May 2, 2022 – St. Louis – As a technology startup working within an industry that hides pricing, one of the big challenges we face is educating our potential customers about why it makes sense to invest in our cost-certain video storytelling.

We put our pricing out there for the world to see while competing against sellers that hide pricing. While we don’t market ourselves as the low-cost alternative, the reality is that our service is a fraction of what others charge in most markets around the US.

How is a customer supposed to know if a service is a good value if the market is hidden from them?

It is very difficult to compare apples to apples when all the apples are hidden from view.

Is this really an apple, an orange, a kumquat or a pawpaw?

In a weird way, the fact that our startup began in the Show Me State helps us tremendously.

This is a state that elevates skeptical to almost religion-like status. A mule is our state animal. While known for strength, hardiness, intelligence and an even temper, a mule is also renown for its stubbornness. You get the idea. While Missouri may not be the type of place you would expect to see such innovation arise, it has.

So here are the facts.

StorySMART provides a premium broadcast quality video service that prices out at about 1/7th of the price of a typical competitor in the St. Louis market. That is right. 1/7th the price. And that is in St. Louis. I suspect the disparity in another larger market like New York, Chicago or San Francisco may be greater. I would expect it would be less so in rural town in Nebraska or just outside the Dutton Yellowstone ranch.

Here is my support of the facts.

A friend who works in PR and Marketing recently shared details of a proposal they received from a reputable small agency to produce a three-minute video for a non-profit to show at their annual event.

The proposal included script writing, conducting on camera interviews with three people and shooting basic b-roll. The agency also listed the use of motion graphics, professional video editing and licensed music in producing the video. We also include that with our work.

The quote from the agency was $18,000, which I believe is a fair price from what I know of the St. Louis market. I’ve seen the same video service sold for as much as $40,000 and as low as $15,000.

If you shopped around, you would find a lot of variation in pricing and approach. It would be rare to find a company sharing pricing on their website like we do. Like finding honest politician, it is possible, but sadly, it is also rare.

It is nearly impossible to comparison shop when few share pricing. The reality is most sellers alter pricing bid after bid. They set the scope and pricing based on the customer.

If the seller thought you were representing Jeff Bezos you would likely get inflated bids. If they thought you represented a non-profit like the one above, then you might expect a smaller price point.

But the safe bet is it would be in the $15K to $25K range. You might find it a bit lower, or a bit higher. I think $18K is fair and typical.

You might be wondering why is that bid seven times the price of StorySMART?

It all comes down to the production model, approach and profit margins.

Most video production agencies are built on an advertising agency scripted storytelling model, where you several skilled professionals collaborate to produce a polished video. It is how most TV commercials and scripted television series are produced. A team of people collaborate to produce the video.

The proposed video service is seven times our price because a team of people are working on a project that has many touch points and steps along the way. A white board session with client. Several rounds of scripts before any video is shot. Multiple cooks in the kitchen along the way. It all adds up to more cost.

StorySMART production model gets a very similar result much more efficiently without a significant change in quality.

We sell a premium news story for $2,500. It is 2 ½ minutes to five minutes in length. So let’s say it is 3 minutes like the other quote. It is broadcast television quality video. So it is akin to what you might see on TV.

A single experienced multimedia journalist produces the video by conducting up to four on-camera interviews at a single location shoot. It also includes an AP-style written blog post so the client can share it via their website and social media. The client owns the copyright on the final deliverables.

For $500 more, we provide the client all the footage that ended up on the “virtual” editing room floor so they can use that to feed their social media for months.

Our price is substantially less because we use a leaner production model. Instead of having four or five people involved and weeks of process built in, we have one reporter and myself involved in a more compressed time frame (typically a couple of weeks).

We don’t use a team of people to produce it. And we don’t write a script first. We follow a proprietary intake process and a high-integrity brand journalism interview model to ensure the client gets the story they want through an honest and authentic process.

So think a 60 minutes produced story versus the Madison Avenue Ad Agency story.

So we price out at 1/6th or 1/7th of our competitor because of our production model.

Is it an apple, an orange or kumquat? Or the official fruit of Missouri, the Pawpaw?

How would our $2,500 story compare to the $18,000 story?

It is hard to say for sure. I don’t know much about the other vendor other than they have been in the marketing business for more than three decades, representing some big brands in town. I would expect professional, high-quality production and good storytelling.

My guess is the $18,000 story, with more time and people involved, would look better than our $2,500 story. But not seven times better.

If we conducted the video storytelling version of the Pepsi challenge, I suspect the average viewer couldn’t pick out our Coke from their Pepsi, but the trained insiders (i.e. those working in video production) might.

Who really knows without doing the challenge. Why it all matters is we are also in the world where your teenage niece or nephew may be a DIY soda brewer.

A final thought on the math. I’ll admit it isn’t my strength. Our cost is either 1/7 or 1/6th the price depending on if you opt for purchasing all our raw footage. I encourage our customers to purchase the raw footage as I think it is important and isn’t something other companies typically make available. They want you to come back to buy more.

I’m a fan of getting it because we live in an era where video content is king, so those snippets could provide a great deal of value to the brand’s social media team.

We developed our production model and pricing because we operate from a different paradigm that our competition. They want you to spend your entire budget on one video. A beautiful masterpiece.

We think you would be better served by telling more stories than going for broke on one video. We worked hard to get our cost per videodown to the price that would allow businesses to sustainably share many stories over time.

I wish there was more transparency in the marketplace within our industry. Selfishly, it would really help StorySMART differentiate our service from the tens of thousands of others selling production.

More importantly, it would help consumers. And I firmly believe it would help the industry. By forcing the industry to modernize their approach with transparent pricing, they will open up new markets by helping non-profits, small businesses and consumers have easy to high-quality professional storytelling. Everyone matters and deserves to be remembered.

That is why we are committed to storytelling for all.