Entrepreneur, Noah Penn, tells us all about how he got his videography business started. He tells us how building a website, and throwing up Google ads got his entire first summer booked out.
Welcome to Business Talk Sister Gawk! I’m Bekkah! And I’m Ruthie and today’s episode is “How To Start a Videography Business Part One.” Today we have a guest we’re super excited about his name is Noah and he is going to talk to us about some things. Tell us what you do, Noah!
Noah: Hey, guys yeah thanks for having me on. I guess basically what I do is I make videos for a living. That’s the short of it.
What Is Your Business?
Bekkah: Short – what’s the long of it? What’s your business name and give yourself a little plug.
Noah: Sure so my name is Noah I run a small video production company called 218 Visuals it’s based out of Duluth therefore the “218” part of it. Primarily what I do in the video sphere is I film weddings so that’s probably about 70% of the kind of videos that I shoot is weddings, weddings, and more weddings. Then intermixed kind of in the winter and just randomly throughout the year I do just some other promotional stuff. Sort of some subcontracting with real estate companies and different creative aspects with different companies locally so yeah.
Ruthie: Nice! Awesome so Noah and I know each other, we’ve known each other for a couple of years now and I love seeing all of your stuff on Instagram and stuff like that I love liking it, sharing it, telling my friends. Whenever anyone needs a videographer I always tell them about you!
Noah: I appreciate it!
Why Did You Start a Videography Business?
Ruthie: Yeah so now we’re going to transition into the why you do what you do. Tell us about that, why did you get started?
Noah: You know how I got started was sort of a weird beginning. I think the first video I ever made I was a marketing intern down in the twin cities. I honestly just ran out of things to do and they had this event coming up and I don’t even remember why I said it but I was like, “Hey, let me just make a promo video for this event!” I mean I didn’t own a camera. I don’t even know if I had a very good cell phone or anything, but I ended up making them this really, super cringy I’m sure promo video, and but I really enjoyed the process of it actually. I still have the video somewhere I just refuse to watch it until like the time is right.
From there it just sort of turned into a hobby. If I’d go out of town or go on a trip or something I’d just make these little dumb videos. Just watching other people do it on youtube and sort of basically just taught myself while I was in college. Then one day I saw a post on Facebook of someone was asking for a videographer for their wedding and I was like, “Oh, yeah! That’d be cool or whatever.” But she was like, “Oh, we’ll pay you 250 bucks!” and like, at the time, you know that was just like a ton of money so I was super stoked about it. I reached out and she ended up hiring me even though I had never done a wedding before and I knew how to make videos.
I guess that was all that she cared about and it went super great. I think for me why I do it is I just love to create things and so that’s always been a big part of what I get out of life in terms of enjoyment. Before video it was music. I’m a big musician and so I think the art of creating something that didn’t exist before is just sort of the thrill of starting with a blank canvas and then seeing the finished product is super awesome. It kind of started randomly. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and was like I’m just gonna start filming weddings. It just kind of happened where there was a need for it and then once I did one I just threw it on a website and people sort of flocked to it. Yeah kind of took off pretty quickly.
Bekkah: Is $250 like really low for doing that because I think that’s low. I would definitely jump on that if somebody said that.
Noah: Yeah I mean it’s insane. I would never recommend that anyone ever take that low of money if they’re starting a video business or whatever. But I will say that if you have no experience in something, it’s sort of a hard ask of people to charge an exorbitant amount if you don’t have anything to show for it. I think it was a good first step for me, but definitely – $250 was like – I mean I spent that money before I even showed up on a new lens just for that day.
Bekkah: Well, that’s good that you invested in equipment!
Noah: Yeah definitely. It didn’t last very long and I knew that going in. I knew it was below market rate or whatever. But yeah at the same time back then 250 bucks to me that was like, “Dang! That’s insane!”
Ruthie: It’s good to have that kind of incentive to start out. I know with our little sister Mia she has really been wanting to get into graphic design so Bekkah was like, “If you make these graphics I’ll pay you for it.” Mia told me that she was thinking it was going to be like 10 bucks and Bekkah gave her like 50 bucks for it! She was just ecstatic! We had this family meeting the other day and she was like, “I have an update! I got paid fifty dollars!” *awkwardly laughs because no one else did*
How to Get Your Videography Business Found Online
You had kind of mentioned that you threw up a website out there which is an understatement because one doesn’t simply just throw up a website. You have to put at least a little bit of work into it. But that sounds like how you initially started getting your name out there but tell us a little bit about how you started getting found by people.
