CHALLENGE: As the market changes, agents need to look for more effective ways to promote properties, build engagement, and attract potential buyers.
SOLUTION: An effective real estate video, promoted through the most relevant channels for your target buyer demographic, can increase engagement with a listing and improve enquiry rate.
Real estate video marketing is not just about the video!
Promoting properties using video is not new, but despite the practice becoming almost a standard in some other markets around the world, it is yet to fully catch on here in Australia.
For most agents, the concept of real estate video marketing is quite obvious — but to truly take advantage of video as a promotional tool, it needs to be considered more strategically, as part of a wider promotional process.
Getting the video right is only the first step in making the most of this increasingly popular form of advertising. Selecting the right places to promote your video is as important as step one, if you want to a) get the best return on your investment b) reach the most relevant people to get the best results.
Getting the video right
So, if getting the video right is step one, what do you need to know?
When video marketing was first introduced into real estate, the cost, effort and return essentially ensured it was only for luxury or niche properties that were supported by impressive marketing budgets.
Years later, and the combination of mobile phones with inbuilt high resolution video cameras, combined with cost-effective and easy-to-use editing software (discounted for EAC members) means video marketing can be a part of the promotion of almost any property.
While the approach to real estate videos has been very similar over the years, recently, in an attempt to ‘go viral’ and reach more potential buyers, agents have started to experiment.
Gone are the days when the ‘talking head’ and ‘room-to-room’ video was the only approach — now it’s not uncommon to see videos more like mini-movies with scripts and drama, humorous scenarios or engaging storylines produced simply to promote a property. This video from a Sydney group is an interesting example of the creativity of some agents and the intrigue (or controversy!) it can cause.
To get your video right and ensure you settle on the most effective approach, first, you must really consider your audience. Develop your buyer profile so you understand the personality, behaviour, motivations and demographics of your target group and, with this understanding, select whether a traditional approach or something more creative is most suitable.
Always remember, attention spans online are very limited, so keep your video concise, eye-catching and relevant.
Promoting your real estate video effectively
Once you have a great video that you and your vendor are pleased with, the real work begins!
Like a television ad, your video is simply the message, but finding the right channels, times and places to advertise can mean the difference between an effective campaign and losing client advertising budget.
Again, draw on your target buyer profile to help create a list of the media your buyers are exposed to and when they are most likely to be exposed.
As an example, if your buyer is a young couple with small children, Instagram may be most effective in the evening when the duties of the day are all complete. A middle-aged buyer may be more receptive to Facebook at lunchtime.
Determining the best channels to reach your buyer with your video, and the times they are most likely to be consuming media, can help you spend less, for a bigger and better result.
Three quick tips for your real estate video
- If you will be promoting your video through Facebook, consider that most viewers only watch an average of around 10 seconds of any Facebook video — meaning you only have a few seconds to capture attention and keep it.
Forget long or self-indulgent intros, or logos that take time to slide in before the property is visible, and instead, jump straight into the property — the reason people clicked in the first place.
- There are a lot of different places to load up your video and doing so over and over can take time — but it can also make your real estate video promotion more effective. Make sure when advertising on Facebook, you load the video straight into Facebook (to make it native) as opposed to embedding it from You Tube. Do the same with all other social channels you use so it is native to each location.
- Always remember why the viewer is watching the video. Some agents can get caught up in introducing themselves or focusing on their agency or sales. The potential buyer wants to know about the property, so focus on it and provide a link out to further information about you and your agency.
Why use video marketing in real estate?
As pointed out in an earlier edition of our Marketing 101 series, Cisco forecasts by 2021, people will be watching 3 trillion minutes of video online per month — and this prediction is made based on current trends that tell us people prefer to consume information via video.
To emphasise this point further, while Google is the biggest search engine in the world, it may surprise you to learn the second biggest search engine is not Yahoo or Bing, but in fact, YouTube.
Though stats in Australia are scarce, US companies report videos on social platforms receive 1200% more shares than text and image posts combined (Responsive Inbound Marketing), video can increase click-through rate in email by up to 96% (getresponse.com), and when a video is on a site, a user will spend up to 88% more time on that site (notch video).
With stats like these, can you really afford not to use video to promote your next property listing?