Tag content strategy

13 Essential Real Estate Marketing Videos You Should Be Making

This article originally appeared in BHGRE’s Be Better blog on August 2017.

The real estate mantra used to be location, location, location. With the impact of social media, it should now be connection, connection, connection. Videos are an excellent way to expand your reach by engaging with those who are interested in either buying or selling.

ComScore recently reported that online videos increase consumer preference by up to 25 percent. With numbers like those, it is time to review 13 of the most popular types of video to expand your reach with every upload. 

1) Interview

Testimonials are essential to building your reputation online. Video is the wave of the future, and it is time to climb aboard! No need to panic when it comes to finding willing participants; past clients are a great resource. If they are happy with your work, they will most likely be open to filming a short testimonial video.

Don’t forget that your colleagues in the real estate industry can also polish your reputation. Ask clients and colleagues for a brief interview explaining your professionalism and results. Make sure to ask sensible questions, like how you personalize the real estate process,  that will result in usable sound bites.

 Include a brief introduction in the beginning so viewers can connect the testimonial with your face. This is not the time to skimp on quality – invest in your future by doing research and selecting professionals who can help you look your best with the right equipment. 

2)  Informational

What is common knowledge to you might be mind blowing to someone else. Become the expert by sharing valuable information with brief, educational videos. If you are not sure what to discuss, it might be best to start with FAQs and do a short video on each answer. 

Brevity is key here as you don’t want to overwhelm viewers. Harness the power of social media by becoming a shareable source of reliable information. Practice your script a few times before going on camera and take the time to figure out which background you will use when positioning yourself as an expert. 

3) Local business reviews

To potential clients, a new neighborhood can be intimidating.  Show viewers the inside scoop on a community by answering the questions you would want to know as a potential buyer. For example, where would you like to eat? Which restaurant is the best and worthy of some viral attention? These types of topics will work to your advantage as people’s loyalty to local eateries are almost as strong as their devotion to local sports teams. This will start a conversation that others will want to join, which might boost your views. 

Local business owners will appreciate the free attention and may give you perks such as the best table when bringing in clients. Other videos can include community features such as great parks or landmarks. 

4) Local culture

Similar to local business videos, local culture videos are a way to showcase the community within a neighborhood. Show off popular gathering spots and those that are charming, such as parks or wishing wells. Ask clients that have just moved into the neighborhood for testimonials.

Every community has at least one event that makes it unique. Parades, celebrations or even a charity garage sale shows neighbors enjoying something that brings them together. Make each neighborhood personable and welcoming with engaging videos. 

5) Livestreaming

People want to see homes in real time and livestreaming is on trend. The advantage here is that it allows you to communicate in real time and engage a broad audience. Virtual open houses can be seen by those who are considering a move to the area. Go with the standard Facebook Live and make sure to create an event page for the property a few days beforehand to emphasize the address and time. 

Repeat the ihouse details multiple times throughout the broadcast. Other livestreaming options include broadcasting a Q & A session. Viewers can engage with you in real time, allowing you to nurture  new client connections.  

6) Listing 

Each listing is unique and should be treated as such. Now, you have the opportunity to share a home’s value with the world. Listing videos are a way to customize how a home is presented to the world. By taking viewers on a private tour, you can engage them with your expertise and welcoming personality. The starting point is figuring out which features of the home are stand-outs. It could be a great pool, Brazilian cherry wood floors or stunning views. 

Pick features that are so amazing they just have to be shared. Center the video on these features and get creative with background music or descriptions. Make your virtual tours must-sees. 

7) Brokerage/office promo 

Bragging, in the case of office promotional videos, will work in your favor. Agents and brokers now have a chance to talk about what makes them special. You can start by discussing the successes you have found in your specialty. Show off any awards you have won and explain their meaning. 

Brokers can discuss culture and why it works in the client’s favor. Be sure to go beyond the clichés – instead, take viewers on a short tour of the office and introduce them around as you would if they were right in front of you. 

8) “About Me”/agent profile

The human connection is the most powerful force on the planet. Harness the desire to know and be known with a video that shows a more personal side. This will not detract from your positioning as an expert as it will make you more human – more likable – to viewers.

 Share personal information that viewers can relate to. You can share that you love dogs or that fishing trips with your parent were a touchstone in your formative years. Once you have made yourself human, start sharing your credentials and why you are passionate about helping others find their ideal home. Stories are also a great way to connect. 