Noah: I think luckily for me at the time I was sort of working for a web development agency so I had a pretty strong background in website design and stuff. So for me throwing a website up was I guess easier than it would be if you’re not familiar with creating websites, but that’s basically what it was is I made this quick little website and I put my one wedding video up there, and basically, I connected a Google Search Console thing to put ads in and I ran ads on Google I think I spent something like 200 bucks on ads and I ended up booking I think 25 weddings just from that. From the $250 of ads that I put in I got 25 weddings for the following year. Which is insane.
I mean it was so crazy, in fact, that I had to just quit. I was working like two or three little part-time jobs and I quit all of them at once because I realized I was about to be insanely busy with all this. In terms of the business side of things, yeah I didn’t all of a sudden just decide to start a videography business. I feel pretty lucky, but also I had a decent skill set to show off the video.
I had the website too, which helped get my name out there but yeah it definitely sort of happened a lot quicker than I expected or ever thought it would. I haven’t really thought about it since then so it’s kind of funny to think that was three years ago. My life definitely took a strange turn when I made that website, but it’s been awesome. I swear I have one of the best jobs, at least for me. It’s just super fulfilling and I definitely don’t regret it at all. I love what I do.
What Platforms Are Helpful for Advertising a Videography Business?
Bekkah: When you’re talking about you built the website, you’re using Google Ads, what other platforms did you choose to advertise on right away or was that your primary one or did you have like any kind of other stuff you were doing that you started messing around with like Youtube, Facebook? Anything like that?
Noah: I might have run a few ads on Facebook as well, but in that first year – I’m trying to think back now. I don’t think 218 Visuals existed that first year. I think I was just doing it under my own name. I don’t think I even had a Facebook or Instagram I must have had a Youtube but I’ve never really tried that hard to promote my Youtube honestly. This is kind of funny because it’s a video platform but I’d say pretty much all of the business I got was running ads on Google.
Ever since I spent that 250 bucks or whatever, I booked those 25 weddings, and then pretty much all my business since then has just been from referrals from those people. Which is kind of the nice thing about doing an event-based, wedding side of videography. There are always people getting married. People that are at the wedding see the wedding video et cetera et cetera. It kind of just spreads on its own but yeah I honestly haven’t advertised in a long long time.
Is It Better to Have a Business Name or Just Your Own Name as a Videographer?
Bekkah: Okay I have a question for you about something you mentioned. You said that you were doing it under your name and then you decided to transition to 218 Visuals. Why did you make that decision and what made it more strategic for you?
Noah: That is a good question that I’m not sure I’ve put a lot of thought into actually. I think part of it was wanting to get my name off of the videos and sort of at least in my perspective as I’d rather hire 218 Visuals to make a video rather than Noah Penn to make a video if that makes sense. I think part of it was just to make it feel a little bit more professional rather than just a guy with a camera. Which it’s all I am really is just I happen to own a camera and know how to make videos, but I think having a name and a logo and sort of a more professional – professional ish, I should say – appearance is… I don’t know at the time it just seemed to make sense and honestly, there wasn’t much thought put into it other than that. I don’t know if that’s a very good answer.
How Did You Build Your Network as a Videographer?
Ruthie: When you first started kind of getting more into the wedding side of thing how did you build your network for that? Did you talk to different wedding planners and things or you just kind of haven’t had to really do that either?
Noah: Honestly, yeah like I said so much my business has just come from referrals from the brides and grooms that hired me in that first year. Probably the main networking that I do is with photographers that are there on the wedding day because I work so closely with them on the wedding day. It’s kind of funny. It’s almost like being signed a random partner for a group project because we kind of show up and a lot of times I haven’t met the photographer before. Anyways that’s kind of the networking that I do is just meeting them and getting to know them and then sometimes they’ll send me people that are looking for a videographer.
In terms of wedding planners I mean I know a few but I don’t really have a working relationship with many wedding planners or florists or even venues. I know some of the venue owners but a lot of times they’re not super involved in picking what you call “wedding vendors” for the couple so I’ve met a lot of people but honestly, in terms of the business side of things it just comes down to word of mouth from the people that hire me.
Bekkah: Do you have business cards and stuff or people just know you because you were there and then they go check out your website?
