Using Video in Real Estate
Published by Lance Mohr | Filed under Videos
Click on the photo to view the video.I want to go over this with you to talk a little bit about video, why it is important and how you can use it in your real estate business to get more sales and communicate with people better. I really feel if you are not using video on your website or with your clients, customers, and prospects you are really missing the boat. There are a lot of ways to connect and video is the absolute best.
Here are a couple of ways that I use it:
The first thing I do is a lot like what we are doing right now, I am talking to you and I will send out a video email. If I get on the phone with someone, I have a good conversation with them and I think I might be working with them, buying or selling, I am going to send them a thank you email video email. Thanking them for their time and just letting them know, hey this is what I look like, I am a real person, I am not just someone on the other end of the telephone line or on the other end of a keyboard. So it really helps them identify to see what I am like.
View a sample video email: Click here
I also use, not just video, I use audio emails as well which is really important. I have had people in other parts of the world. I had a gentleman I sold a home to a few months ago who was in Kuwait. He sent me an email and I am not much of a typist, so I sent him an audio email back. He in turn emailed me back and then I sent him a video email, introducing myself and saying I could not wait to help him. He flew out here a couple of weeks later, bought a new construction home and is completely happy. He even remarked it was because of my email on my audio and video. So he was very impressed with that.
I also use it all throughout my website. I do educational videos, I think I have about 12 of them on my website right now. I think as a real estate professional we are all trying to show that we are different and that we are the expert in our market place. Nothing says it better than video, so if you go to my website www.tampa2enjoy.com you are going to see videos that are educational videos. Now, I have some on property taxes, buying a short sale, selling your home, buying new construction, selling a preowned home. I have had a lot of people remark that they have watched my videos and have learned more than what their past realtor or even current realtor have taught them after working with them for a month or two months. So it is a really big advantage.
Also, I do home movies tours. I think home movie tours are critical. I am going to let you watch this one right here. I will give you a little snippet of it, you can sort of see what I do and then I will tell you the importance of a home movie tour.
Okay, you get the idea. Now, how powerful is that? Let me tell you how powerful it is. When people are looking on the Internet and they are looking for homes, they know all the information about it, the price, the size, the subdivision, bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, year built, etc. They want to see a lot of pictures, who does not, everybody wants to see pictures. But the problem with pictures is you cannot really get a feel for the home, you do not know the layout of the home, which is why everybody wants to look inside of the home because they want to see if it works for them. Now, I think pictures are great and most all MLS’ out there will allow you to put anywhere from maybe 8 photos, 12 photos, some I have even heard up to 20 photos, but the advantage of a home video tour is it really gives them the sense of walking through a home.
I have a couple of people actually in my pipeline right now that are pending a sale and they have not even seen the home. They are out of the state, they identified that they really liked the home. They had the pictures, I shot the video tour of the home, I sent them a video email, went over the home with them in detail and of course they get to see it all. I told them to look at the video, match that with the pictures that are on the Internet, if there are not many I will take some pictures, and then look at Google Earth and see the area. I have two people right now, one of them it is the second time they have done this and they are buying the home site unseen.
So it is very, very powerful if you are not doing that. There are a lot of other advantages, but it really gives you as the real estate agent, as the listing agent, it really in all honesty you could say you are sitting an open house 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I doubt anybody in your market place could say that, because I doubt many agents in your market place are using video.
The other way I use it is through customer testimonials. Now we all know, and I hope all of you out there have a website, and if you do I hope you all have testimonials on that website. I have gone away from the regular written testimonials because of video is so much more powerful. Keep in mind text is powerful, a picture is worth a thousand words but a video says a million.
So here is an example of a customer testimonial from a young lady just to give you an idea what that is like.
All right, you get the idea. So you are going to want to have several of these on your site. Whether you have 3 or 30 it really does not make any difference, but you are going to want something. Because the one thing about video is people are not used to it, they are used to You Tube, but agents are really, really behind the eight ball on technology. The longer we go in the industry and the more progress the more people are getting into video. The advantage you have right now is you could separate yourself from virtually all the competition. Just some of the stuff I have shown you, look at the power of it. Look at if you were going out and people were looking at your website and you did not have video and they go on one of your competitors websites and they have video testimonials, home tours, they could tell them they could do home tours for them and send a video email, they send them audio emails, they do all this stuff. I do not even think it is competition who the buyer and/or seller are going to work with.
So I strongly recommend if you are a real estate agent that you start using video on your websites and with your customers. Now, there are a lot of places out there to get video and do it, this is just my personal suggestion to you. Do not use You Tube that just does not ooze professionalism. It basically, in my opinion, I will look at people who will try to use You Tube, and it tells me these people either do not know what they are doing, they are not professional, or they just do not have the money to invest in something more professional, but again that is just my opinion. Do what you would like, but you are going to have a hard time. You are going to be able to do some of the stuff on You Tube, Revver, and some of these other sites, but I would get a little bit more professional. The company I use is ComF5. You could actually go to this site it is http://www.COMF5.com/lancemohr. That will take you to the site, you could fill out your name and email and it will send you a video email so you can get an idea of what that is like. They have different packages and they are really, really inexpensive from $10 a month, $40 a month up to $100 a month depending on what your usage is, but even for the $10 a month one you get video email, audio email, you could do live a broadcasts. There is just a ton of stuff; you could easily pay $100 just for what you are getting in the $10 package but that is probably for more basic usage. I would probably say the $40 one. I am on the $100 one, but I do a lot of video, and it is more than enough storage there is no question about that. Give it a shot.
Visit my website http://www.tampa2enjoy.com look around and check it out. I hope this helps you and gives you a little insight on why you should be using video.
As Tampa real estate experts we specialize in Tampa luxury homes and Tampa waterfront homes.
July 13th, 2010
Lance gives his expert advise on utilizing video in his Real Estate business. As you can clearly see...he explains the massive benefits of using video and the all around advantage video has over traditional means of advertisement. However....his opinion is that YouTube videos don't necessarily look professional. My opinion varies completely as a producer of Yakima Real Estate videos for several reasons. 1. YouTube videos allow you to get very good analytics about the viewership of your videos. Most website embedded video do not have a statistics break-down of the video like YouTube. 2. People are VERY familiar with YouTube videos. 3. YouTube is the 3rd LARGEST visited website in the world! 4. In a 90 day period...YouTube videos receive MORE views than all other video platforms combined! 5. SYNDICATION.....YouTube videos are syndicated more often and faster than any other videos.
Conclusion:
While Video is the greatest tool available for a Realtor who is wanting to catapult his/her business above the competition.....and websites that feature videos are ranked higher in search engines than competing websites. I strongly suggest using YouTube video on your website.
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