But it is a best step, and a well-made video can do wonders for your company’s sales and brand awareness. The choice has now shifted from whether to produce videos or not to which videos to make and which agency to use to help you produce them.

This article aims to help you with process and make life easier when thinking about an animated video agency to bring your firm’s products and services to life.

Choosing your agency

As with every buying choice, the process of looking for a corporate video production agency starts with an online search. Try to look for and shortlist a few agencies with work  you can associate with and publish a good number of case studies of their previous work and satisfied customers.

Start with a budget in mind for your videos, and be clear to your chosen agencies what that budget is. Video can be an expensive game if you get it wrong, but it can be just as affordable as any other form of digital marketing if you get it right.

Look for a company that is good to work with, has good, adaptable skills. And is interested in making the videos that you want and not treating it as a creative license to produce exactly what they want to.

Set out your objectives

Be clear about your goals for the video. Are you looking to create brand awareness, generate leads, or immediately convert video views into online sales? Ensuring that you know this means your video can be custom-made to achieve your objective.

Also, be clear about your target buyers’ personas. What are their hooks, and what are they looking for help with? Be clear about these goals and how you are going to convert your buyers. Align your videos with your broader marketing strategy. And align with the right type of agency to be able to harness these objectives into a 2-minute format that will be enticing to your potential buyers.

An end-to-end partner

From the conception of the video and topics for it in the pre-production process to post-production editing, you need an agency that can partner with you throughout the process. If you already have particular ideas for your video, discuss with your shortlisted agencies and see how geared up they are to produce this kind of work. You need to feel comfortable that your agency can bring ideas and business DNA to life effectively and engagingly.

Communication is key

You need to be able to work with an agency that you connect with and can work with. Are they open to regular calls or meetings throughout the project?

Before you engage an agency, be sure how they work and do not try to rely on email for a volume-based production model. For video to be effective, they need to understand your business and what drives it.

Also Read: What is Pizza Box Computer

What skills are you looking for from your agency?

Be very clear from the outset what type of role you envisage for your chosen agency. Whether you are looking for a conventional style video with real footage shot on various locations or contemporary animated style video. Discuss this in advance with your contact.

When you do this, have a conversation about the results you want from your videos. And consider whether they are set to encourage people to buy a low-value impulsive product straight away. Or whether they are designed to be the first interaction in a longer sales cycle.

For companies providing services short explainer videos for LinkedIn, Instagram and other social media channels can be effective top-of-the-funnel content designed to get prospects to ask for a free trial or a demo of the solution. In these instances, a strong call to action at the end of the video is advisable. And from there, you can also track the ROI of the video on an extremely granular basis.

Discuss this level of detail with your bookmarked agencies before you decide which one to commission. It will ensure all parties know the expectations before any contracts are signed.

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Penetration testing or ‘pentest’ companies, as they are popularly known, help you investigate and assess cracks and holes in your security system with the help of authorized hackers. Since this is a crucial step in maintaining a high standard of security in your organization, you need to hire a penetration testing company that can provide you with high-quality security testing.

So, what are some things you need to look for in a penetration company?

Proper Certification

Before you even check what kind of pentest services the company offers, you need to see whether the company’s professionals have been properly certified or not. Here are some of the certifications you can keep an eye out for:

1. Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
2. Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
3. GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration Tester (GXPN)
4. Licensed Penetration Tester (LPT)
5. EC Council Certified Security Analyst (ECSA)

You can also check t whether your penetration testing company lives up to CREST standards or not. CREST is the Council of Registered Ethical Security Testers, an organization globally recognized for enforcing strict security testing policies, processes, and methodologies.

It is also important for you to check what kind of pentest hacker you might require for your company. Is your company too small for a junior tester to complete the task? If so, you might want to ask for either a senior or a specialist to do the job. However, whichever consultant you wish to hire, make sure to check the certification of the actual tester who is coming to your site to do the testing

A Good Amount Of Experience

Of course, it is not enough for your penetration testing company to have the right certification but zero experience. It goes without saying that the more a tester has worked in the field of security testing, the more exposure they would have received to different kinds of security threats.

This is why your tester needs to have a wide range of experiences regarding penetration testing. It will be ideal if the consultant you are working with has experience in application testing, network infrastructure, and compliance auditing across varied environments and diverse industries.

Of course, you also need to make sure that the company has experience dealing with the particular technology that your organization works with as well.

The Right Skillset

Your penetration testing company should come with a diverse range of technical skill sets. This skill set includes expertise in various operating systems, networks, network protocols, security administration and system administration, and database systems and scripting.

Your pentest company should also possess the right skills in wireless networks, password management, programming and software development, forensics (the analysis and investigation of systems and information) as well as cryptography (ciphering and protecting sensitive data and information).

The consultants you hire should be capable of performing manual testing in addition to automated testing so that you are ensured of well-rounded completeness of the test. Manual testing should also be done to eradicate false positives to get accurate and precise reports. Keep in mind that your pentest company should be perfectly capable of protecting your data and sensitive information during the testing period. It should also offer you a re-test option to check whether you have been able to remedy the holes in your security system successfully or not.

Finally, it is vital that your pentest company also possesses the right soft skills to communicate with you effectively and deliver the right services for your organization.

A Well-Defined Documentation Process

The methodology that your penetration testing company follows should involve various progressive steps, and you must be kept in the loop at all times.

It is, therefore, essential for your testing company to keep well-documented reports throughout the whole process. These reports should be well-labeled and categorized according to identified vulnerabilities, sensitive information, cracked passwords, and so on.

It is also important for the reports to be clear, simple, and concise. However, detailed reports with screenshots must also be provide the testers to your tech team. Your pentest company should ideally tell you what risks you need to prioritize, along with detailed recommendations on eliminating the various risks and security threats. Your tech team should easily implement the necessary measures based on the report given to you by your testers.

It can be difficult to find a penetration testing company capable of fulfilling all of the criteria you need. However, if they can fulfill at least the above requirements, you know that your security system is in safe hands.

Also Read: Hard Skills That Will Shape Your Career In Cybersecurity

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