Video Soon to be No. 1 Real Estate Marketing Tool
The folks at WellcomeMat, a video portal (of sorts) for the real estate industry, have put together an interesting report on the state of video marketing in real estate.
According to the survey, “the use of video by real estate professionals and companies is up 95% in the first half of 2009 relative to the same time period in 2008.” Photos are still the primary media type for advertising a property, but according to the real estate pros who took the survey, video is catching up … and fast.
It seems safe to assume that video will soon surpass photos as the top marketing tool/media for real estate professionals.
Surely the ease of making and uploading videos is what’s at work here. A few years back, virtual tours were all the rage. When I was doing web development/SEO work for a local company, we couldn’t go a week without getting a call or email from a local agent or broker asking us if we could help them create virtual tours. But doing so was difficult and time-consuming, and quite often the end user couldn’t see the virtual tour without special software or a certain browser.
Video has no such barriers. Most digital cameras have video capability built-in, and 15% of survey takers said they shoot video that way. Another 14% said they use Flip videocameras — the ones that let you upload video straight from the camera. And pure video cameras have come way down in price in recent years — like pretty much all pieces of technology hardware.
Interestingly, the real estate pros said that using video isn’t just about marketing their listings. Look at this chart below; it’s also about presenting themselves as local experts and “selling” the local area itself.
And what do real estate agents/brokers say is one of the main benefits of marketing via video? It distinguishes them from the competition and helps them get more listings. In other words, it’s about promoting their business as much as it about selling a home or piece of land.
The survey also gets into some other interesting areas, such as hiring a pro vs. D-I-Y video and what are the barriers that are keeping real estate pros from adopting video for marketing. It’s an interesting read for anyone involved in real estate, and probably helpful, too, for other small business owners/marketers.
Your turn: Are you using video in your small biz marketing? Are you in real estate or some other industry? Love to hear about your successes and challenges.
Video is definitely increasing not just in real estate but on hotel and hospitality websites. Videos of rooms and the hotel facilities as well as local attractions. All add benefit to the website and the user experience….watch it keep growing!
I think we’re at the point where people are starting to expect video clips on sites and blogs now so why not in RE sites too?
Certainly seeing more use of video on small business websites in other fields.
We’re using video a lot for marketing.
It is a combination of the tools being easier to use, and more options.
One of our favorite tricks is to make video slideshows out of the photo’s that are taken.
It’s a good way to leverage your assets and produce some slick looking video on the cheep
I did a blog post about it on Active Rain
http://activerain.com/blogsview/1326394/get-ranked-in-google-in-under-an-hour-using-video
Sorry but I’m a big video cynic. A well taken photograph is far more power than a video. Then there are the bandwidth issues to contend with. Apart from top end properties I can not see the benefit of adding video for showing real estate.
yeah, these 360 video tours are powerful and pictures just don’t work for homes. I look for house design and kitchen design ideas, as I’m building and those pictures don’t work well either. The customers call the shots and if they want videos, then it makes sense to give them what they want.
Joe
Couldn’t agree more – Better start using virtual tours soon or you’ll be left in the dust.
I agree with Ian here. Unless you have your own mobile lighting crew, it’s difficult to get the correct exposure with video. The result is under-eposed interiors, or interiors with blown highlights around windows. For now, virtual tours with photos that play like video are the way to go..