We have lagged quite a bit on finishing our Why You Should Not Use Video in Your Marketing Initiatives series, but rest assured…we are back! This series has been great fun to produce: we learned quite a bit from comments made and got to reflect on what is important to WellcomeMat’s business through discussions with those interested in the subject. Many thanks and much appreciation to everyone who contributed to the ongoing discussion!

Without further adieux, we announce the most common objection to the use of video in the real estate space…

“Video is Too Expensive!”

WellcomeMat has received countless emails, Neighborhood posts (we have always called our forum “The Neighborhood”), and phone calls from people talking about how video just might be too expensive. Video producers call and say that, while they have no trouble demonstrating the prowess of video, some agents just won’t spend the additional capital necessary to do video tours. Agents/brokers who are not yet using video sometimes express concerns about the cost of getting into this new game: their arguments are valid, and we can’t help but think of that old statement, “every time I get with the program, someone changes the channel.” In the real estate space, nothing could be more true! However, I have yet to meet an agent/broker who started using video that stopped. Not one.

“Video is too expensive” is a statement being made about the additional costs of producing video verses other mediums. But, is it possible to ascertain that the costs of not doing video far exceed the costs of producing, hosting and distributing videos? There are different points of view, depending on whether you are on the sell or buy side; but let’s just start with the listing side of things.

Do listing agents who do video well win more listings over their competition? Not a single doubt! Every time I talk to a video “newbie” about how their video helped them, the agent says something along the lines of, “I am definitely using my new video(s) in all upcoming listing presentations.” What people quickly realize is that video offers a wow factor that no other medium can, and home sellers get video right away. Like most of us, home sellers love online video, and not just because it’s new. Many times, they are still living in the home that they are trying to sell. So, when a video tour is produced (one that attempts to match a true, in person walk through) it means a great deal to them, and a great deal of time savings. Just like “window shoppers” are painful for buy-side agents, it is painful for homeowners to prepare their house for a worthless walk through.

Even after winning the listings, you still have to execute an outstanding marketing campaign; video offers you, the listing agent and homeowner, the single largest competitive advantage online. Here are two pieces of back up:

1) When you produce a video, and post that video to the major video portals, your chances of showing up on page one or two of a Google search within a week are very high. Just take a look at what Fred Light is saying about this. Your competition has worked bloody to get on page one, for years, and you can come in with a video and bump them down? Yes…definitely…without a doubt…it is happening every single day! Google Universal Search is a game changer for any real estate professional.

2) Inventories are amassing, prices are coming down, there are fewer buyers, and your competition’s working hard to move their listings. What are you, the real estate marketing star, doing to stand out? There are many answers to this question, but video is definitely one of them. When you send out a mass email, post an image of your video player into the email with the “click to play” being a link back to your video tour. Post the URL address where your video tour is in every single piece of marketing you do. It will work! Buyers are used to, potentially numb to, traditional real estate marketing, and-worse-traditional marketing is not getting buyers off of the sidelines.

If none of the aforementioned advantages justify the price of video, then we have irreconcilable differences. However, if we are on the same page regarding video, then we should move on to a discussion about the clearest winners when video tours used/created: the buy-side. It might be too much for a listing agent to simply do a video because of the time savings afforded to the buy-side. Understandable! But, video tours (the closest match to a real, live, physical walk through) save buy-side agents, and their clients, massive amounts of time and energy. Could we consider videos sportsmanlike…or even a “we are all in this together” attitude? Think about the day when every property has a video attached. Will this help you? Will showing properties to people that have already seen a well-done video tour help you to close more transactions? If having video as a part of mainstream real estate will save you (the buyer’s agent) time, how much time? What is your time worth?

We really enjoyed doing this series of posts! It was a blast. Our team’s belief in what we do is not just idealism. As we have shown, there is a real, justifiable business case behind using video. Those telling you how hard video is to do, and that you can’t do video well have a vested interest in you not using video. To buyers, sellers, and those with rentals, video makes complete and total sense. And, if our stance is to serve all of these parties to the best of our abilities, then video is a clear choice, and a winning proposition.

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