How to Maximise Real Estate Video Marketing to get more Listings & Sales
Video marketing in real estate has become increasingly popular as people are more time-poor and reliant on social media. If done the right way, this powerful marketing tool will help you reach a larger audience, create brand connection with potential buyers and sellers, and ultimately ensure your properties are sold quicker.
Unfortunately, many sellers and agents are not maximising the reach of their real estate videos and end up wasting their marketing budget in the process. Read on to find out what types of video are used in real estate, how much they cost to make, and how you can employ a better strategy to ensure your video content is received by a wider audience, for better value for money.
Video types used in real estate and how much they cost
When it comes to creating your real estate video, here are the four main types to consider:
1. Custom video
Often the services of a videographer are engaged to make a custom video of a walk-through of the property. Although these videos showcase the layout and size of the house well, they are also very expensive to make. They require a lot of expensive equipment and can be time-consuming to shoot. A general cost for this type of video produced by an agency is between $500 and $800.
2. Live video
Facebook or Instagram live videos are an affordable alternative for creating real estate videos. You can easily air your content directly to your social media platform, for free, from your mobile device.
3. Slideshow video
Video slideshows are one of the easiest ways to produce interesting and low-cost property tours and are a suitable option for a range of properties. By simply reusing your existing property photos, you can quickly and easily create a video that doesn’t require expensive equipment or video shoots.
Played in sequence like a slideshow, this basic concept can be a great return on investment if it’s been edited well with music, motion effects, and various transitions. They can be visually appealing and informative for viewers just like a walk-through tour can be. More engaging than just looking at photos, a good video slideshow can help you generate buyer interest.
4. Combo video
A combo video is another option that is typically used in real estate. This is when you use a combination of slideshow and video – which includes either an agent introduction before the slideshow or drone footage of the property surroundings.
Most common ways of using real estate videos
The most common way people use real estate videos is by having a videographer put them together. The videographer then loads it to Youtube.com as a link to www.realestate.com.au.
However, after being uploaded to the portal, there isn’t a lot you can do with the video and often it receives few views. Considering the cost of making the content, there isn’t much real value. When your content is used on only one channel and often left untagged, the reach is very limited.
We surveyed the Top 100 agents nationwide on their latest ten videos to see how they have performed using this method.
— TOP 100 Agents / Agencies
— 1000 Video’s Reviewed
— Median Video Views – 101
— Average Video Cost Est $700
— Cost per view $7
The data shows that out of a thousand videos, the average view per video listing is only around 200 (or less), proving this marketing strategy to be rather ineffective and costly.
The question to ask is, is it smarter to spend your budget on video content creation, or on targeted ads and marketing?
A more efficient promotion strategy for your real estate videos
To maximise your advertising dollars while increasing your reach, it makes sense to reduce the production costs entailed with making video content, and better use those funds on your ad spend.
If you’re on social media, then you’ve probably noticed that organic reach is virtually dead – with no sign of resuscitation! The same can be said for viral content. Ads are the way of the future if you want to get your content and brand in front of people. Video ads will give you the best bang for your buck.
Videos typically get more engagement than simple photo ads. Running a video ad on Facebook or Instagram can work out to be just cents per view, making a few hundred dollars go a long way.
This is where the slideshow method in real estate video is useful as there are minimal associated costs to produce the content, so those hundreds of dollars that would go to a videographer can be used effectively on your social media ads and retargeting campaign.
Employing this cost-effective method you can:
- Make more videos
- Get more views (10 times more than before)
- Generate more leads
- Create more content for your social media pages – which will again increase your engagement.
Retargeting your audience
When your real estate video content is uploaded to a portal, they keep your data. However, when you share your content on social media and your own website, it’s yours to reuse as you see fit.
The strategic placement of your videos is such an important part of video marketing because all of your effort creating and editing stylish videos will be wasted if you’re not reaching the right audience – or if you don’t have an audience at all.
The best practice is to be able to use your content widely across a number of platforms to create a warm audience of viewers, who you can later retarget to gain greater conversions. You will create more brand awareness and connection with your audience with this multi-pronged approach.
Conclusion
By using video differently and promoting your content effectively, you can achieve a much greater reach with more engagement, helping to boost your lead generation.
