Recently, WellcomeMat has been fortunate enough to find that many of the objections to the use of video in the real estate space have come to surface. We have been covering the most popular objections that we see to the use of real estate video, and have been having a great time doing it. So far, we have covered “Objection #4: Video is Only Good in Certain Niche Scenarios” and “Objection #3: I Can’t Do Video Myself”. In this post, we’ll cover the 2nd most common objection:

“Objection #2: Virtual Tours Are Easier Than Video and Just as Good”

Like it or not, online video has taken off. It is such a big deal now that online videos are being shown on television: “iCaught” on ABC, and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” are great examples of TV shows using online video to capture the eyes of their viewers. Advancement in technology affects everyone; and, no matter what field you’re in, there can be no doubt that we are living in a world in which online video pl ays a significant role. So, what are you going to do to get consumers’ attention?

Asking yourself which is better, video or slideshows/virtual tours, is the wrong question! The question should be “why am I not using all tools available to build up the strongest web presence possible?” As if you needed to see examples of each type of medium, we have assembled a list of examples to contrast the different marketing tools side by side.

Videographers (professionally produced):

Sellers:

Virtual Tours/Slideshows:

http://tours.tourfactory.com/tours/tour.asp?t=355614
http://www.justsnooping.com/Home/Virtual+Tours/USA/Colorado/Boulder
http://www.tourre.com/portfolio/virtualtours/

Popularity: 7% [?]

Our last post covered the fourth most prominent objection to the use of video: “Objection #4: Video is Only Good in Certain Niche Scenarios” We had a great time writing about why you should not confine your video efforts to high end listings, neighborhood tours, and profile-like presentations. In today’s post, we will discuss the 3rd most popular objection:

“Objection #3: I Can’t Do Videos Myself”

We are here to say that most of the rules about the use of the word “can’t” hold true when talking about everyday people creating video content. Many real estate marketing “experts” are building a mountain out of their reasons why you shouldn’t use video for anything other than your most expensive listings: you need scripts, good lighting, a great videographer, a fat bank account, and a huge amount of time to get a video production done. Scary isn’t it? Here’s one word that proves that video is not beyond the common man/woman: YouTube.

Before we go diving into a huge argument on why you should be producing your own video content, we do believe that you should hire a videographer whenever there is a justifiable return on investment. Based on the professionally-created content that WellcomeMat receives, justifiable ROI on video productions typically means the following: homes that are $300,000 or more, neighborhood tours, news-related segments, and agent/team/brokerage profiles. Here’s the good news: Generation X and especially Generation Y expect the most real presentation of a place that you can provide. To meet this expectation, you needn’t spend massive amounts of cash. In short, they want to know what the “human scale” of a property is, regardless of the production quality. They want to know exactly how it would be to live in a place: how does it navigate, where is the master bedroom in relation to the electric garage door, etc. Perhaps most importantly, they will be nothing short of irate if your touchy feely marketing misrepresents a property.

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You might be thinking, “these WellcomeMat guys are off their rockers if they think that I am going to put anything less than professional video productions on the web.” You’d be hurting yourself in a big way if you don’t believe that your marketing only has to make sense to your target buyers/renters. YouTube itself doesn’t make much sense to most grownups: does that mean we should doubt its importance? Heck No! Additionally, Team WellcomeMat has the luxury of knowing for a fact that homeowners get video. We won’t be winning any agent friends by stating that we are the guys/girls powering video on ForSaleByOwner.com. But, what is important is the fact that the number of videos being uploaded on their site (videos shot by homeowners themselves) is more than doubling every month.

The finale to our “Why You Should Not Use Video in Your Marketing Initiatives” series will be a how to guide on video tours. But, in the meantime, here are some links that you may find helpful:

Check out this 3 Part Do-Video-Yourself Series by Fred Light (videographer for hire in NH):

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Tutorials on Video:

iMovie Tutorial (Mac Users)

Moviemaker Tutorial (Windows Users)

Popularity: 7% [?]

Recently, WellcomeMat has been fortunate enough to find that many of the objections to the use of video in the real estate space have come to the surface. We want to say thanks to all of those who helped launch this discussion, and we hope the following blog series will help shed some light. Starting today, we are going to dive into the four most popular objections that we have found to our medium (video). Let’s start with what we consider the least solid of all objections.

Objection to Video #4: “Video is Only Good in Certain Niche Scenarios”

Here’s how the objections have been communicated:

- Video is only appropriate when I have to sell/rent a very unique property.

- Video is only worthwhile for my most expensive listings (ROI).

- Video tours will never be affordable, and will therefore always remain a niche marketing tool.

- Homes are rarely “tidy” enough on production day for a video shoot to occur.

Stating video as a niche marketing tool (as all of these points do) in order to quickly resume the status quo is professional suicide. Why do I use such drastic terminology to describe video’s dismissal? One word: demographics. Justifying a professional shoot might be tough for listings that are less than $300,000, but not doing videos for homes worth less neglects the majority of the two generations that will expect video the most: Generation X, and Generation Y. Both of these generations (Gen Y is 60,000,000 members strong) expect transparency in your marketing, the truth about your product, and the use of the most up-to-date technologies. Most importantly, they expect you to match what is real (your listing) as closely as possible online.

