Photos can’t always capture the vibe, light quality, or character of a specific place. Sometimes, photos just aren’t enough - and as a real estate agent, it’s your job to show off the place and all the elements that it has going for it. What’s better than photos? Videos. Video marketing is completely changing the game online, and especially on social media. Many real estate agents are turning to video to change the game and market their properties online. However, some find video editing to be quite intimidating and time consuming. It’s true, using some other techniques without guidance can lead to hours spent on a single clip. Anyone can make a sleek, professional, social-ready video with just a few clicks! With video marketing, realtors, brokers, and agents can showcase their properties in a new and unique way, showing their clients a new perspective on the same property. Both commercial and real estate are using this technique to turn connections into sales. Nowadays, nearly half of home buyers will start searching for homes online, according to the National Association of Realtors. If you’re looking to revamp your strategy, take a look at our top tips for creating effective real estate video marketing - and some tools to help.
9 Tips for Effective and Catchy Real Estate Video Marketing + Tools to Help You Build Your Video:
9 Top Tips for Effective Real Estate Video Marketing
Video has become increasingly popular, and there’s no better time to take the leap. Here are the best ways to utilize video marketing to make profits.
1. Set Aside an Appropriate Budget
Make no mistake about it - effective video production can be expensive and time consuming. Many people are often advised to just jump right into creating videos, no matter the quality or output. However, while this advice may ring true for some industries, this is not the best advice when it comes to real estate marketing. Quality videos make a big difference, and the type of impression you give off will have a big impact on your potential customers. Selling real estate is all about quality and aesthetics. If you want quality videos, you will need to set aside an effective and appropriate budget. You may not have the budget for high-end videos, but there’s certainly a middle ground for a nice, high-quality video that will still create a professional-looking video. In fact, many of us already have high-quality video cameras right in our pockets. In addition to a filming budget, which might require renting out equipment, you will need to set aside money for promoting your videos across the Internet, including Google, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
2. Learn From The Pros
One of the best ways to learn how to create amazing real estate video marketing videos? Check out what others have created! It’s important to see what your competitors or other realtors have been putting out, and take note of what you do like and do not like from their videos. Build upon the success of others by taking learnings from their videos, and moving forward to build your own video.
3. Plan Ahead
The best videos do not happen spontaneously. Using a spur-of-the-moment idea and running with it will oftentimes not produce the best possible result. Instead, take time out of your schedule to plan out the best possible strategy. Think about what type of video you want to create, how you will film the video, how you will edit the video (more on this down below), and where you will promote your video. Consider all angles. Before you create videos, think about what type of videos you want. Do you want to produce a neighborhood tour type of video, which might work best if you sell homes consistently in a certain area? Do you want to do a house tour video? There are many different approaches to the type of video you can create. Once you identify what you want as the final product, then you can turn to determining the producing process and work on marketing the videos. Filming the video can be quite involved, if you want it to be. You may want to find actors, you may need to draft a simple script, and you may need to consider other elements like lighting or sound quality. In addition, you may want to stage the home.
4. Bring Humans Into the Picture
People relate best with other people, and that’s why we recommend adding in plenty of humans into the video, if applicable. Buying or selling a home can be an extremely personal decision, and oftentimes, emotions are at the forefront of a buyer’s mind. It’s no surprise that buyers will act with emotions. So when planning your video, think about telling a story, and not just selling a home.
5. Use 360 Video
Modern video technology improves each and every day, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t take advantage of some of the excellent tools on the market to better sell your properties. For example, 360 video! This innovative new video experience helps bring your properties to life by allowing the potential buyers to be immersed in the home. Especially at a time when buying a home can be difficult (and time consuming), save time and shoot with 360 video to let your customers really, truly experience the space in a multi-dimensional way.
6. Time Your Videos Accordingly
The length of your social media video is everything! The shorter the video, the more effective. Keep it tight to get more viewers. The average video will only have around 37% of the original viewers stay through the entire video. When creating your video, include only the most engaging content.
7. Sell More Than Just The Property
As previously mentioned, storytelling is a crucial part of real estate video marketing. Think beyond selling just the property as a single property. You want to sell a lifestyle, and a location, in addition to the features of the property. That means, for example, if you plan to sell a luxury apartment in Miami, maybe your video is more about the couple’s amazing life throughout the day, and how they come home to enjoy sunset in their pad, instead of just focusing on the apartment.
8. Include Testimonials
Testimonials can be a crucial part of selling properties. After all, customers want to know that they can trust you as their realtor. They want to know that you have their best interests in mind. When it comes to such a big decision, you want to make sure your video marketing reflects the trust you have had with past clients, and how you have helped them. The best way to do this? Recruit past happy homeowners. Reach out to past clients to make sure they would be willing to film a quick video and speak about their positive experience. This type of endorsement will help future clients picture you as a trustworthy person. One way to keep your clients happy, and build a long relationship with them? Treat them well, and even surprise them with a bottle of champagne when they move in. They won’t be able to say no when you ask for help with a video.
9. Promote Your Videos Strategically
Promoting your videos strategically is perhaps one of the most important parts of the process. Make sure to set aside a proper amount of time to plan how you will activate the video across social and search platforms. You should target new clients, of course, and also clients currently in the process of deciding on a home.
Tools to Help You Create The Perfect Real Estate Marketing Videos
Now that you know all about the principles behind creating the best possible real estate marketing video, it’s time to put those skills to use. Try out some of these comprehensive tools to help you create your real estate marketing video.
Promo
Promo does exactly what it sounds like it does: make promotional marketing videos. This platform works directly with Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. This online video platform can perform a bunch of basic video editing functions for free, and you can add licensed clip art, stock photos, music, and more. Like many platforms, Promo will also let you crop your video to whatever social network format you want. One of the biggest perks to Promo is their “swipe up” integration and their embedded links features, thanks to their official partnerships with social networks. Their premium plans start at $39.
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is an Adobe product that specifically helps build social media friendly videos for marketing purposes. It’s a comprehensive tool with hundreds of pre-built templates (some free, and some paid) for both videos and graphic templates, many of which help with sales and marketing goals. With storyboard options, layouts, and themes, you can build the most amazing videos for social media and marketing purposes - all for free. However, with the free version, you will have watermarks on the bottom right corner of your videos. If you’re paying for the Adobe Creative Cloud, you will have free access to Adobe Spark. Otherwise, it’s a small monthly fee. If Spark isn’t what you’re looking for, try Adobe Premiere’s editing software.
VidYard
VidYard is another marketing focused on videos, working to help you create awesome videos to catch your audience’s eye. It’s a popular app used by a number of big companies in the past, like Lenovo or Citibank. The application can help generate leads for businesses and also facilitate corporate communication, like employee training videos. VidYard can help host your videos, too, and any videos you create can be shared on social media. VidYard comes with built-in analytics and statistics to help you gauge exactly how your video performed. The marketing tool will also integrate with third-party applications like HubSpot or Salesforce to help with your marketing needs.
FilmoraGO
Filmora is an extensive video editing tool that provides a great deal of freedom for the user. You can use Filmora to adjust your brightness, your video speed, your color effects, and other video features. It has all the usual features, of course, in addition to trim/split functions, ratio/crop functions, speed control, voice over options, audio mixer options, and much more. It’s a significant amount of features for free. The video editing interface can help create interactive videos to build your brand and your social media presence. You can use Filmora on Windows and Mac computers, plus Android and iOS phones. The app is called FilmoraGO.
Conclusion
No matter what tool you use, creating a professional-looking video is an important tool for success in today’s real estate market. As video becomes more and more popular, it’s never been a better time to jump into the industry and make the most of your properties.
