the hallway and tap your videographer and say, hey, I need you to stop doing that and do this instead.
00:02:24:19 - 00:02:53:23
John Azoni
And they'll be like, All right, you send my paycheck. So, okay. So, you know, the ability to be really flexible and have direct access to that videographer is a huge plus. The next one will be familiarity. Someone that's on staff is going to have a lot more granular understanding of your institution's brand and the culture on campus. They're going to know the ins and outs, the little subtle nuances that will make a big difference in the content.
00:02:54:08 - 00:03:20:01
John Azoni
Next would be flexibility, the ability for that videographer to film a wider array of B-roll. Since you're not paying a fee every time you send them out to film. So every time we unveiled go to film, you're paying by the day. So that's how it works across the board with hiring video vendors. And actually very few video production companies will allow you to hire them for a half day of filming.
00:03:20:01 - 00:03:39:14
John Azoni
They're going to charge you a full day of filming no matter if they're spending an hour on your campus or if they're spending 8 hours on your campus. So, you know, if you just need someone to go real quick to this, you know, the engineering lab or something like that and get some footage of people making a general order or something like that.
00:03:39:23 - 00:04:02:10
John Azoni
Just real quick, you know, it's been a half an hour. Get some good generator making footage that's going to be way easier for your in-house videographer than to pay for an entire day of filming for a outsource company to come in and film that. All right. Communication, communications, much easier having direct access to someone that's on staff. I mean, that's pretty obvious.
00:04:02:10 - 00:04:28:04
John Azoni
You could slack message them or just tap them on the shoulder rather than waiting for an outsourced contractor to respond to an email collaboration. So cross departmental collaboration is made easier. Again, all of this kind of works together. The flexibility of someone to be able to just pop over to another school within your campus and film something, or having a more intimate knowledge of the brand and what that school needs versus with this other school needs.
00:04:28:08 - 00:04:52:03
John Azoni
So collaboration is easier. They might know of the marketing leader over that other school or whoever's requesting the video admissions or whatever. So there's just easier communication and collaboration and then ideation. Assuming you hire someone with leadership and directing abilities, that person can be more readily available to help other departments shape their ideas before they go into production.
00:04:52:11 - 00:05:19:00
John Azoni
That might be something that, you know, an outsource company can do that as well. But again, with that collaboration and the communication comes easier access to ideation that you're not having to pay extra for a contractor. So here's the costs. Let's talk about costs misalignment. So this is just a big one. Many institutions hire in-house, but they don't have a clear content strategy and then they just fall victim to this like short order cook syndrome.
00:05:19:07 - 00:05:37:01
John Azoni
They're creating videos and just fulfilling requests for other departments that are just not aligned with institutional goals. And that's just a trap of hiring in-house. You go, okay, well, this person's at my beck and call now, and so I can get them to do whatever I want. And because we don't have a strategy, let's just give them whatever is yelling the loudest.
00:05:37:09 - 00:06:00:12
John Azoni
And that I mean, I talk to a lot of in-house videographers and they just say that that's just a very consistent pattern, a complaint across the board. It's like, you know, they'll tell me like I'm working on stuff that's just meaningless and like, you know, just talking head of the president just saying whatever, just some comms thing that could have just been a text email or that could have filmed on his iPhone or something like that.
00:06:00:22 - 00:06:25:16
John Azoni
So they're just being sort of deployed for like non important, not strategic stuff. And there's just no strategy. And so they're just pushing buttons at everyone's beck and call. So misalignment, that's a big one. You know, backing up, you really need a strategy if you're going to hire in-house, don't do that unless you have a very clear distribution strategies and, you know, just strategies in general for video content.
00:06:25:16 - 00:06:54:02
John Azoni
What should be made, what should your team spend time on versus what's not a good use of their time and then hidden costs. So the cost, I don't think we talk enough about this. The cost is much greater than just the salary. So you might be looking at, okay, let's pay someone $75,000 and you know, we'll get unlimited access to them versus, you know, getting less videos out of an outsource company is spending the same amount of money.
