Little work has gone into understanding what really should be communicated in these pieces. Further, there seems to be little integration of the video content into the broader real estate marketing program. Expensive productions are not necessary as long as the video communicates the property message correctly. Most videos should incorporate several basic elements to achieve the goals of a proper marketing program. We have analyzed the 5 themes that should be a part of every real estate video you produce.
Broad Selection of Interior and Exterior Pictures - Every video you produce needs to have a representative portfolio of pictures of the inside of your property as well as the outside. The outside includes your building if an apartment and the backyard if your home. Most prospects are most interested in seeing the kitchen and the bathrooms, with the common living areas inside and the common areas outside of next importance. Bedrooms and eating areas are less important. Make sure the pictures are taken during the day when good sunlight is available and watch for the lighting angles so you don't get lighting washouts.
Description of Surrounding Area - Your video needs to describe the basics of the surrounding area. This should include schools, shopping, transportation, workout facilities, parks, churches and other destinations of note. You don't need pictures of each of these. Rather, textual description in slide format will suffice, with some images or selected pictures of the most important of the surrounding area features to spice up the video.
Features and Benefits of the Property - This is where a lot mistakes are made. The marketing message needs to communicate both the major features of the property as well as the benefits to the prospect of the property. Your real estate is only as attractive to your prospect as the benefit they can derive from it. Your text and audio need to point this out so prospects can start to think of your property in a different light from the competition. For instance, you could show that your kitchen has a specially designed breakfast bar and point out how beneficial this can be to entertaining when you have guests over.
Narration - Your video message will have its highest impact when the images and text the viewer is seeing are accompanied by audio narration. The combination has proven to cause the greatest retention to the viewer. Whether you deliver a voice over or have someone else do it, you need to script out your message so that it delivers your features and benefits in a clear and concise manner. Simple moving images with music is not enough to capture the attention of your prospects. You need to tell them what they are seeing and why it is important to them. Without this, you are leaving it up to your viewer's imagination to interpret what you are showing them. This is dangerous and risks losing your prospect.
How to Contact for Viewing - The video needs to communicate where and how the prospect should get in touch with you to see and get further information on the property. This information needs to be embedded into the video itself. It is not sufficient to have the information somewhere else next to your video such as on your website. Too often you will be using the video in a variety of marketing circumstances and it is important that where ever and whenever someone decides to view your video, they can act immediately to reach out to you to get additional information or to express interest. Make it easy on your prospect and eliminate the guesswork.
Video marketing is a crucial piece of your real estate marketing program. The video needs to achieve its overall objective of marketing and not just to show slickly produced images. As long as you take clear pictures with a digital camera and produce your video using text and voice over, you don't need to over spend on the production. It is the core message that really matters and not how pretty the video looks.
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About the Author - Jeff Crossriver has been marketing real estate for over 20 years. His properties rent and sell in record time using his breakthrough system for Real Estate Marketing.