Whether you’re a buyer, seller, or a real estate agent, you know the importance of maintaining a strong personal brand for your target audience. The real estate market is competitive. In such a cut-throat industry it is crucial to market your business strategically and find ways to one-up your competitors. Video is a necessary marketing strategy for any savvy real estate marketer.

If you have not yet created a video strategy for your real estate business, then it is time to get started today. Video is here to stay. The amount of video content that is being generated is crazy and it grows exponentially every day. Check out some of these statistics on video’s incredible presence:

• 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63% over the last year. (Hubspot)
• 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. (Google)
• Mobile video consumption rises by 100% every year. (Insivia)
• By 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. (Cisco)
• 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day. (HubSpot)
• A Facebook executive predicted that their platform will be all video and no text by 2021. (Quartz)
• YouTube is the second most popular website after Google. (Alexa)
• Users view more than 1 billion hours of video each day on YouTube. (YouTube)
• 59% of executives say they would rather watch a video than read text. (Wordstream)
• 75% of all video plays are on mobile devices. (eMarketer)
• Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. (Insivia)
• 72% of customers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. (HubSpot)
• People are 1.5 times more likely to watch video on their mobile phones. (Facebook)
• 92% of users watching video on mobile will share it with others. (Wordstream)
• By 2020 there will be close to 1 million minutes of video crossing the internet per second. (Cisco)

Those are some insane statistics. I hope you are convinced that video is a really important marketing tool to grow your real estate business.

I’ve listed a few tips to get you started with your real estate video marketing strategy.

5 Video Marketing Tips Every Real Estate Agent Needs to Know

Tip 1: Plan Ahead

Your video marketing strategy needs a plan. It should not be thrown together and implemented quickly. You need to put some thought into it. Take time to plan the types of videos you want to create, how you’re going to shoot and edit your videos and where you’re going post them online.

Identify the videos you want and the videos you need. Here are some example real estate video’s to consider taking.

• Realtor video tips for first time home buyers
• Why you need to have financing in place before looking
• What to look for when buying a new home
• Ways to make your landscaping look good (curb appeal, first impressions and all that)
• How do DOM (days on market) affect the price your home will sell for?
• Which home improvements make you the most money when you sell?

These are just a few examples of the type of videos you can record and post to your website, Facebook and YouTube. If you are wanting more tips to jump start your video marketing strategy, then download my free ebook called “100 Amazing Real Estate Agent Video Marketing Ideas.” I wrote this for real estate agents who need some help thinking of videos that they can record and post online. Grab it now by clicking the “Download” button below.

Download 100 Amazing Real Estate
Agent Video Marketing Ideas

Don’t get overwhelmed! You can do this! My encouragement is to take the time to plan a 12-month video marketing calendar. Start off with the idea to do one video a week. Start with the month of January and work your way through to the month of December (or start with the month you are reading this article and go from there). Decide the type of video that you will record the first week of January. Then decide the type of video you will record the second week of January. The third week of January and so on. In no time you will have 52 real estate video ideas to planned and ready for recording. If you take the time to plan your video marketing strategy, then you will find that the question “What am I going to record?” will be a non-issue. Our 100 Amazing Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas pretty much gives you everything you need. You will really like it!

If you still get stuck and all of this seems overwhelming to you, then we offer through  Glimpse Video Growth Plan a service where me and my team will create a custom 12-month video marketing calendar for you. We will learn about your real estate business and provide you a strategy that makes sense for you. We will even provide you a custom script for each video. It’s pretty simple. You take the scripts we generate for you, record your videos using Glimpse Video and then post online.

TIP 2: Make your videos human

Buying (or selling) a home is such a personal experience. The whole home buying/selling process is a huge financial investment. It is also an emotional experience. My wife and I went through the selling and buying experience in the Spring of 2019 and let me tell you, it was a very emotional roller coaster. We had a great real estate agent (we live in the Indianapolis, Indiana area) who was there to guide us through the whole experience. And even though we were dealing with “properties”, the truth is that there were people, real humans attached to the whole process. This is why when recording your real estate videos you need to get into the habit of storytelling.

Get comfortable with telling the stories of the people involved in and behind your videos. Connecting with your viewer emotionally is by far the most effective strategy to win over your next prospective client’s heart. Keep in mind that when you are staring into the camera lens of your smartphone to record your video that there is a real human on the other end who will be watching you.

TIP 3: Sell the lifestyle and location, in addition to the property

Too many realtors focus on just the condo or the home they are showing to their clients.  It’s important to remember that you’re also selling the location just as much as the features of the listing property. This shouldn’t be forgotten in your videos.

Some great videos that you can record are what I call “color videos”:

• Parks, lakes, nature walks, dog parks
• Restaurants, bars and stores
• Schools and government
• Things to do in and around the property

TIP 4: Build trust with testimonials

Trust is a challenging component in the real estate industry. Purchasing real estate is a financially big decision, and so choosing someone to help guide a person through that experience commands a lot of trust. The best way for real estate marketers to instill trust in their leads is by letting someone else do the talking. Your happy homeowners are the best candidates to get on video because these are the folks who have already been through the process with you.

Hopefully, in your company’s time in business, there have been satisfied clients who have worked with you. Reach out to these individuals to see if they’d be willing to shoot a quick video testimonial describing their positive experience. Getting this type of endorsement from a real person will help new prospects see that your real estate business is one worth working with. Glimpse Video has a great tool to collect testimonials. The above from Greg Harris about his realtor Karen was collected and produced using the Glimpse Video Testimonial Tool.

A testimonial video is the best 5-star review you could ever receive. Once you capture a video testimonial video from your happy homeowners you can then upload your video to your Google My Business page and other social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.

To ensure your happy clients will be willing to do this, make sure you treat them like royalty even after the deal is signed. Surprise them with a celebratory bottle of champagne or a gift card to a restaurant in their new community. If you do this, they won’t be able to refuse when you ask for them to star in a short testimonial video. It’s a win/win for everyone!

Tip 5: Keep your videos short, really short

My final tip is to keep your videos short and sweet! Most of the videos that you are going to record should be less than 2 minutes long, and most are going to be only 90 seconds. Seriously. The shorter the better. Writing a script helps to stay on task and be concise with your words.

Every second your video plays viewers start to stray. Have you ever caught yourself watching a video on YouTube and you notice that that the timeline reads 27:42 and you think to yourself get on with it. However, if a video says 42 seconds or 1:12, well then, you are more inclined to listen to the end. This is just how viewing behavior goes: the average video only retains 37% of videos through the last second. As videos start to turn into Hollywood length movies, viewers are going to lose interest and move on. Your story is also likely to be more compelling if you only include the really engaging stuff.

Drop me a line in the comments below and let me know how you are using video in your real estate business.