00:06:54:09 - 00:07:25:14
John Azoni
But you really have to think about it as the hidden costs. There's benefits. According to Chat GB who gave me 2023 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. So on average, like for every hour worked, there's an additional $12.09 per hour added on to that in costs. That's just benefits. So that's an additional on average $25,147 annually. So now that $75,000, you're already into six figures.
00:07:25:14 - 00:07:47:20
John Azoni
That's not even taking into account equipment. So a video camera is only a fraction of the equation. You need lenses, you need cameras, stabilizers like tripods, you know, perhaps a gimbal for smooth like walking shots and cool, sweeping, sort of cool footage, audio equipment, lights. You need light modifiers. So you're not just like blasting. It's not as lighting is a whole art.
00:07:48:03 - 00:08:08:18
John Azoni
You're not just turning on a light. You know, there's tools that videographers use to modify the light. So that's very soft and flattering, and you have to purchase those tools. There's light stands and sandbags and all the, you know, stuff. I mean, I've acquired, you know, a ton of gear, a ton of gear in just a couple of years.
00:08:09:00 - 00:08:38:08
John Azoni
And it's almost all gets used. You know, I don't buy stuff like randomly too much once in a while. I do because I do like, it's exciting when that, you know, Amazon package arrives on my front doorstep. But generally I'm pretty cautious about what I spend money on gear wise has to really be a necessity. And I have acquired a lot I mean, $20,000 to get up and running with modern professional grade gear, like a camera that's going to record like at a cinematic sort of level.
00:08:38:18 - 00:09:01:02
John Azoni
You know, we're not talking like Steven Spielberg, you know, Michael Bay type of like Ari Alexa, you know, $70,000 camera rig here. We're just talking like, you know, even just like two or $3,000 for one camera. That's just for one camera. You need multiple cameras, you need lights, all that audio stuff, all the other stuff. And then there's management.
00:09:01:02 - 00:09:27:15
John Azoni
So there's obviously a cost to managing an employee. So not only in dollars but just mental load, making sure that the pipeline is filled with stuff for them to do. I'll tell you what, I recently brought on a project manager. Her name is Mila. She's great so far. And one of the things that's been stressing me out is how do I untangle myself from all the project management work and handed off to her, you know, which might not be a problem for hiring a videographer.
00:09:27:15 - 00:09:47:20
John Azoni
But what would be a problem and was something I stress about is like, I need to keep her busy. I need to like, make sure she's always got something on her plate to do because now I've got someone relying on me for, you know, for direction. It's not just on my plate and I can just get to it whenever it's like someone's like, All right, I'm here to work.
00:09:47:20 - 00:10:12:09
John Azoni
Like, what are we doing? So just that mental load and making sure processes are in order and that you're being clear in your communication and, you know, leadership and all this stuff comes into play with managing even just one video person. And then there's ongoing professional development. So the idea that you're going to find one sort of unicorn videographer that needs zero refining and excels in every area of their role is very slim.
00:10:12:23 - 00:10:37:23
John Azoni
Trust me, I've hired a lot a lot of freelancers in my career. I've been doing this 15 years now on a professional level. And I'll tell you what, hiring is hard. I mean, just hiring the right freelancer is hard. But then when you hire someone that you're stuck with, that's even harder because it's hard to judge everything that needs to be judged by the work on their website Anyway, That's a whole nother topic.
00:10:37:23 - 00:11:00:20
John Azoni
But all this to say the idea that someone's going to be like this stellar camera person lighting can do audio and is also a great editor and not even that is also a great leader. You know, part of being a videographer is being able to lead, being able to think creatively, being able to have a marketing mindset, going into executing the project.
