Tag Archives: advertising

What They’re Saying About Real Estate Videos

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So, I starting reading one of those articles about “What Your Real Estate Agent Won’t Tell You” and I got less than a quarter of the way thru it when the author mentioned how a listing’s photos and videos can be misleading because of Photoshopping or creative editing. I wouldn’t deny that those things take place, but not in my experience.

First of all, real estate agents are notoriously…(how shall I put this)…frugal. Many of them take their own pictures, and some even make their own videos.
Secondly, the kind of photo manipulation or video editing really takes some time to master. Many agents are known to be…impatient.

Actually, real estate videos can be rather quick to produce. Most agents simply want a walk through to show prospective buyers the layout point of view. Any additional editing, whether in amateur software or on a professional level, is an expense of both time and money. It’s been my experience with real estate videos that if the home is attractively staged, a video will do a much better job of selling the property than photos. It’s real. You don’t need Hollywood effects or deceptive editing to make it work.

It’s nice to see some popular websites for real estate professionals that agree with me: Homes.com reports that successful agents understand social media. And they add, “Video is another great way to promote your business and your listings online. After posting virtual tours or walk-thrus of your listings, start adding videos that discuss real estate trends and give advice. The better the content, the more it will be passed on.”

And PropertyGuru.com takes it one step further: “Keep your videos alive. Online video content should never be considered a final product. If the property doesn’t sell immediately, change the video to encourage new buyers and give them a different interpretation”

I have also seen actual customer emails thanking agents for providing videos, rather than just photos, in their marketing efforts. Even in the relocation forum City Data, one poster implores agents to “spend a few hundred bucks on a well shot and presented video tour and sell a six or seven figure home.”

There is a myriad of ways to sell real estate, even in a down market. But the wise agents and brokers would do well to discover the advantages of video marketing.

–That’s a wrap.

21 Signs Your Company Is Ready To Put Videos On Your Website

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It took me about five minutes to come up with this list. I like the number 21. But there are a few dozen more I’ll save for another post. Ready?

21 SIGNS YOUR COMPANY IS READY TO PUT VIDEOS ON YOUR WEBSITE

1. Your “time spent on site” analytic is less than 60 seconds

2. Visitors do research on your site, then buy from a competitor

3. Visitors read the “About Us” page then leave

4. You sell a service which is performed in your customer’s home

5. You sell a service to customers which is performed in your home

6. You compete in an industry that has a less than stellar reputation

7. You keep trying to get on the first page of search engine results, but never make it.

8. Your company president asks, “What is You Tube?”

9. Your company president asks, “What is the internet?”

10. Your Unique Selling Proposition is better customer service

11. You have to show your customers how your product works

12.You have to show your customers the safety features of your product

13. You need to show why your product is built better than the other guy’s

14. There are questions you WISH your customers would ask

15. Your company is celebrating a milestone anniversary

16. You want your customers to meet your staff

17. You want to build brand loyalty

18. You want to show off your expertise

19. You want to be the “go to” person in your industry

20. You’re getting ready for a price increase

21. You’ve just started a new business

Do any of these sound like you or someone you know? Let’s talk about it. I’ll buy the coffee. Maybe I’ll even buy lunch.

That’s a wrap.

Give Your Website Visitors A Reason To Stay

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I’m sitting here looking at my latest stats from Google Analytics, and I found something very interesting: When a visitor comes to my site as the result of a Google organic search, they stay for almost SEVEN MINUTES! Even when I’m found through a Yahoo search, visitors hang around for just under four minutes.

There’s a video on almost every page of my site. Only two of them are about me or my work. The rest show my clients and how they are using video to enhance their brand, establish trust and credibility or take viewers on a behind the scenes look at their business.

Here’s another stat that’s hard to believe: one of my inbound links brings visitors who stay an average of NINE minutes.

If you buy advertising on radio or TV, you have only thirty seconds to present your message. And with both of those mediums, you’re competing with all the other stimuli that surrounds the user. Plus, it’s extremely costly.

Videos on your website are available 24/7. They’re one of the most cost effective strategies to get in front of a prospect and present yourself as an expert in your field.

If you know a small business with a website, invite them to take a look at their user statistics. Then, ask them to give me a call.

–That’s a wrap.

24 Things You Can Say In Your Next Video

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When small businesses begin to think about making a video to put on their website, they usually start writing things to say about the products or services they’re trying to sell. What else is this process called?
video subjects,
Commercials.

Since no one searches the web for commercials, there has to be another way to tell a small business’ story.

There is. And it’s the process that businesses and professionals are using to build their video library.

There are probably at least ten questions that every customer asks you.
There are ten more questions you WISH they would ask. That’s a total of twenty different videos so far. Are you following?

But in the title I said 24 things.

The other four videos are actual showcase pieces about your product or services. No, not commercials. That’s where we come in. We’ve been producing those kinds of messages, those UN-mercials since before there was an Internet. And we’re still having fun.