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Can we agree that video offers the most real rendition of a place even if Steven Spielberg would not nominate your production for an Oscar? Does any other medium communicate “human scale” (livability, or how a place navigates from front to back) like video can? I am a mere Generation X member that would state my opinion as clearly as possible: if you waste my time, I’m not happy. If you sugar coat your listing(s), and I show up in person to find something unexpected, you are likely further from a sale than closer. Is transparency scary? Heck yeah it is! But the real question is, “can you ignore that transparency is the reality of the real estate space moving forward?”

Say a property is $150,000, and your buyer demographics suggest Gen X or especially Gen Y; is this Go Time for you and your trusty little Canon, or Sony video camera? Ask your kids what they think (heck…maybe get your kids to shoot your less expensive listings). They’ll likely match the desires of their generation better than you are able to

The agent of tomorrow cannot depend on being privy to information not readily available to anyone else. What real estate professionals can do-whether representing the buy or sell side-is be a masterful guide through the real estate experience and transaction. Video is very new (the fears of picking up yet another new game are heard loud and clear). We do empathize! But keep in mind that the levels of service that you require from a videographer are on a sliding scale. Yes, you will spend more money on videos for more expensive listings than for less expensive listings. WellcomeMat sees videos produced from $79 - $3000 per video where a videographer is hired to do the project. As volume gets easier to come by for honed business models (check out NH’s own Fred Light or Colorado’s Eric Manthey), these prices are dropping. Choosing photos over video or vice versa is a bad move. Denying that your buyers love video (even shaky or not-so-well-lit video) and ignoring demographics is an even worse move. Spend as much money as it takes to market your more expensive listings. For Gen X and Gen Y, your marketing better be as close to real as possible.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Posted by: Phil

I’m speaking about digital video at the MLS Tech Fair tomorrow (Weds, Oct 16th). If you’re in the area, do try to make it out.

Digital Video: What You Have to Know About YouTube
There is not a single tool in the real estate marketplace more powerful than online video. More than just a listing enhancement, video is the ‘everyone wins’ marketing tool promising the real estate professional more transactions and massive amounts of local attention. Join us for this panel and learn how to:

* Win more listings over competing brokers
* Make your listings stand out amongst pictures/text
* Have your videos show up in Google’s organic search results
* Use the web to your advantage

Looking forward to meeting up with you and a few others speakers at the event:

- Joe Ferrara, Sellsius
- Rudy Bacharty, Sellsius
- Dan Green, Bring the Blog
- Hal Kench, Welcome Home Video Tours

If you can’t make it, no worries we’ll try to post a video of the panel later next week.

Popularity: 7% [?]

posted by: Christian

Since the beginning of WellcomeMat’s time, we have been as honest and straight forward as possible with our members. Recently, we have been very forthcoming in regards to the fact that WellcomeMat will not always have “free” written all over it (our families eat food, drive cars, and like roofs over our heads too). We have many, many people that have their faith in us, and-since we began speaking about monetizing WellcomeMat-we have been getting tons of questions that all of you deserve answers to. Here’s all I know about how our system will work from a business standpoint.

Videographers:

WellcomeMat will serve as a broker between video producers and those needing their services, making a 7% commission on projects fulfilled through our system (10% less 2.9%, which is what our merchant account company charges us to collect payments). We need two team members on this thing at all times to insure that a) the thing works the way you want it to, and b) to insure that those doing solid work get good ratings. Ratings will trump every other ranking mechanism on our site: if you have a good rating (many projects fulfilled through WellcomeMat, and positive feedback from your customers), you will show up first within the directory, both nationally and locally. So, someone comes to the directory and is looking for the best video pro in their area, there you are, ranked and ready.

Posting videos on WellcomeMat will remain free. We are not going to charge anyone to post videos on WellcomeMat. If we ever do, it will be for some unforeseeable reason that we are not currently aware of.

Real Estate and Business Marketers

We want to provide the best home to people looking for the best place to market real estate, local businesses, neighborhoods and cities via video. This does not include us charging for people to post their content on our site. What we will charge for is content, that we are paying dearly to host/distribute, that leaves WellcomeMat.com. ie. if you post a video on WellcomeMat, we can monetize that content via ads. If you want to take that content with you to another site, and have that content ad free, WellcomeMat has to charge to help you do this. We intend to charge people marketing properties for the following, premium-level services:

-Automated distribution of videos from WellcomeMat to multiple video/real estate portals. This means you will be able to post your videos once on WellcomeMat, and distribute your videos to many of the places you would want your content to be…automatically!
-Phone/email support: one thing that just about everyone knows is that WellcomeMat takes support seriously. Technology is nothing without support (unless it works flawlessly which is never the case). So, in order to be able to pick up the phone and call us, or to have our team supporting you via email, we need to charge. We will have free FAQ pages for those do-it-yourselfers that want to solve their own puzzles.
-Syndication mechanisms (some people call them widgets): WellcomeMat will distribute our paying members content to other sites when they want, and will continuously provide the best means by which to apply your content on other websites, or blogs. Plan to see us provide many more widgets for our premium level members.

This is our plan in its entirety. We believe that we are charging people only when we are providing a large amount of value, and hope that you feel the same. If you are asking yourself, “why is WellcomeMat killing this whole love-fest free web for nothing party,” the answer is simple. The websites that are not charging you yet will either a) charge you later, or b) riddle their site and your video content with advertisements. Nothing is free, but most companies have the money to defer the reality of their business for a longer period of time. We do not. All we can do is be honest, help our members make as much money as possible by building/supporting the best marketing tools on the web, and-in general-keep it real.

Popularity: 8% [?]