00:11:00:20 - 00:11:22:00
John Azoni
And not everyone has that. You might just get someone that knows how to make a good interview, like an interview look good, but they don't really know marketing. They haven't been studying marketing for years and years to know the nuances about messaging and storytelling and things like that. So the idea that just you're going to get someone that doesn't need any professional development is kind of a pipe dream.
00:11:22:01 - 00:11:41:19
John Azoni
Also, you know, thinking about things like in order for someone to fly a drone, which I know colleges love drone footage and I do too. I mean, I think it's a really useful tool. I'm amazed at what's possible, you know, here in 2025 that we can get a cinematic camera in the air flying through trees and stuff. But a lot of people don't know this.
00:11:42:06 - 00:12:07:06
John Azoni
In order for you to get drone footage, you need to be hiring a licensed pilot. Otherwise you're going against the FAA because drones are used for commercial purposes, which is, you know, marketing for a college would be requires a license. So, you know, I think it's silly. I mean, the stuff that the FAA requires you to know in order to fly a drone is quite ridiculous.
00:12:07:06 - 00:12:32:11
John Azoni
I mean, I'm a licensed pilot. I'm taking the test. It was a lot of studying. I'm like, are they expecting me to fly like a Boeing seven, whatever, seven or whatever the numbers are? 757. Are they like me? I'm going to fly this passenger plane because this is you have to know like weather codes and like latitude and longitude and weather patterns and like all this stuff, it really does feel like you're studying to fly a commercial jet.
00:12:32:11 - 00:12:55:14
John Azoni
So but nonetheless, it's unavoidable in getting that pilot's license. And then let's see, scarcity. So finding great storytelling talent is very difficult. You know, over a decade of hiring freelancers and staff that looked great on paper, but really didn't have that spark required to create really compelling content, you might find someone who could shoot great looking footage, but their storytelling, you know, in the editing phase is lacking.
00:12:55:22 - 00:13:14:06
John Azoni
Tell you what one of the hardest things is to find a good editor. But again, another episode. Or you might find someone who's a good editor, but they don't understand camera settings and just lack the lighting chops necessary for cinematic looking footage and stuff like that. Charisma. There's a whole social component to being a videographer. You have to be on.
00:13:14:06 - 00:13:38:06
John Azoni
You have to be able to make your subjects feel comfortable. You know, being on camera is kind of a vulnerable experience. So you don't want someone that's like socially awkward and like, lacks personality to make that person feel like. So make the moment feel even more awkward than it is already for them. Because I tell you what, 80% of people that we film at Unveiled don't want to be on camera.
00:13:38:15 - 00:13:59:01
John Azoni
They don't want to be there. Yeah, maybe they said yes to being in a marketing video, but they're not excited about it and they're nervous and they need coaching. So that's where someone with the right personality is key. Empathy is another one. Being a videographer, it's a little bit like being a therapist. I mean, as a storyteller, you have to draw out the compelling stuff that's hiding beneath the surface.
00:13:59:09 - 00:14:21:06
John Azoni
Someone who's a good videographer on a technical level might not have this creative sort of conversation skill and then output. So if your budget only allows for one videographer, in-house output is going to be an issue, you'll need to really, really throttle your expectations about what one person can achieve in a given amount of time without cutting corners.
00:14:21:18 - 00:14:47:23
John Azoni
A better situation would be to have someone produce, direct, do all the filming, interface with campus stakeholders and have a separate editor who's focused primarily on post-production. But that's likely, you know, that's doubling your costs. But if one videographer to rule them all and just do everything for all the campus stakeholders and just take every request and I mean, they're going to spend 80% of their time sitting at a computer editing, you know, because that takes a lot of time.
00:14:48:08 - 00:15:20:02
John Azoni
So you have to really throttle your expectations as to what you can realistically get out, gets through that internal team and whether or not that's going to be timely enough for a campus partner who needs something for a specific deadline or whatever. Okay. So outsourcing, let's talk about outsourcing, folks. So the pros of outsourcing perspective, you'll benefit greatly from a fresh perspective when you work in-house long enough, you become too close to the work to be objective in your decision making.
