Recruiting Has to Go Video, right. Video, combined with the Internet, is a game-changer for recruiting, right, as Kevin Wheeler has stated recently.

But I still hear it all the time - "How much for a video?," "It too expensive?" In ADOTAS I came across an article that is retweeted below. This article answers the cost question very well, but the answer is it depends. Read the article to see why. When thinking strategically about your talent acquisition, a more important question is - "what will my ROI be." I know HR "isn't" traditionally know to be good with numbers/math. If you want a "seat" at the table you'll need to think how to add value to the organization. Everything can be measured, by adding value and focusing on ROI, you will save and make your firm more money than just focusing on price.

I know you still want to see a price, $0 - $30,000 for a 'typical' recruitment video. Well, zero is not really zero because you need to allocate the cost of your time (and other people's) as well as the cost of lost opportunity of having a poor product. $30K is not the limit either, but paying a high price doesn't always mean your get the best product either. But if you come back to value and RIO, then you'll know whether $5k or $20K a better price.

I started my career in investment banking on Wall Street, I worked about 80hrs per week, two years of financial modeling and analysis taught me a lot about ROI. But even more important, I learned from the SVP of HR, the importance of having the "right" people to make the "right" decisions to get the desired ROI. She had a seat at the table (and yes they were pioneers in using video too).



Video on the Web: Where to Start

Written on
September 3rd 2009
Author
by Ernie Mosteller |
ADOTAS - "How much for a web video?"

I don't know about you, but I get that question all the time. Video on the web has officially come of age for advertisers (a long-anticipated event, at least for this former spot director), and everybody wants in on it. Everybody.

Of course, a lot of the groundwork that was laid to get to this point, at least in the minds of most advertisers, has led to the mistaken belief among too many that you can do just about anything in video, slap it up on the web somewhere, and you'll have the next viral hit. Or at least, people who are, ever so remotely, interested in the broad category your product fits into will flock to watch what you put up, no matter what you put up. Oh, and by the way, how much?

I sometimes have a hard time believing it, but too many advertisers are still in a mind-space that treats the web as a thing, a plug-in, a commoditized unit, that can simply be applied to a marcom mix in nice, even increments. Sorry folks, it just doesn't work that way.

Cheap, done-on-a-webcam, silly little videos can, yes, become global viral hits. But the chances of your regional sales manager, talking across his desk about "added consumer value" to a guy with a camcorder, becoming the next Numa Numa are - remote, at best. To be fair, maybe you're not after the next viral hit. But I'm assuming you do want someone to watch what you upload.

I'm not one of those ad guys who says you have to spend what we used to spend on TV commercials to make a web video that's watchable. You do, if you come up with an idea that requires the same production specs. But the key to what you need to spend has everything to do with the ideas you generate. And that has everything to do with what you hope to accomplish with your video on the web. Which, together, make the calculations for the price of a web video exactly like the calculations for any other type of advertising creative: It all depends on what you want it to do, and the idea you create to do it. Important here to note that actually having an idea in the first place is the real cost of entry.

Making effective web video boils down to ideas that connect with the people you want to connect with. If the idea is there, the video will do its job. The idea, of course, is going to tell you how much you'll need to spend. If your idea involves explosions and car crashes, please don't try to do it on your intern's camcorder. But if said intern's camcorder represents all the money you have to spend - don't automatically give up, either. Spend more time thinking, or get someone to think smarter, and there's every chance you can create something that connects, on a much lower budget. But you'll have to leave the explosions out of it.

There are good, cheap web videos. There are bad ones, too. Just like there are good expensive web videos, and bad ones to go along with those. It's not the price that makes it work, or fail. It's the idea. Start there.