Guest post by Justin Nederkoorn ,
travel photographer and videographer

If you’ve followed the tips we shared in our article on How to Start Earning Money as a Video Editor While Still Learning, you should have a decent understanding of video editing and probably earned a little money doing projects.

In this article, we’ll help you elevate your marketing. We’ll explore portfolio building, client pitching, negotiation mastery, and delivering work. From crafting your portfolio to sealing the deal, we'll share practical tips to help you stand out in the competitive video editing landscape.

Portfolio

Why portfolio matters

Even though marketing is important, the quality of your work is always at the forefront. So when reaching out to potential clients, it’s crucial to showcase your capabilities through portfolio items. These items should align with the work you’d like to do. So if you enjoy working on music videos, ensure your portfolio includes relevant examples. This way, a prospective music video client can get a good and relevant understanding of your skills.

Building your portfolio

In the early stages of crafting your portfolio, focus on the relevance and quality of your portfolio items. As it grows, regularly update it by:

• Removing less relevant pieces
• Refining its message

While putting your portfolio online is advisable, avoid spending excessive time perfecting it. Instead, invest those hours in creating better portfolio work.

Creating spec-ads

One of the best ways to illustrate your skills in storytelling is to create a spec-ad (speculative advertisement).

Pick a brand you’d love to work with one day. I would advise not to pick any of the dream clients such as Coca-Cola, because they set a really high standard. For this example, we’ll go with the Hi-Fi brand Bowers & Wilkins as I happen to have one of their headphones laying around the house. Consider what their brief might look like. For example, they need a 20-second marketing campaign to appeal to a younger audience. This guides the footage you want to collect. It would be even better to collaborate with a local filmmaker and create a spec-ad together. Pay attention to the client’s visual language and try to incorporate it into the edit, grade and sound design.

Especially in your early days as a video editor, spec ads will be a great practice as it gives you the opportunity to create examples of the work you’d like to end up doing. This enhances the relevance of your portfolio, and offers the prospective client familiar examples as they often recognize the speculative clients featured in the ads. It’s one of the most effective ways of taking your portfolio to a professional level.

Spec ads are great for:

• Practicing and showcasing the work you want to do
• Enhancing the relevance of your portfolio
• Providing familiar examples that prospective clients recognize

Before / Afters

If you want to get your prospective client excited, show them your color grading skills.

• Collect the grades you’re most proud of and compile them into before / afters.
• Play the shot and wipe the grade in steps (e.g., color/balance correction, color split, effects, etc.).

Show relevant examples:

• If you have a specific style, make sure your portfolio items are within this style.
• If you want to be versatile in color grading, consider grading a single shot into three different atmospheres.

Pitching to clients

Preparing your  pitch

Before pitching to clients, ensure your work is well-prepared for outreach.

• Have a portfolio website online with your contact details and a small section about who you are and who you’ve worked for.
• Create a media kit (a PDF introducing yourself) that includes:
  • Introduction
  •  Services
  •  Examples of your work (portfolio)
  • Contact details

The advantage of a media kit is that you can pivot to certain niches. For example, you could create a media kit for music videos and show only relevant clients and portfolio items, while sending a separate media kit pivoted for product ads to other clients.

Finding potential clients

A common mistake when reaching out is that we sell ourselves short. I certainly did. In my early days, I reached out to local businesses because I thought there was plenty of room to improve their videos.

That’s exactly the problem. In my experience, many local businesses with mediocre imagery lack the budget to hire filmmakers and editors, and they underestimate the significance of good video production. This might not be true for where you’re based, but it’s good to keep this in the back of your mind.

Instead, opt for medium-sized businesses. Brands that are active on social media, have decent imagery, showing they understand their significance, and can be assumed to have a marketing budget. These will be your best shots at landing a client.

A bonus tip is to use Chat GPT to get a starting list of prospects to research. Include in your prompt what you can offer for clients, what clients you’re looking for (SMEs), the sector or services these clients deliver, and how Chat GPT should structure the result. I always ask for a list of clients and a description of why they could benefit from my services. This isn’t perfect, but it gives you a decent list of clients to research and reach out to.

Reaching out to clients

When it’s time to start reaching out, gather the contact details of each client you reach out to. Try to create touchpoints on multiple channels. So when you send them a compelling email along with your media kit, set a reminder in your calendar to follow up on Instagram a couple of days later. Still no response after 5-6 days? Send them a reminder through email.

Let me try to manage your expectations. When I do my outreach, I often send up to 300 emails. Usually, I get 20-30 responses and those narrow down more the further I go into negotiations. So when reaching out, volume is key. If you want to land jobs, make sure you reach out frequently and in large quantities.

Negotiating a budget

People often find it difficult to discuss budgets and therefore postpone this topic. Don’t delay; you’ll end up wasting your time if the budget can’t be agreed upon. Early on, tell the client that you want to discuss the budget to avoid wasting their time.

Negotiating a price can be tough when starting out. Consult other video editors in your region to understand market rates. Don’t be afraid to say no to a client if there’s not enough budget; saying no is often more important than saying yes.

Alternatively, if you really want to land a client, there’s no shame in dropping your price just to get your foot in the door. Sometimes I offer a significant discount (20-30%) when working together for the first time. I’ve even had moments where I worked for brands for free, simply because I knew that working for them would open doors in my sector. Some people argue that you should never work for free. If you’re certain that this could boost your career, credibility or network and you have the financial room to do a project free of charge, go for it! It’s important to note though that once you’ve worked for a client for free, it’s often hard to turn that relationship into a monetary one. There are exceptions, but be aware of this before you commit to working for free.

Working for Free:

• Sometimes, offering a significant discount (20-30%) or working for free can open doors in your sector.
• Be aware that it can be difficult to turn a free relationship into a monetary one.

Delivering the Work

So you’ve landed a job, congratulations! Here are a couple of tips to help improve your odds of landing more jobs from this client.

Include the client in the process
Working on a project is like a funnel. In the early stages, you’re still exploring and concepting your edit. Including your client in this process is crucial. Show them rough drafts to gather feedback early on, ensuring alignment on the final result. As you move to color grading, present different options, offer your professional opinion, and discuss the direction. Including your client in the process will help ensure the end result fits their vision, and it will help them feel involved.

Always overdeliver
I’m a big advocate of overdelivering and account for this in my budget and time management. So if I have a project where I need to deliver 5 reels for my client, I often toss in an extra reel. Your client will be happy when he feels like the deliverables he received are worth more than the budget it cost him. This will likely improve your chances of the client returning to you.

Follow up after delivering the work
The worst thing that could happen after delivering a project is the client forgetting about you. To prevent this, schedule multiple touchpoints with your client. Follow up a week or two after delivery to ask if they’re still satisfied and how the results turned out. Stay in touch through emails or calls, and maybe meet for coffee a month later to discuss their current projects. By interacting frequently, you ensure you stay at the top of their mind when they need an editor, showing you care not just for the project, but also for the company and people you work with.

Final Words

In the video editing journey, it’s not just about the work you showcase—it’s about building meaningful connections with clients.

• Embrace clear communication.
• Learn when to accept and when to decline.
• Foster relationships that extend beyond projects.

By following these principles, you'll frequently land paid jobs in video editing sooner than you anticipated.

Need more guidance?
If you’re still in the earlier stages of learning video editing, check out our article on Getting Started with Video Editing to help you craft beautiful films!