Talk about selling your first home or something industry-related that you are proud of. Future clients will feel as if you are now an acquaintance rather than a stranger. 

9) “How-to” 

A video that demonstrates your expertise is a great educational resource. Share hacks or advice to navigate topics that are complicated for those outside the industry. Ask friends and family for topics, or research which ones are trending on social media. People want to know things like how to pick an agent or how to read an inspection report. SEO counts here, so make sure “how-to” is included in the title. 

Another consideration is whether to have DIY project how-to videos. These can be targeted to Millennials who see DIY projects as an investment in their homes (include stat). Ask local experts to contribute for utmost credibility. To get more shares, show a unique way to do a common project.

10) Housing market updates 

The housing market can be a mystery to clients. Some reports are optimistic while others predict doom. It can be confusing to a person who is unable to decode sets of circumstances on a local or national scale. Clients can be clueless about terms like “buyer’s market” and “seller’s market.”

Whatever it all means, they want to be on the right side of the equation and want a friendly insider – you – to tell them if now is a good time to buy or sell. Give clients and potential leads the inside scoop on trends and rules. By consistently posting videos on the housing market, your clients may start thinking of you as their personal expert, which will lead to  great references. 

11) Humorous

 Explore funny options such as parodies of songs, sketches, and tours with amusing narration. The lesson here is to be careful with jokes and banter. However, if you’re naturally funny, there is a need for humor in the industry. The trick here is not to play the fool. You cannot expect to be taken seriously if you are purposely intending not to be. Make sure viewers know that you are in on the joke.

12) Instagram 

Social media is as much a part of real estate marketing as direct mailing. The key is harnessing the power of platforms and knowing how to reach your audience with curated videos. Instagram takes advantage of the inherently visual nature of real estate.

Content can include listings and open houses. Try to engage followers by giving an inside peek at your life or something personal you would not mind going live for a full day. 

13) Year-in-Review 

Let people know what a good year you have had by putting together a year-in-review video. Highlight your successes over the past 12 months. Include snippets of listings, open houses and events you have sponsored. 

Want a marketing plan that works? Text me at 786-208-0451. 

Miami Copywriter Explains Brand Traffic

Miami Copywriter Explains Brand Traffic

Brand traffic is crucial to building a platform —and names matter. When choosing the name for your company, most likely, you had to go through a few options before you hit the mark. Hopefully, you also scanned the web beforehand to make sure there was not a similarly christened company offering something unappealing or just in general. 

People will use a brand continuously if it has a positive association attached to it. Think of some of the products that have significant meaning for you. Do you use a certain shampoo because it smells like the one you used at summer camp, or do you always buy specific grocery brands because your grandmother had them in her pantry? Perhaps you haven’t thought about why you buy certain things. Maybe the brand you chose was the cheapest on the shelf. Clients always buy for a reason. The goal is to have brand advocates. 

Blogs and Instagram presences are built around people who want to share their experiences. If you watch how the big companies spend their marketing dollars as a true judge of good practices, you will find that they invest heavily in the web and unofficial spokespeople. The Rambling Redhead is a popular mommy blogger who has a strong Instagram presence. The majority of her content centers on trying on clothing from specific companies. She is advertising under the guise of helping her niche by sharing promo codes and giving reviews that address her target audience’s pain points, such as looking put together in the drop-off line. 

In addition to a strong social media presence, ranking at or near the top of a search engine results page is an excellent brand-building strategy. When it comes to the long-term use of your marketing budget, there is no better place than search engines. One compelling reason for this is the permanent footprint of all work on websites, press releases and social media, especially ones created by this Miami copywriter who has a wealth of experience from multiple industries. Not only will that digital file be there for people to find, but over time it will gain trust with the search engines. 

Websites, like storefronts, are there as long as the business resides in that space. Just having a website without any digital marketing work done can still benefit your business. In a healthy campaign, half of all web traffic is brand traffic.  

Pages created on your site are indexed and stored on the servers of search engines forever.  Web crawlers will promote your pages if they follow Google’s Hummingbird guidelines set at the beginning of 2019.

Once you have clients, make strides in earning their brand loyalty. Part of marketing is cultivating new clients while retaining old ones. A lifelong customer speaks highly of the brand. Potential clients usually have a few impressions of you before considering a purchase. If they see positive reviews online, see your high ranking in search engines and follow your feeds, they may convert to buyers.

