The statistics tell it, and there is no doubt that every day online video consumption becomes increasingly popular and widespread.
So, you have the full right to ask yourself what all the ‘hype’ about videos in the digital marketing world is about. And also if video does help you sell real estate.
In the end, what matters is the bottom line, not ‘hype.’
The general answer is yes. Video helps you sell real estate.
Because the retention rate is higher (72% of customers prefer video when learning about a product or service), revenue can be grown 49% faster.
Also, on landing pages, video can increase conversions by 80%.
But without planning and a good strategy, it won’t be guaranteed that you will sell more just by producing real estate videos.
In today’s article, I will go more in-depth about this question, discuss the pros and cons, and discuss how I came to the above conclusion.
Why You Might Want to Do Real Estate Video Marketing
To draw direct and indirect conclusions about whether video helps you sell real estate, let’s take a look at some video marketing statistics and show you the pros of using videos:
1) 85% of businesses use video as a marketing method (source).
This means that more and more competitors might use this type of content and use all its advantages in the future, meaning more disadvantages for those that don’t use it.
2) Video consumption on mobile phones rises by 100% annually (source).
By not using video, you might reach fewer and fewer potential real estate clients through their mobile phones, potentially negatively affecting your sales.
3) Videos distributed via social media generate 1200% more shares than text and images combined (source).
On the same note, 92% of users watching videos on their mobile phones will share them with others (source).
So, producing real estate videos and distributing them on social media channels will likely decrease your advertising costs by reducing your costs per click and increasing click-through rates.
4) In 2022, 82% of all consumer internet traffic came from online videos (source).
Suppose you want to use internet marketing sales funnels and not leave money on the table. In that case, videos should be part of your overall strategy.
5) 59% of executives report that they would prefer watching videos to reading text (source).
6) The retention rate is higher for videos.
When watched in a video, viewers can retain 95% of a message in contrast to 10% when reading it in a text (source), and customers (72%) prefer video when it comes to learning about a product or service (source).
This indicates you will have a better chance to communicate the benefits of your real estate product (deals, properties, etc.) or services to reach your target customers.
And as you probably know that communicating benefits with the right sales copy leads to sales.
7) It is the type of content with the best return on investment, according to 51% of marketing professionals (source).
Since the return on investment is profits divided by the costs to attain these profits, it proves that you will have a higher profit by using video compared to other types of content marketing.
8) Revenue can be grown 49% faster than for those that don’t use video marketing (source).
This point somewhat confirms the one before and indicates a better starting position to make a sale.
9) After watching a branded social video, 64% of consumers make a purchase (source). Using video on a landing page it can increase conversions by 80% or more (source), thus increasing your chances of making a sale.
I am unsure if this can be applied 1:1 to the real estate industry. Why? It has a much longer sales cycle than, for example, e-commerce, where you can immediately buy a product online.
But we can assume that for real estate, this would mean at least a higher conversion rate from website visitors to serious buyer or seller leads.
10) It can increase your organic traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs) by 157% (source), and it makes it 53 times more likely for your website to get to the front page of Google (source).
Organic traffic usually leads to lower bounce rates and a longer time on your website, which can increase your website conversion rate.
11) I already mentioned this in my article about follow-ups.
Using video in your first emails or touchpoint can increase the click-through rate by 96% (source).
So you can better communicate your marketing message with benefits through your follow-ups, which leads to better conversions and, thus, more potential real estate sales.
12) Visitors will stay longer (88% more time) on your website if you include videos (source). It increases your chances of converting them to customers and thus making a sale.
13) Before visiting a store, about 50% of internet users look for videos related to a service or product (source).
This behavior may also impact potential buyers or sellers visiting your real estate office (should you use one for drop-ins).
14) According to 97% of marketers, users better understand a product or service by watching videos (source).
This somewhat overlaps with point 6) above, meaning you can better communicate your benefits by video.
15) Using video can be the factor that makes you different from your competition.
You can show your personality better, which can already be a differentiator.
But another one is if your competition doesn’t use video at all. You can get an edge over your competition using all the above advantages.
16) Some things can be explained easier by video.
Potential real estate buyers, for example, can be walked through a contract, or the interior design of a house can be shown easier.
17) Videos can build trust faster and therefore drive deals forward. You can communicate much better in a video than just with text.
It comes closer to a personal meeting because the potential buyer or seller can also see your body language and face.
Therefore, it can improve communication during a (difficult) deal, resolve questions and doubts faster and thus increase the chances of a successful deal closing.
Now that I described so many pros, you might wonder, aren’t there any cons to video?
5 Downsides of Real Estate Video Marketing
This article wouldn’t be complete and balanced if I wouldn’t also include some cons of video marketing:
1) If you produce a video with bad quality (and I am not necessarily referring to the production quality, but the content), it can damage your reputation or brand.
You can still get away with lower production quality if you produce and present excellent content well.
The damage likely occurs when you have bad content and bad production quality.
For example, if you just shoot a short property walk-through video with bad audio and do not mention any benefits.
2) There is a chance that you will put way too much effort into video production and make it too long.
You need to consider that about 20% of YouTube viewers leave a video within the first 30 seconds of playback. (source)
The reason is that they either don’t have enough time to watch the whole video or they watch it from their mobile device (very likely), which uses a data plan.
3) It can take more time, additional skills, and additional costs to produce a good video meaning additional costs to learn those skills and the whole video production process, such as preparation (scripting), shooting, editing, and promoting/sharing.
Additionally, you might have to invest in the right equipment (camera, microphones, editing software, etc.).
4) Evergreen videos are hard to make.
Once you have produced a video, it’s challenging to maintain it evergreen.
Adding new or updated information to an existing video is almost impossible without a lot of work.
It’s actually easier to make a new video than to put in the work and edit the hell out of an existing one.
This is not the case with a blog post, where changes can be made easier.
5) Although the statistics in the pros section would say otherwise regarding video consumer trends, video content might not appeal to all audiences.
Some consumers looking for a specific item or having a clear goal for being on your website might prefer text over videos.
So, Does Video Help You Sell Real Estate?
By now, we can derive from the pro video statistics above that video can definitely help you sell real estate.
But there is a caveat.
Just producing a real estate video without some planning and a strategy won’t guarantee you to sell more.
To apply video for your real estate business in a successful way according to the pros and cons listed above, you should:
- Produce videos that are friendly for mobile users (e.g., not too long)
- Distribute them on social media via social media ads or just normal social media posts.
- Communicate the benefits of your products or services via video
- Include videos on your website and/or on your sales pages
- Explain complex concepts through video.
- Make sure to present good content in a structured way in the video avoiding audio problems.
- Have a well-defined video production process beforehand to save time.
- Make the video content as evergreen as possible with the proper pre-planning
- Make sure you know your target audience, so you can be sure that the video will likely appeal to their content needs.
This article has been reviewed by our editorial team. It has been approved for publication in accordance with our editorial policy.
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