Why we stopped offering content production as a service

The late nights were getting to me. I was hunched over my laptop, the glow illuminating the dark office, editing a YouTube short for a client. It was 2 AM, and I still had three more to go before the morning meeting. My partner, Alex, was in the other room, probably tweaking a brand’s TikTok strategy. We’d started our agency with a lot of optimism, seeing a gap in the market for brands that needed not just influencer strategy, but also the content to go with it. We thought, “Why not be a one-stop shop?” Turns out, there were a lot of reasons why not.

We ran a pretty successful influencer marketing agency. We’d nail strategy, find the perfect creators, negotiate deals, and manage campaigns. Brands loved us for it. Then, a few years in, we started getting more and more requests for content production. Small brands, big brands—it didn’t matter. They’d say, “Can you just… make the videos for us? We love your creative direction.” On paper, it made sense. We understood their brand DNA, we knew what kind of content resonated, and we had a network of creatives. So, we started taking it on.

At first, it felt like a natural extension of our services. We hired a couple of in-house videographers and editors, brought on some freelance graphic designers. Our team grew, and so did our overhead. We were churning out product demos, lifestyle shoots, short-form social media videos. We thought we were providing more value, deepening our client relationships. We envisioned ourselves as a full-service creative powerhouse, and for a while, it felt like we were.

But the reality quickly started to diverge from the vision. Content production is a beast, a completely different animal from strategic consulting and campaign management. The timelines are tighter, the feedback loops are endless, and the margin for error is razor-thin. A typo in a strategy document is fixable. A misfire in a video shoot can cost thousands and delay a launch by weeks.

One particularly memorable incident was when we were producing a series of short-form ads for a fast-casual restaurant chain. We had everything planned: talent, location, props, the whole nine yards. The shoot day arrived with torrential rain, ruining our outdoor shots. We had to pivot, find an indoor location on the fly, reschedule talent, and essentially re-plan half the shoot in a matter of hours. The stress was immense. We pulled it off, but at a significant cost to our team's energy and peace of mind. That one shoot wiped out any profit we thought we’d make on the content side of that project.

We also started noticing a shift in our team's focus. Our strategic thinkers, the ones who were brilliant at identifying trends and crafting killer influencer briefs, were increasingly getting pulled into content reviews. They were spending hours poring over video edits, debating font choices, and agonizing over soundtrack selection. These activities, while important, weren't their core strength, nor were they the high-leverage activities that truly moved the needle for our clients’ overall campaigns.

The feedback rounds were another major hurdle. What might take a brand a week to approve a strategic document could take them three weeks to sign off on a video. Different stakeholders, multiple layers of approval, nitpicky changes down to the second of a clip—it was a constant battle. We found ourselves acting more as project managers for internal client teams than as their strategic partners, and that was a role we never intended to play. We were getting bogged down in the how rather than focusing on the what and why.

The financial implications were stark too. While content production commanded higher project fees on the surface, the actual profit margins were a fraction of our core influencer marketing services. The sheer amount of time, resources, and unexpected costs involved meant we were often breaking even, or worse, losing money on those projects, particularly when things went sideways. We looked at our P&L and saw that the content production arm was a massive drain on resources that wasn't delivering the expected return.

So, we had a tough conversation. Alex and I sat down, reviewed everything, and realized we were spreading ourselves too thin. We were compromising the quality and focus of our core service by trying to be everything to everyone. We were getting good at content production, but we weren't getting great at it, and it was detracting from our ability to be great at influencer strategy. Our team was exhausted and losing passion for what we originally set out to do.

It wasn't an easy decision to stop. We had invested in equipment, hired talented people, and told clients we could do it all. But continuing would have been a disservice to our clients and to ourselves. We decided to go back to what we knew best and what we excelled at: influencer marketing strategy and execution.

Now, when a client asks us for content production, we have a network of trusted, specialized production houses we can recommend. We still provide the creative direction and strategic oversight, but we let the experts handle the actual filming and editing. This way, we can focus on what we do best, and our clients get high-quality content without us having to compromise our core business. It was a clear line in the sand, and it allowed us to regain our focus and, frankly, our sanity.

Finding your niche and sticking to it is crucial for sustainable growth. Don't be afraid to say no to opportunities that distract from your core mission, even if they seem lucrative initially.