00:15:20:02 - 00:15:41:20
John Azoni
An outside partner is really going to bring expertise from a wide range of clients and experiences that will help you view your goals in a new light. Folks, you know, I talk about content creation every day on LinkedIn in my newsletter on this podcast, and I'm still too close to it. Like I have content mentors that can look at what I'm doing and be like, Oh, hey, here's a blindspot.
00:15:41:23 - 00:16:04:06
John Azoni
Then I look at what they said. I'm like, Oh, that's totally obvious. Why didn't I think of that? Because I'm in it every day. And for better or for worse, you know, leadership values the perspective of someone on the outside more so than on the inside. So if you want to get something done, tell them a consultant said to do this, you know, and then prioritization hiring an outside.
00:16:04:10 - 00:16:25:19
John Azoni
You know, video vendor is going to force your team to prioritize projects because each project is going to come with a tangible cost, thereby, you know, reducing budget waste on non mission critical busywork. If you're forced to see money going out of your budget, you know, in real time, you're going to be more careful about what you say yes to.
00:16:26:01 - 00:16:44:12
John Azoni
And cost effectiveness. It's often less expensive across the fiscal year to outsource. Given that you're not paying for equipment and benefits and management costs and all those hidden expenses that we talked about that come along with hiring an employee, it's you know, efficiency is a thing. You don't have to manage the day to day activities of internal staff.
00:16:44:12 - 00:17:07:18
John Azoni
You're not leaking productivity, having that person tied up in meetings and stuff, like when they're working on your stuff, they're working on your stuff, and then expertise, the quality of work is often give me superior with external partners. External partners are going to curate a solid team for the job, the right team for the right job. You know, you could hire a freelancer that's kind of like a one man band and they'll do everything and that's cool.
00:17:07:18 - 00:17:25:14
John Azoni
But you're sort of in that same boat of like hoping for a unicorn. You know, you're an unveiled. We have people that do production and they're really good at production, and then we get that footage back and then we have our editors that are really good at editing and all they do is editing and so we're going to curate the right team.
00:17:25:14 - 00:17:54:21
John Azoni
If we're doing a commercial, a big budget commercial, we're going to bring on a really like a quality commercial director, not just send some videographer with, you know, with a couple of cameras to go film this broadcast commercial. I mean, a commercial crew is like 20 people. You know, we're hiring a director, a cinematographer, and all the infrastructure and crew around that to make a bigger production like that happen, which, you know, so you're just going to get more expertise, you're going to get a more curated team.
00:17:55:02 - 00:18:12:19
John Azoni
Mostly if you're working with a production company, if you're hiring just a single, you know, John Smith freelancer, then typically you know that person might be doing the shooting and editing and this point might be a little mute versatility. You'll get access to more specialists. Like I said, a good outside agency is going to have a variety of contacts.
00:18:12:19 - 00:18:37:01
John Azoni
They're going to pull into projects at any moment animators, scriptwriters, freelancers with specialized equipment and licenses, like the drone pilot that I mentioned before. You know, someone that is a great videographer. As soon as you want something with animation in it or motion graphics, now you might have a problem because it's it's rare that someone's like really good videographer and is really good with motion graphics, too, because that's a whole separate program.
00:18:37:01 - 00:19:01:19
John Azoni
It's not Adobe Premiere, it's Adobe after Effects and that's a whole separate beast. Cons Let's talk about content. I'm going to be real honest with you. An outside partner is not going to be as familiar with your brand depending on who you hire, they're going to have a more distant understanding of your brand, may or may not dig as deep as you'd like them to in order to communicate your message as effectively as someone on the inside.
00:19:01:19 - 00:19:21:08
John Azoni
So you might go through a few different outsource video production partners before you find one that is going to approach each project with a desire to really understand your messaging and your brand. And the best way to craft the story. You know, there's mileage may vary. You know, you could hire someone that's just being like, All right, tell me where to point the camera.