Noah: I mean I have business cards but it’s funny I’ve probably handed out like two business cards in my life. This is so funny because it’s so exciting when you make a business card and then you order them and you get them in the mail. I even have right in front of me on my desk in my office here I have a little holder that my mom bought me for all my business cards. Sometimes I look at it and I’m just like, “Why do I even have these? I don’t know it’s kind of useless.” But anyways, how people see me from those weddings is mostly the bride and groom sharing the video that I make for them on their social media.
If they don’t ask the bride and groom directly like, “Oh, who did your wedding video again?” They can just look it up on their Instagram or whatever and find it pretty quickly. That happens all the time and also there’s a bunch of Facebook groups for wedding planning in the region in Minnesota. I don’t know who they are because wedding vendors aren’t allowed into a lot of these groups but I have a small army of people that have been recommending me and I always kind of wish that I knew who they were because I get all these message requests from people who are like, “Oh, yeah this person recommended me to you from Minnesota Brides or whatever. It’s like, “Man, I wish I knew who was out there like really plugging me because it happens all the time!”
How to Work Well With Other Wedding Professionals on The Big Day
Bekkah: You mentioned that you are kind of thrown into a group project with a different photographer every time. How does that normally go and what would you recommend to somebody if they’re gonna do that. How do you be a good group project member, basically?
Noah: That’s a good question, most of the time, in terms of a wedding shoot, it’s the couple will hire a photographer and a videographer separately. There are so many photographers in you know Minnesota that it’s pretty rare that I work with the same one over and over again. It’s usually a new photographer so we work pretty closely throughout the day getting a lot of the same shots. Honestly, a lot of the day I’m just shoulder to shoulder with a photographer or their second shooter or something which is kind of fun.
It’s kind of fun to have another camera person to just talk about gear if there’s like a minute of downtime or whatever but in general, it’s a really good experience, and you can really get creative too. If one person runs out of ideas of different shots to get you can bounce ideas off each other. It’s definitely an interesting dynamic of two creative people working together. Obviously, there are different levels of I don’t know what you call “synergy” or just like “clicking” on a creative level but yeah in general it’s like it’s a super fun experience to be able to work with people like that.
What Software Do You Use For Your Business as a Wedding Videographer?
Ruthie: So when you started out what software did you use to begin with?
Noah: I’ve exclusively used Adobe products mostly because that’s just what I learned on, Adobe Premiere for Video Editing. I haven’t really tried anything else, honestly. That’s not to say I wouldn’t switch in the future but yeah Adobe Premiere is what I use.
How to Get Inspiration For Your Shots While You Are Filming?
Ruthie: You had mentioned getting to work with people, and you have that kind of creative energy. How do you get inspiration for what you do?
Noah: I think a lot of it comes down to you sort of have to start looking like with your eyes as if you’re the camera if that makes sense. A lot of it is just looking for creativity in spaces that might initially not seem that graceful or beautiful or whatever. Finding angles and different depth of field things to create these little cinematic moments. I think that comes back to the creativity thing of why I do what I do. Mostly I just love the process of taking something that didn’t exist as like a blank video project and being able to tell a story through it. I think mostly the inspiration kind of comes from within you and like a drive to create something in the day.
Ruthie: In your videos, you kind of have exactly what you said like these little cinematic moments, do you tell the people that you’re videotaping what to do or do they just kind of figure it out on their own?
Noah: It’s a mix. I try to include as many what you call “candid moments” I guess with people on a wedding shoot but you know realistically, if you see a wedding video you see like two people walking through the field at sunset or something it’s like, realistically, they probably wouldn’t be doing that unless a photographer was telling them to do that or a videographer.
It’s a little of both but when you’re posing people, I think a videographer is looking for a little more motion than maybe a photographer would. That’s not always the case but I try to keep things as organic and I don’t know – even if it’s just silly running or jumping or just spinning around or something. Just trying to keep things like not super rigid I guess and that sort of helps for people’s personalities to come out a little bit too in a video. So it’s both, to answer your question,
Ruthie: I think that the next shoot you do you should do one where they go through a field and then one where you videotape all the ticks all over them from the field.
Bekkah: That’s a good transition into our Gawk portion and before we do you guys this is a two-part episode. We’re gonna get to a bunch more technical information about running a videography business in the next episode so definitely check it out.
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