Property Video Production
Echo Video work extensively with property developers and estate agents producing great video content for use on their websites, on social media and for presentations. We all know how great video is at getting messages across, selling an idea or product. With that in mind I’m always surprised by how few estate agents use video production in their marketing. From my perspective I believe that this is an industry that would really benefit from using videos in a number of different ways either to provide information to clients or to help attract vendors and landlords. There seem to be so many different types of video production that would benefit the property industry that I thought I would list off 8 ideas in which estate agents could use video production.
Estate agent videos
I guess it makes sense to start with the most obvious one – a promotional video for an estate agentor “About me” video is a great way to establish a brand. A promo video allows viewers to know, like and trust you long before they ever meet you. It can highlight what makes your agency different to all the rest and start to create brand recognition so when people see your shop front or for sale signs they recognise and trust you. It could also allow you to get some of your staff front and centre of the video so when people call up or drop in to have a chat they are met with a familiar face. And that’s really what is key here, even if you don’t have an enormous budget, even the simplest video will do wonders for your marketing. They are far more likely to buy and sell with you if they feel like they can connect with you on any sort of level, and they’re far more likely to do that with the help of a video.
Testimonial videos
Testimonial videos or client review videos are great at instilling trust in your brand. Viewers get to hear first hand what a great job you’ve done in the past, how you’ve surpassed expectations and made the whole process as pain free as possible for previous clients. The benefit of video testimonials over written reviews is that viewers get to hear and see people just like them. People who have been in their position and needed help with a service. This allows the viewers to relate to the video review and realise if it works for them, maybe it will work for me too. For me this is an absolute no-brainer for all estate agents. With such a competitive market, when potential customers are looking to buy or sell their home, they are always going to pick a company that comes highly recommended, with a great track record and that they know won’t let them down.
Property walkthrough videos
For me, property walkthrough videos are an absolute must. They’ll also be some of the simplest videos you could have produced as all they need to involve is a video tour of a property for sale or let. Instead of static photos or odd virtual tours, video can really let people look round a house without moving from their computer/smart phone.
This is the one type of video where it amazes me how infrequently this is used. These days people expect to be able to see and experience everything online before they even get there so I’m surprised it’s not simply expected that every house for sale has a walkthrough video. Although they are simple in their concept they could also be the most powerful marketing tool available. With these people could potentially make up their minds whether or not to buy the house before they’ve even stepped through the door. This would not only speed up the process for the sellers but save you, the estate agent so much time and money.
Click here to check out an example of a property walkthrough video for a rather luxurious house in the midlands
Local are informational videos
Brighton attracts a great many buyers from outside of the city. People from London or even further afield who are looking to live by the sea. Without intimate knowledge of the town these people might not know exactly where in Brighton might suit them. Therefore a set of informational videos that briefly summarise the positive aspects of each area in a city could be an incredibly useful resource. In a short 2 minute tour of the area you could highlight local schools, pubs, parks, shops, transport links – anything that could help someone decide whether or not it’s the right place for them to live.
We could expand upon this idea further by creating in depth video reviews for restaurants and other local businesses. As the person with local knowledge you can be a fantastic resource in selling not just a house but a community to a potential buyer. Estate agents should be able to point out hidden gems whether it’s a pub that’s recently been taken over and does amazing Sunday roasts or a corner shop that is surprisingly well stocked and quite cheap. Videos like this, no matter how roughly they are put together could make the difference between making a sale and not.
It doesn’t have to be as far reaching or extensiveas this one, it’s really all about getting across that local information to interested buyers.
A side benefit of these videos is that it’s a good chance to get out into the community and meet current home owners and business owners. These are all people who might need an estate agent someday and are far more likely to use someone who they recognise and who knows about the local community.
A further aspect to this would be to create videos about specific community events. Whether you’re trying to promote a city as a whole or just one small neighbourhood, it’s great to highlight events that are on throughout the year. So why not put together a montage of all the great little festivals, fetes, street parties and other events that happen each year to really get across what a place is like.
FAQ videos
Many estate agents already provide information for vendors, buyers and landlords and this information could translate really well into great video content. A video guide to buying a property, going through the whole process and explaining the jargon could be a priceless resource for a first time buyer and who better to deliver that information than the experts. You could cover aspects such as how to choose an estate agent, what to look out for in a mortgage adviser, how to read an inspection report on your house. This is all valuable information that home buyers are in desperate help with. If you can position yourself as a company who is helpful and knowledgeable on every single aspect of house buying then buyers and sellers are far more likely to trust you to find them a home.
The best thing about these information videos is that they can be delivered simply and you won’t even need to do much preparation for. All the topics covered in these videos will be known by every estate agent in the country and therefore it’s just a case of getting you to talk about it on camera so we can share it either through your website or on a social media platform like Facebook.
Quarterly/Annual review videos
With the ever shifting landscape of the housing market, a quarterly review video could create fascinating and insightful content. Similar to the FAQ videos, these videos would be cheap and quick to produce and could cover a variety of subjects.
They could focus on new developments within the industry, new legislation or even changes in interest rates and how this could affect your mortgage. These are all important, interesting topics that will have an engaged audience who will see you as an expert and will therefore intrinsically trust and respect your estate agency.
Facebook Live
As a company we offer live streaming as one of our many services and so many of these videos work really well as live streams either on Facebook or via another platform like YouTube. I’m especially thinking of the FAQ videos here where you could take questions live from an audience watching at home. They could send in their queries and worries via the interactive tools on offer and you could deal with them one by one.
However, that’s not all. If you were looking for a cheap (or even free) alternative to all of this you could always try streaming via your smartphone. Imagine walking around an area showing off the houses, the shops the parks, and streaming it all live to Facebook just using your phone so potential buyers can get a real-time idea of what a place is like. It does us out of some work but it might be just what you need.
No doubt there are many other possible videos that we could produce for estate agents that I haven’t covered here or haven’t even thought of. This short list just goes to show how much opportunity there is for a forward thinking estate agent to embrace video production and get ahead of their competition. If you would like to discuss how Echo Video could produce videos for your estate agency or you have any ideas you’d like to share with us then please call Will or Andy on 01273 911 345 or email info@echovideo.co.uk.