00:19:21:10 - 00:19:51:11
John Azoni
I'm here with my cameras, but you might hire someone that's going to really do a deep dive in creative discovery and all this stuff. So it's a spectrum inflexibility. You're going to have to forgo the minutia. A lot of simple tasks like quick turnaround, you know, content repurposing that can be done by an in-house videographer are going to be more difficult to get from an outside partner when you're bound by a particular project scope unless they have included in that scope that they're going to do a bunch of snippets and, you know, cut downs and whatever else.
00:19:51:11 - 00:20:15:20
John Azoni
So yeah, the repurposing and just availability is the next one. The ability to drop everything and put out fires is more difficult with outside vendors, with in-house talent. You know, your institution is their only client, but an agency, you know, typically has many clients that they're serving at a given time and often can't sacrifice deadlines for another client in order to handle last minute revisions and requests for your institution.
00:20:16:02 - 00:20:46:10
John Azoni
Early in, when I first started unveiled, I was lucky enough through a friend to get connected to one of the big streaming services in order. You know, there was a production company that was working with editors who would edit trailers for TV series and movies on this particular streaming platform. And the problem with that was I had other clients and so I would edit a trailer and then client would be like 9:00 at night.
00:20:46:10 - 00:21:05:23
John Azoni
I'm like watching TV with my family and they're like, Oh, we need this thing completely overhauled by the morning. And there was enough of that where I had to tell them, you know, even though it is a super cool opportunity like, you know, to have on my resume or whatever, but I had to tell them I'm not set up to just drop everything and do this.
00:21:05:23 - 00:21:26:17
John Azoni
Like you might be better off working with in-house people. And they were like, Yeah, you know, this isn't a good fit because the editors that worked with us, like we're their only client and then they're just dedicated to doing these trailers and so we parted ways amicably and it just wasn't a good fit. And that's what you're going to find, you know, to be a problem with external partners is they can't just drop everything.
00:21:27:00 - 00:21:49:19
John Azoni
The good news is higher. Ed, I have found, which is what I love, love, love about higher ed is there's not a lot of fires in content creation, at least that make it to my plate. In corporate video previous job I worked, everything was a rush. Every project. It's like companies waited till they needed it. Yesterday to hire a video company.
00:21:49:19 - 00:22:17:08
John Azoni
And I'm like, Do you want this to be good or do you want it to be fast? Like, why did you wait so long? And then we're just constantly rushing. It's super stressful fires, especially working with ad agencies. Oh my gosh. I mean, some of the absolute worst clients, the most demanding, you know, one client, I'm like waking up at like five in the morning to do a remote editing session between my editor, who is in Virginia and the client who was, I think in California or something.
00:22:17:09 - 00:22:35:02
John Azoni
I'm in Detroit and I'm trying to coordinate this as the producer for this project. And, you know, so it's just at a certain point with them, we had to be like, okay, we've done a lot of this, like drop everything stuff, this request that you have that's due like in 5 minutes or whatever you just requested. We are not available.
00:22:35:09 - 00:23:02:15
John Azoni
So yeah, available. It is a tough one. B roll. Depending on who you hire, you may or may not get the raw B roll included in the cost of a given project. A lot of video vendors charge extra for that, which I personally think is silly, but it's just a thing in the industry. You know, a photographer or a videographer is very reluctant to give up the raw footage because they think it's I don't know, they think you're going to run off with it and do something dumb and then somehow that's going to reflect on them.
00:23:02:15 - 00:23:24:15
John Azoni
I don't know. I think it's dumb. That's why I unveiled We give you all the B-roll, but I just would rather it be used. And even if it's used, not as well as one of our editors would have done, I would rather be using to sit on hard drives. But yeah, so, you know, if you're wanted to build a bureau library for future content needs, you're going to need to make sure that you have unlimited rights to that footage.
