7 Ways Drones Can Save Your Business Money7 Ways Drones Can Save Your Business Money
As drones are becoming more common in the market, small businesses and various industries are finding more and more ways that drones can save them money and make their job easier.
We’ve compiled a list of just a few of the ways Volare Aerial Videography might be able to help you!
Advertising & Commercials
Whether you just want a cool background video for your website, or you want a full promotional video for advertising your services, drones are perfect for the job. Allowing potential clients to see your operations from a new point of view not only might catch their attention, but it can also save you money. One of our clients is a bus and transportation company who wanted to capture their fleet crossing the Congress bridge into downtown Austin. To capture the shots they wanted would have been impossible to do with a helicopter in such tight spaces and would have cost far more. Being able to navigate in small spaces and capture cinematic photos and videos while moving high in the air gives drones a huge advantage over any previous method at a fraction of the cost.
Construction Inspection and Preliminary Imagery
We often get hired by builders and future homeowners who are interested in seeing the potential view that will have from a certain height on their empty property before they build. With the built-in altimeter, drones work perfectly for this job. Flying up to the height of each floor of a house, we can offer buyers a clear picture of their future window or rooftop view in high definition panoramas to ensure the potential property matches their expectations before spending a dime on construction. Construction inspection is also one of the leading uses of drones commercially today. Monitoring construction progress can be dangerous and time consuming – paying a professional to go out to the site regularly and climb up onto unfinished construction is not ideal. A drone can do this much faster without any of the inherent danger. By being able to fly over the site without having to rely on ladders and half finished construction, a drone is ideal for quick inspections and capturing photos and videos of the site from angles that would have been previously impossible without large expensive equipment.
Damage & Insurance Assessments
After Hurricane Harvey, we were contacted by insurance companies and homeowners alike to help assess damage to homes and neighborhoods. A potential home buyer also wanted us to fly over several neighborhoods to get a real-time view of which homes were unharmed and which had flood damage so that he would know where to buy his next house without fear of another disaster. Drones turned out to be very useful in this case because it allowed easy access to view and assess areas of the city that were not accessible by a car due to the flood waters. In another case, we were hired by a contractor to assess a local business that was having a leak in its windows which were ~150 feet off the ground and in a wooded area. For a quick inspection, the drone was ideal because the only other way to get a quick look at the windows would have been to rappel down from the roof, which would have been dangerous.
Energy and Gas Inspections
One of the rising use cases for drones in commercial industries is energy and gas inspections. Drones are able to ensure plants and pipelines are in compliance with regulations and ensure efficiency in operations – saving countless dollars in a single flight. Infrared thermal imaging cameras on large commercial drones can detect leaks or weak points in gas pipelines quickly and easily. This is especially useful in potentially harmful or contaminated environments such as in the case of a potential gas leak or oil spill which might be dangerous to a human inspector.
Real Estate Drone Photos & Videos
Most of our clients are in the real estate industry – whether thats single family homes, student housing for University of Texas, or commercial apartments and businesses. Drones are unmatched in their ability to show off a property in a cinematic way. Properties that get the biggest benefit out of the use of aerial imagery are ones with special features such as being on the edge of Lake Travis or Town Lake, those on a golf course, or really any home that has a pool or amazing view that can’t be shown to its fullest potential through traditional cameras. Another cool use for drone photos is 3d imagery and mockups. We have been hired many times to go out to capture photos in a 360 degree panorama to allow digital artists to construct a 3d representation of the future building on the property for the clients to sign off before construction begins.
Surveying and Planning
While this use case plays into several of the ones before it such as construction and real estate, it can be broader for many different uses from agriculture to special events. For instance, we were hired by a local high school to help plan and then photograph their idea of parking their busses in the parking lot to form a special message to their students. Without a drone, it was very difficult to see if busses were straight or if the letters were formed correctly. Having a top down view to help navigate the busses to the right angle and spot, while also being able to capture the final product in top down photos and videos.
Wedding Venue Aerial Photos & Videos
Weddings are expensive and the last thing you want is to spend all that money creating the wedding venue of your dreams and then not capture it for posterity. We have been fortunate to capture some amazing wedding venues – from Le San Michele in Buda to a sunset cruise on Lake Austin. There is no substitute for aerial photos and venues when you have a location as beautiful as these.