–That’s a wrap.

Bad Video ; Empty Promises

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I’ve probably blogged about this before, but everytime I see one of these sites, I just want to erect a barricade around it.  Crime Scene Tape if you will.

It’s those sites who tell you how important video is to your website (it is) and then proceed to tell you that they can put one together for you using stock photos and a voiceover. (they can, but it won’t do you any good)

To make matters worse, THEIR websites usually have the well-placed red text that screams “SIGN UP NOW!!” or “LIMITED TIME OFFER!!”  They do this for the same reason Cosmopolitan writes the kinds of headlines it does for its magazine: It’s An Impulse Item.

If you own a small business, since when is your marketing plan an impulse item?

Yes, you can find some very nice looking stock photos, then add text overlays and pretty music, and you have a nice BORING video.

Where does it connect with your customers, your prospects? Where does it engage that audience of people who are looking for exactly what you do?

There are companies that will promise you thousands of hits on your website if you will just buy their e-book or sign up for their monthly program.  Some of these same companies promise you thousands of Twitter followers if you will just pay them “x” number of dollars.

But listen to me: You don’t want thousands of hits to your website. The only ones you want are the ones that will BUY from you. Those are the ones who are already searching for you. They may know that they want the product that you sell, but maybe there are different features. Help them decide. Do THAT in a video that stars you.

Ask people to watch a video with only words spinning and scrolling, and to me, that’s tantamount to the web pages of old with their blinking text and spinning animated gifs.

And it doesn’t tell me who you are.

I want to buy from you. I want to do business with you. I want to feel like I already know you.  That’s what your prospects are saying.  How will you answer them?

A slide show doesn’t cut it.

–That’s a wrap.

6 Reasons Why You Need To Use Flash For Web Video, and 1 Reason Why You Don’t.

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If you’re putting video on your website, you want as many folks as possible to watch it, right?  No matter if your viewer is using Windows, or Apple, they should be able to watch it quickly and without hassle.

There are more than a handful of multimedia formats, and some players don’t play them all.

I’m a PC – always have been; always will be.  Here’s something I didn’t know – not all Windows systems have Windows Media Player pre-installed. On the other hand, not all Apple machines have Quicktime pre-installed.  Windows Media won’t play Quicktime files. Quicktime doesn’t like Windows. But there’s one format, and one player that works with both operating systems.

When it comes to putting videos on your website, Adobe Flash has a lot going for it.

  1. The small file size means it loads quickly
  2. You can pre-set the buffer size, so it starts playing immediately
  3. It embeds easily into webcode
  4. You can determine how you want the player to look.
  5. You can view it full screen if you want
  6. Mobile devices are using it.  (It’s true, Flash doesn’t play well with the Iphone.  That’s why you also need an MP4 version of all your videos.)

Your website visitors don’t want to have to wait while a video downloads. Give them the experience they want, and the information they need, and they will actually spend a longer time on your site.  My average viewer spends almost four minutes on each page.  And there are effective and affordable video players which will even generate the code for you.  All you do is plug and play!

Do it now.  The longer you wait the further behind the curve you will be.  Video is not a craze.  It will become as ubiquitous as text and images are on websites.

–That’s A Wrap.

Ad-ology Insights To Advertising

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What if you could put a blindfold on your competition? And what if you could then make yourself the hero in the eyes of their customers and prospects? Whatever you sell, be it product or service, what if everybody considered you the expert?

If you could put a blindfold on your competition, would that help or hurt your business?

Well, there’s a good chance that’s happening right now. In a recent advertising and media study by
Ad-ology, a Columbus Ohio company, they asked 1100 small business owners about social media marketing. By the way, small businesses in this case is defined as 100 employees or fewer. The study was done November, 2009.

31% of those small business owners say THEIR CUSTOMERS don’t use social networks! Let me know when you’ve picked yourself up off the floor…

Isn’t that amazing? When Facebook has enough users to qualify as the fifth largest country in the world, one in three small business owners think their customers ignore social media.

Here’s another of Ad-ology’s findings: 73% of those small businesses don’t use YouTube. Why not?

• They don’t have the equipment to shoot and edit video
• They don’t know what subject matter to present
• Some actually don’t know how YouTube works
• They think YouTube is only for cute cat videos

Whatever the reason, those are all things I can help with. Yeah, I even have a couple of cute cats, but that’s another blog.

YouTube is the number 2 search engine behind Google. There are product demos and how-tos galore. Do folks actually search for them? Well, yes, some of them do, however the best reason for putting an optimized video on YouTube is because it will show up on Google organic searches. And it’s 80% more likely to show up on the first page of results. Add some of the other video sharing sites to that, and it turns out putting Videos On Your Website is pretty good for business.

Know anyone not using video, and still wants to grow their business? I would love to sit down and have a cup of coffee with them.

–That’s a wrap.