00:23:24:15 - 00:23:47:05
John Azoni
After the project wraps. And that's explicitly written into the contract. I've worked again, corporate video, worked with, you know, clients that kind of just assumed that they would get the footage and they just didn't really know how. Video production culture, you know, outsourcing video production kind of works. And at the time, you know, the company I was with, we charged extra for that footage.
00:23:47:14 - 00:24:17:12
John Azoni
And so we had to go back to them and be like, sorry, this is going to be an extra $2,000. And she was like, all mad. And, you know, because she didn't read the contract. So you got to make sure that that it's written in the contract work for hire or that, you know, the copyright to the bureau all belong to you because that's not the default for most video companies process Many video partners are unfortunately not in tune with the frustrations that a lot of market leaders experience of paying an outside vendor to produce a video and then having to do all the grunt work, you know, finding people to be in the video,
00:24:17:12 - 00:24:38:15
John Azoni
coordinating schedules. You know, the right partner is going to take that off your plate. But a lot of video agencies, websites, they're going to promote the quality of their work and not the quality of their process. So sometimes you might not even know how much work you're going to be responsible for doing when you hire a particular company until you get into the project and you're like, I don't like this.
00:24:38:15 - 00:25:06:14
John Azoni
I don't like my life right now sending too many emails. So, you know, you want to find a production partner that's going to have a great process that's going to take work off your plate, not add more work to your plate. So there might be some trial and error before you find the right partner. Okay. So let's talk about what it means to strike a balance, because I think this is the best of both worlds, because you need both, you know, in the same way that you need a left hand in the right hands.
00:25:06:23 - 00:25:44:17
John Azoni
You know, both hands are going to work together and do different things to complete the anatomy. I don't know where I'm going with this, but striking a balance there really is a big benefit to having an in-house videographer and also bringing in outside help so your in-house videographer can handle a lot of that day to day, you know, comms videos, event coverage, social media content, assisting various departments with promotional needs while, you know, an outside partner can tackle some of the specific like more produce projects, you know, the commercials, the program overviews, ongoing storytelling campaigns, student testimonials, faculty profiles, whatever else, like that.
00:25:45:00 - 00:26:09:06
John Azoni
Oftentimes what happens when institutions only rely on in-house talent is, as we mentioned earlier in the episode, they kind of slip into this random acts of video production. They tie their videographer up in like day to day content needs, but then then they neglect the strategic kind of forward pushing videos that are designed to really inspire and influence and move the needle on enrollments and brand engagement and all that stuff.
00:26:09:14 - 00:26:30:10
John Azoni
So that's just something I caution to keep in mind. You know, if budget allows, you know, smart to not do one at the expense of the other, if you have a limited budget, it might be smart to think about the key like forward pushing video content needs across the fiscal year and outsource those projects to ensure they get done and done at a high level.
00:26:30:15 - 00:27:11:15
John Azoni
And this way your prioritize in your flagship content. I like to call flagship content, which is not the sort of repurposed stuff, not the day to day social posts and stuff, but like your program over your videos, your student and alumni, you know, success stories, your commercials, whatever else, like the flagship content, let the social media team, if you have one, you know, tackle the more lo fi content that can be shot on an iPhone or, you know, figure out how to do user generated UGC strategy, just make sure you have a solid distribution plan to go with those flagship videos so they don't just get parked on YouTube and then get no engagement and
00:27:11:15 - 00:27:37:03
John Azoni
collect digital dust. So if you can afford to do that and also hire in-house staff, you know, develop a student led content team or bring out an intern or to a you know, you'll be in really great shape for executing a well-rounded video content strategy. So y'all, I hope this was helpful. I know this is a topic where a lot of marketing leaders find themselves on the fence of do we hire in-house or do we outsource?
00:27:37:03 - 00:27:59:03
John Azoni
So I wanted to give you a as unbiased look into this issue as I possibly can. As someone who has been on both sides of the equation and have seen how both the scenarios play out and the risks involved and whatever else. So I hope it's helpful. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.
