Thread: Marketing Technique

Advertising is only as good as the exposure it offers. How many people go to you tube to look for a house?

People shop for real estate on the internet and in their cars. You have to reach them where they are or you will just be wasting your money and effort.

Well, I hope this isn't the onset of someone looking to offer their video software to me. Ok. I'll bite.

ABSOLUTELY I'm using video to market my properties. That's one of the many things that sets me apart from all of the old fogie dinosaur agents. They will shoot down technology every time. Many of the dinosaurs claimed the Internet, specifically the world wide web, was just a fad back when it first began. Now you hear them chirping about how great it is but only because they were forced to deal with it by an ever changing market.

Efficient video compression algorithms and formats such as flv and video cameras that use them (by way of accompanying conversion software), came along later on. Now, there's no excuse to not have video tours of homes, but the dinosaur agents are still fighting it by way of lame substitutions. They have their still photos uploaded to these cheapy sites that put cheezy elevator music to their still photos, and have the photos move around like that's supposed to be impressive or something. As a customer, I'd be insulted. More and more of the younger generations who grew up with the Internet are now buying houses. They won't settle. And they shouldn't.

Regarding the comment on youtube, uh, do you know what an flv metadata injector is? If not, pause your VHS recorder for a second and I'll explain. I upload my home tour videos to youtube and to my own real estate site as well. When you inject metadata descriptions to your flv files (youtube does this for you by simply asking you some questions about the video prior to upload), when a user searches Google, it brings up results that match the query - even the youtube videos in the google SERP. So, how many people go to youtube to search for a house? Answer: all of them. Youtube is indexed by google by way of metadata from its flvs and by other means (moreso by the description you provide while uploading I would presume). Youtube is a subset of Google's urls, and the other major search engines follow suit by indexing youtube as well.

Now, which do you think a user is likely to click on first, a video of the home, or some link that may contain some information about the home after they click, search, and wade through a lot of fluff on some real estate site? And if they chose not to click on the video, guess what? That's why I put the video on both youtube and my own site - double exposure.

As far as an investment, many expensive video production suites will inject the metadata. I use a cheaper video production - Cyberlink PowerDirector. Add to that, a free utility to convert .mod's to flv's and then one to inject the data.

My customers are reached both by the Internet and in their cars. Each listing gets its own custom domain name (that's a whopping $9.95). Using their smart phones, they simply go to the domain listed on the yard sign and up pops the video tour from my site (yet another reason to have the video also reside on your real estate site - better control of the data).

Hope that helps.

[EDIT] I'm assuming youtube strips metadata from uploaded videos so that it can insert the data you provide when it asks for description and keywords (seems that's a more honest approach). I've never downloaded a video after uploading it to youtube to confirm what exactly it is that they do with the metadata, as I've been satisfied with my results. There are other techniques, especially for those who are hosting their own videos, such as video site maps. This is one of the reasons why I inject the metadata into the flv's to begin with since I host my own videos as well.

I did move away from embedding my youtube videos on my site. The last straw was with youtube putting competing firms as ads on top of my video (which is fine and dandy because I am barely passing the TOA as it is), and the annoying audio mute for actions they perceive as copyright infringements (me riding around in my car with the radio on does not constitute a production broadcast of music owned by artists...although it could be argued as such).

That's one of a few reasons for duplicating the video data. 1. is double exposure, and 2. is if youtube ever decided to start banning real estate agents from showing videos of listings then I wouldn't be out in the cold, and 3. I can make use of video site maps and other techniques I've learned about over the years.

Video is the "new thing" for internet marketing. For both exposure and search engine placement, listing videos are a powerful tool.

I started using video as part of my listing marketing campaign this year and have had positive feedback so far-

Videos are good investment in getting your site advertise in less expense. You can show all the aspects on your business that are eye-catching for buyers. Marketing technique today is using social media not just thru video but also through mails and valuable posts.

Using of video is great! When you a good video cam and good editing skill, why not use it? Actually, it can more convince the buyer that the house is a good quality. It erases many hesitations like what if you, the seller, are not reliable and they are just wasting their time and money. Go use it as a marketing technique.

Using video for property sites is a good idea as your potential customers can see a house and its surroundings and so on. I think it will surely increase the traffic and will have good impact on your business.

One of the best marketing strategies that I have used is a virtual office known as iTelecenter Real Estate. I allows you to enter descriptions of all your properties and all the prospective caller has to do is listen to all the details of the property, just advertise you number. Here is the link to see a demonstration of the system.



sysnito.com/?crid=157368&linkID=130

I have 15 real estate websites, my first one went live in the mid 90's, and I have first page placement for multiple keywords on google and the other search engines.

I have yet to see a video even come close to getting any attention by the search engines. So, I will say it again. If no one sees the video then it does not exist. If you want to use video then you need to put it someplace where people can find it and right now people looking for houses don't go to video sites.

for sure, a marketing video would definitely lead to good results. Although it's a somehow new marketing technique in real estates, still it's effective.