Why Is Video So Important for Marketing Today?
Marketers don’t call video the content form of the future for no reason. Statistics show us that product videos help customers in the decision-making process. 36% of consumers trust online video advertisements. More than nine in ten people who watch video online are likely to share videos with others. A video is especially important to realtors. New home buyers are a digital-savvy sort, and they are turning to digital technologies to help their search. Most notably, they look for virtual tours and online video. For a realtor, neglecting to use video is equal to giving up on a significant part of the market.
YouTube – The Video Marketing Platform of Choice
YouTube is not the only place where realtors can upload their videos. Every major social media platform supports video content in some shape or form. Some social networks even support several different video products. But for realtors, YouTube is the best place to be, for several reasons:
YouTube is a video hosting platform. As opposed to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, YouTube specializes in video and its users know it.YouTube is a social network. It’s more than just a video hosting platform.It works well for SEO. YouTube is owned by Google, and that comes in handy for marketers who want to increase their visibility on the biggest search engine in the world.It allows flexibility. Realtors can use their YouTube videos in other marketing strategies, like email marketing.
On top of it all, YouTube has more than 180 million users in the United States. That fact alone should make it attractive to realtors.
How to Set Up a Channel
The services provided by Google are all connected. Realtors who have an email address with Gmail also have a YouTube account. Setting up an account is an easy and streamlined process. Most realtors will have no trouble following the instructions to have it done. A YouTube channel provides certain options for branding, and realtors should make the most of them. Company logo makes for a great profile picture. For solo agents, a photo in which they look professional is great. Realtors shouldn’t forget to fill out the “about me” section and include contact information. Including links to a website or social media pages is also a good idea.
How to Start with Video Production
Many realtors decide to contract professionals to do their videos. That is a sound choice for those who don’t want to spend time and money on learning how to shoot and edit high-quality video. Realtor video production is a booming business, so there’s no shortage of qualified professionals. Those who want to do it on their own should understand that video marketing can be an expensive investment. It’s impossible to get good results using bad-quality video. High-quality gear and video editing skills are a must. Realtors who want to do everything on their own has to be sure they will not produce subpar content.
Targeting an Audience with Video
Realtors should be involved in the marketing side of the videos. After all, they are the ones who know who their targeted audience is. They should also understand what their audience likes. With video, the generational marketing playbook says that different ages prefer different types of video content. The videos realtors tend to produce don’t have a lot of room for creativity. But they can adjust the length and pace — older generations prefer longer, slower videos. Younger generations tend to prefer shorter videos. Tailoring the content to match the audience as much as possible is one of the key strategies for successful marketing in general. There’s no reason why realtors shouldn’t be doing it.
Giving the Audience What It Wants
People turn to video content when buying a new home as part of their research. Realtors should understand that buyers look for very specific things in the videos:
86% look for information about a community.70% look for an inside tour of the house.54% look for general information.44% look for information to compare features offered by different companies.
These are the things realtors have to include in their videos. They don’t have to include everything in a single video. Experimenting with using several videos to show a full view of a single property could yield good results. Even videos that are not related to specific properties, such as how-to videos, can have an amazing impact on the overall YouTube video strategy.
Useful Tips and Tricks
Profile creation, branding, and the start of video production are the three most important stages realtors must navigate. But there are so many other things realtors could do to make their YouTube channels and content even more effective. Videos should start and end with a branded intro and outro. These elements work best when they are short. Their purpose is to associate the realtor with the content, and that’s something that can happen over a couple of seconds. Realtors should organize their channels into playlists. How-to videos can be in one playlist, for example, and videos related to separate neighborhoods can have their own playlists. Optimizing channels for search engines is incredibly important. Realtors should understand keywords and how and where to incorporate them into the channel. Leaning about meta-descriptions and tags can also be very useful. Video content can be a great asset for realtors. However, realtors who want to use it must have knowledge of digital marketing, social media, and video content best practices for the industry. It also pays off to have a thorough understanding of the audience. For realtors who understand all of it, YouTube can be an incredible tool for establishing themselves in the market.