If you are in South Florida or beyond, trust this Miami copywriter to generate high-quality content and SEO copy that gets results. Call 786-208-0451 so we can create a strategy that is perfect for your business.

Miami Copywriter Explains Brand Value

Make Marketing and Brand Value Count with the Miami Copywriter

Deciding where your marketing dollars should go is a no-brainer in 2019. A few years ago, internet marketing was not considered as effective as radio and television. Things have changed. Podcast sponsorships compete with radio ads.  Television can be streamed from smartphones via subscriptions with options to skip ads. Social media remains largely free and cost-effective.

The best way to market your business is to sell yourself. Refraining from a social media presence and internet marketing is marketing suicide. A business should be posting at least once a day and engaging with followers. Your name is your brand. Have you ever googled your name? If you haven’t, try it now. You may come across a few unflattering pictures or mentions you were not even aware of. Some random people on LinkedIn may even claim to work for your company. You shape the perception of your brand through your presentation. If a business positively engages its client base and everyone can see it, they achieve a stellar reputation for service, resulting in brand value.

Business executive Seth Godin wrote, “A brand’s value is merely the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose the expectations, memories, stories and relationships of one brand over the alternatives.”

You do not want to be one of many when it comes to a client deciding which product to select. In most cases, a client will go with the most affordable option if they perceive every factor to be equal. Focus on differentiating yourself. One way to do this is by hiring this Miami copywriter to write your website content, social media captions and optimized blog articles.

Think of a restaurant that has been around for decades. What makes it valuable? Is it the ambiance, the chef, specific dishes or the location? Clients seek a business for the value it brings to their lives – simple supply and demand. In Miami, Chef Adrianne’s eponymous restaurant offers a delicious French onion soup only on Tuesdays. Many people – including a certain Miami copywriter – who never think of any type of soup may set an alarm to get a bowl before the restaurant runs out of its limited supply because of this increased demand. Customers may not have heard of the restaurant or soup without the power of internet marketing. 

A business must set a standard with its unique stamp. What’s yours? Consider what sets your business apart from your competitors. Lower price is a default value, which in the end may cost you because the cheapest option is not always seen as the best one, thus dropping demand.

Take a moment to consider what makes your business a rare find. Need a little help? Call Siren. We can brainstorm how to get your value across to clients with high-quality, optimized content. 

A Miami Copywriter Explains Anchor Text

Highlighting a page with anchor text is one way to attract attention with quality in-bound or outbound links. You can write an article that references another article on your website, or an outside source can highlight a link to your website from theirs. Start by figuring out the best SEO keywords and group them. For example, go big with ‘real estate agent’/’Realtor’ and break it down using a modifier, such as ‘Miami real estate agent’ or ‘Miami Realtor’. Go further with ‘Miami real estate agent Victorian houses’ or ‘Miami Realtor single-family home’. The key is to understand what your target audience would type into the Google search bar and use that as a foundation for your keywords.  Understanding anchor text is easier than you think.

Understanding link building strategies 

Links between different pages on your site matter. Anchor text is the clickable, usually blue text of a link inserted into an article. It is easy to find and is used to attract users and web crawlers. The actual text matters as a ranking element. The href attribute contains two components: the URL, which is the actual link, and the clickable text that appears on the page.  

Types of anchor text

Exact match – uses exact keywords such as ‘luxury homes’ or ‘affordable homes’

Partial match – uses a variation of the keywords, like ‘designer luxury homes’ or ‘affordable homes for sale’

Branded – only the brand acts as an anchor, for example ‘Siren Publications’ 

Image – linking an image, where the clickable hyperlink is the image itself

Naked URL – uses a straight URL, such as ‘sirenpublications.com’

Generic – uses a basic, unrelated phrase as the anchor, including ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ 

Strategy

 Back in the old days, a link that was supposed to be about luxury homes would take the user to a site about cheap shoes. When Google realized keywords were being used in an abusive way, the Penguin update was formulated, using anchor text to create additional context. The best way to go about anchor text is to use partial matches. Maximize anchor text opportunities by using concise and descriptive text. Format links so they are easy to spot and consider the best context for internal and external links. As of now, guest blogging is the best way to secure authenticity for your links without stuffing the hyperlink with keywords.

By understanding anchor text, Siren can ghostwrite your articles to build your credibility.